This is extreme revenge in a haughty boasting song. For a very special reason, God put a one-time mark (see Genesis 4:15) on Cain. Lamech, in boundless pride, usurps the right to avenge himself eleven times more severely than God bestowed (as protection) on Cain. Lamech will do it grander than God and will fall into the cruellest urge of revenge. This kind of revenge destroys every form of society. The law of the fittest will lead and open the door to endless retaliation where each person becomes the persecutor of the other. If you start killing and murdering for strikes and wounds, the flow of blood feuds can no longer be channeled and there will never be an end to murder, manslaughter, terror, hatred, and war. We see it in practice even in the twenty-first century. Whoever thinks within these frameworks perpetuates wars, quarrels, and violence indefinitely.
Horrifying. A greater contrast than what God seeks (love for the neighbour) is not conceivable. Until the very end of the Bible, there are warnings about the attitude of Cain (1 John 3:11–12). Only forgiveness breaks the vicious circle of hatred and violence. Christ urges us to do so again and again (even up to seventy times seven, Matthew 18:22, a multiplication of fullness that towers in number and intent above Lamech’s seventy-seven times).
23 Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.