Lamech's Plea That He Did Not Kill Anyone Unjustly

Midrash Aggadah Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 4:23 View source

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 11, 2025

Lamech's cryptic boast in the Torah — "I have slain a man to my wounding" — becomes, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:23), a defense plea. "Hear my voice, wives of Lemek, hearken to my words: for I have not killed a man, that I should be slain for him; neither have I destroyed a young man, on whose account my children should perish."

The Targumist reverses the surface meaning. Lamech is not bragging about a killing. He is insisting he has not killed. He is pleading with his wives Ada and Zillah, who (in later midrash) had separated from him because they feared his lineage was cursed.

The domestic drama under the verse

Lamech is desperate. His wives have refused him intimacy because they know he descends from Cain and they fear any children will be wiped out along with the family line. Lamech protests that he himself has committed no murder — he is not Cain. He should not be punished for an ancestor's sin.

The Targumist has turned a violent poem into a quiet, painful family argument about guilt by inheritance. It is one of the Torah's earliest meditations on whether the children pay for the crimes of the fathers.

Themes

Marriage Divine justice Women of the Bible Parenting Ethics

Biblical References

Genesis 4:23

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