And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.
Noah - rest [from nuwach (H5118), to rest]. In the reason assigned for the bestowment of the name, therefore, it might have been expected that 'rest,' not 'comfort,' would have been expressed: and accordingly, the Septuagint has 'He shall give us rest;' so that the translators of that version must in their copy of the Hebrew Scriptures have read the Hiphil form of this verb; ours has a cognate word, which in the Piel signifies comfort, consolation. The import of the name, and the confident tone in which Lamech explained its signification, indicated something special in the destiny of this son. Though bestowed by his father, therefore, it must be considered as suggested by the Spirit, and therefore symbolical of the mission which Divine Providence designed Noah to execute:
This (son) shall comfort us From our work (labour) And the toll of our hands;
Because of the ground Which the Lord hath cursed.
These words have had various meanings put upon them. That they were an utterance of joy by a father on the birth of a son, which was hailed as an auspicious event, holding out to his family the prospect of future assistance in agricultural labours, and of having thereby the toil in the procuring of food diminished, is a low and commonplace view, altogether excluding the element of prophecy, and insufficient to account for their position in this record. On the other hand, the theory which takes them in the highest sense-considering Lamech, whose mind was full of the original promise, to have hailed his son as the expected Deliverer, who was to "bruise the serpent's head," and, by making an atonement for sin, release sinners from the penal consequences of the fall, temporal as well as spiritual-is a forced and obviously an ill-founded interpretation.
Since Lamech undoubtedly confided in the divine promise respecting deliverance from the curse of the earth, and foresaw that that deliverance would come through the agency of his son, he expressed his believing anticipations by the significant name given to him; and whether that name was bestowed at the birth of the boy, or in later days, when Noah, by his life of pre-eminent righteousness had shone a splendid exception in an age of universal apostasy and wickedness, Lamech seems to have regarded the tenth generation as the close of that era. In other words, the curse pronounced upon the ground in consequence of the sin of the first pair, had, through the awful prevalence of disorder and wickedness, increased to such a degree of severity as to have made the labour in mastering the stubborn resistance of a niggard or barren soil an almost insupportable burden; and a general expectation was cherished by the godly remnant that the righteous Ruler of the world would raise some distinguished personage, through whose instrumentality the rigour of the curse would be abated, and the earth restored to somewhat of its primitive productiveness.
Lamech was led by a divine communication to recognize this eminent benefactor in his son; and he published his faith in it by the significant name conferred on him. This view of the passage has been elaborately expounded by Dr. Sherlock ('Use and Intent of Prophecy'), and as confirmatory of it, it may be mentioned that when Noah, on the cessation of the deluge, offered his sacrifice (Genesis 8:2 l), the Lord smelled a sweet savour; literally, an odour of rest.
Moveover, the fact of his being the second father of the human race, in whose time a new dispensation was introduced-the grant of renewed dominion to man over the inferior animals, the enlistment of which in his service would diminish his labour, the allowance of animal food, and the promise regarding the permanent recurrence of seed-time and harvest, are accepted by this excellent writer as evidences that the earth has been to a great extent redeemed from the curse imposed on it at the fall, and is enjoying the continued influence of the blessing conferred upon Noah. Whatever objections may be urged against this exposition, it is substantially sound. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that Noah was only instrumentally employed in comforting mankind 'from their work and the toil of their hands, because of the ground which the Lord had cursed.'