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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Genesis 4:22 - 4:22
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Tubal-cain - The first smith on record, who taught how to make warlike instruments and domestic utensils out of brass and iron.
Agricultural instruments must have been in use long before, for Cain was a tiller of the ground, and so was Adam, and they could not have cultivated the ground without spades, hooks, etc. Some of these arts were useless to man while innocent and upright, but after his fall they became necessary. Thus is the saying verified: God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. As the power to get wealth is from God, so also is the invention of useful arts.
M. De Lavaur, in his Conference de la Fable avec l’Histoire Sainte, supposes that the Greeks and Romans took their smith-god Vulcan from Tubal-cain, the son of Lamech. The probability of this will appear,
1. From the name, which, by the omission of the Tu and turning the b into v, a change frequently made among the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, makes Vulcain or Vulcan.
2. From his occupation he was an artificer, a master smith in brass and iron.
3. He thinks this farther probable from the names and sounds in this verse. The melting metals in the fire, and hammering them, bears a near resemblance to the hissing sound of צלה tsillah, the mother of Tubal-cain; and צלל tsalal signifies to tinkle or make a sound like a bell, 1Sa 3:11 2Ki 21:12.
4. Vulcan is said to have been lame; M. De Lavaur thinks that this notion was taken from the noun צלא tsela, which signifies a halting or lameness.
5. Vulcan had to wife Venus, the goddess of beauty; Naamah, the sister of Tubal-cain, he thinks, may have given rise to this part of the fable, as her name in Hebrew signifies beautiful or gracious.
6. Vulcan is reported to have been jealous of his wife, and to have forged nets in which he took Mars and her, and exposed them to the view of the whole celestial court: this idea he thinks was derived from the literal import of the name Tubal-cain; תבל tebel signifies an incestuous mixture of relatives, Lev 20:12; and קנא kana, to burn with jealousy; from these and concomitant circumstances the case of the detected adultery of Mars and Venus might be easily deduced. He is of opinion that a tradition of this kind might have readily found its way from the Egyptians to the Greeks, as the former had frequent intercourse with the Hebrews.
Of Naamah nothing more is spoken in the Scriptures; but the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel makes her the inventress of funeral songs and lamentations. R. S. Jarchi says she was the wife of Noah, and quotes Bereshith Rabba in support of the opinion. Some of the Jewish doctors say her name is recorded in Scripture because she was an upright and chaste woman; but others affirm that the whole world wandered after her, and that of her evil spirits were born into the world. This latter opinion gives some countenance to that of M. De Lavaur.