These verses are the vengeance song of a boaster. The lines are composed in poetic form. Although it is important for translators to recognize the devices used in Hebrew poetry such as parallelism and intensification, it does not automatically follow that these features will be used in other languages, or even that a boasting song such as this will be rendered in poetic form. Following the introduction, Lamech said to his wives (which is not part of the poem), the song contains more or less balanced beats and parallelism of lines. The nature of Lamech’s boast is that he, in contrast with Cain, will take much harsher revenge on anyone who even wounds or strikes him. He thus carries vengeance to a new and more violent level.

In the first two lines the literal “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice” is paralleled in stresses, syntax and sense by “wives of Lamech give ear to my words.” In the second pair of lines, “for a man I have killed because of my wound” is paralleled again by “and a child because of my hurt.” However, here there is no verb phrase in the second line, and the verb in the first line has to serve also to give the meaning for the second line. The contrast between “man” and “child” will be explained below.

Hear my voice: a summons to listen also occurs in prophecy in Isa 32.9, and in a wisdom saying in Isa 28.23.

You wives of Lamech: in many languages it is not natural for a person to speak of himself in the third person, as is done here. More natural is “You wives of mine” or “My wives.”

In the final pair of lines in Hebrew, the numbers are placed at opposite ends of the lines so as to form a chiasmus or structure in which the elements of meaning come in the order a-b-a′ or a-b-b′-a′. Here “a” represents the first number (sevenfold) and “a′” stands for the second number (seventy-seven). “b” and “b′” stand for the persons who are avenged.

Sevenfold is avenged Cain
but Lamech seventy-seven

As in the second pair, there is no verb in the second line, the verb in the first line serving for both lines and thus fusing the two lines into a closer unit.

Traditionally scholars have called these three sets of lines “synonymous parallelism,” because in each case the second line more or less repeats what the first line says. However, what is important in this set of three double lines is that the second line always goes beyond the first line by adding something to it and so raising the intensity of the first line. For example, the verb in the first line is the common word for “hear” or “listen,” but the verb in the second line is a more literary word meaning “give ear,” which is used mainly in poetic texts. The result in this case is that hear is raised to a new level, a more heightened or more elaborate form.

In the second pair of lines Revised Standard Version translates I have slain. Kugel, however, argues that the forms of the verb “to kill” are conditionals and should be translated “I would kill a man for my wounding, in fact a boy for a bruise.” That is to say, no one has attacked Lamech yet, and so no one has been killed by Lamech. The poem states what will happen to anyone who attacks Lamech. The word yeled, which means “child” but also refers to a newborn baby, is matched with man in the first line. The verb in the first line means “to wound” and that in the second is “to bruise,” something less hurtful than wounding. The net effect is a contrast in which Lamech brags that he would kill a man for merely wounding him, but in the second line he goes even further in his outrageous vengeance: he would even kill a baby for causing him a little bruise.

For comments on sevenfold see verse 15. The numerical intensification is seen in the increase from seven times in the first line to seventy-seven times in the second. Good News Translation makes clear what is not stated directly in verse 24, namely, that revenge will be taken on the one who murders Lamech. The final picture given is that Lamech is far more protected than Cain.

As in verse 15, some translations recognize that the numbers seven and seventy-seven are figurative and express the sense of ever-increasing vengeance in more direct terms: “If someone kills Cain, then he will be paid back severely; but if anyone strikes [or, kills] me, he will be paid back more severely still.” In some languages there are verbal expressions for doing an action a certain number of times, and such expressions may be used idiomatically in this context; for example, one translation has “If they make-seven-times the revenge for Cain, truly they will make-seventy-seven-times the revenge for Lamech.”

The purpose of this explanation is to say that the translator should be aware of the main features of Hebrew poetry in order to translate it so that the heightening effect may also come through in the poetry in his own language, if there are ways in which such intensification can be expressed.

An attempt to make obvious the intensification in the second line of each pair of lines is given in the following English renderings of Lamech’s song of vengeance:

Adah and Zillah, listen to me.
Pay attention to what I tell you, wives.
I would kill a man because he wounded me.
[or, If anyone wounds me, I will kill him.]
I would even destroy a child for bruising me.
[or, I will even kill a child if he bruises me.]
So if killing Cain costs seven lives,
kill me and it will cost you seventy-seven.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .