Genesis 5:28-29 “And Lamech lived an hundred and eighty and two years, and begat a son. 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.”
Lamech was a mere youth of 56 years when his grandfather Enoch was taken to heaven. One-hundred-twenty-six years later, Lamech finally had his first child, just five years short of matching his father Methuselah’s record for the oldest man to have a son. After all those years to think on the faith of his fathers, Lamech’s commentary on the naming of his own son rings less like paternal well-wishing and more like prophecy. Noah would have a special roll to play in the story of redemption. Did Lamech expect his son to be the promised redeemer? The name Noah means rest (nôach, H5146). Through Noah would come the comfort (nâcham, H5162) of rest from the hard labor that had become humanity’s lot because of the curse of sin and its effects on the earth. How? At first glance it seems as if Lamech was expecting physical rest alone. “Comfort […] concerning our work and toil” sounds like hope for the removal of the symptoms or consequences of sin, more than a removal of the cause of the curse itself.
A closer look at the word for comfort, however, reveals a deeper truth in Lamech’s explanation. Nâcham (pronounced naw-kam’) is a primitive root which also means “to sigh, that is, breathe strongly; by implication to be sorry, that is (in a favorable sense) to pity, console, or (reflexively) rue; or (unfavorably) to avenge (oneself); comfort (self), ease [one’s self], repent” (Strong’s dictionary in E-sword app). Thus the name Noah highlights the truth that comfort and rest in a sin-sick world can only come through the work and toil of repentance from sin. The true comfort of rest that God longs to give is the rest from guilt and sin itself through faith in the Redeemer and a deep sorrow and affliction of soul in turning away from our wickedness.
Something else pops out from these verses when we take a few steps back for a wider view. As the genealogies of Cain and Seth open with Eve’s reasons for the names she gave to each patriarch, (see Genesis 4:1 and 25), both genealogies draw near their close with speeches by two different Lamechs. Interestingly, the two Lamechs are the only fathers with words on record in these genealogies, and while their name is the same, they represent morally polar-opposites. Instead of highlighting the comfort and rest found in repentance from sin, the Lamech of Cain’s lineage boasts of his own sin of murder, and even presumes to claim God’s promise of vengeance as a natural right of protection for himself rather than a deserved judgment. Which brings us back to our word nâcham (H5162). The same Hebrew word makes its second and third appearance in Genesis 6 as God repents (nâcham) of having made man and determines to destroy him because of his great wickedness. Just as the genealogy of Cain comes to an abrupt end with the children of the first Lamech, so the genealogy of Seth faces its end in the days of Noah, the son of the second Lamech. Noah’s life and preaching as well as the meaning of his name highlight the need and opportunity for comfort and rest through repentance in the context of judgment, divine vengeance and retribution on a corrupt race sold-out to sin. The same is true today. God’s mercy still lingers for a generation so perverse and deceived that it believes divine pardon to be its inalienable right irrespective of repentance while simultaneously claiming His wrath and judgment upon anyone who dares to call them to accountability. There can be neither rest nor comfort on such terms. "But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked" (Isaiah 57:20-21).
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