efforts of the tuneful Jubal were made in giving the sweet voice of music to his father's harmonious numbers? The lines have been variously translated. We give them thus: 'Adah and Zillah, hear my voice! Wives of Lamech, receive my speech! And a young man to my hurt ; If Cain was avenged seven times, Then Lamech seventy times seven.' This is not very plain as to the meaning, but we can only imitate the admitted obscurity of the original. To what do these words refer? Almost every possible sense which they can by any translation or interpretation be construed to bear, has been assigned to them by different commentators. The Jewish tradition preserved in the Midrash is founded upon the mention of Cain, and upon the interpretation (which the best Jewish interpreters allow to be unfounded) that the promise to Cain was not that vengeance should be exacted sevenfold upon any one that slew him, but that vengeance should not be taken until the seventh generation, which generation Lamech, as being the seventh from Adam in the line of Cain, represented. The story runs that Lamech, being blind (to account for his not seeing 'the mark' upon Cain), slew his ancestor with a dart or arrow, under the direction of his son Tubal-Cain, who took the movements made by Cain lurking in the woods for those of some beast. But when the truth was seen, Lamech, in his horror at the deed, slew the son whose misdirection had brought this crime upon his soul. His son was thus 'the young man' to whom the verse refers. Now it is true that it was not promised to Cain that he should never be slain; but that if he were slain, sevenfold vengeance should be exacted for him. But for the rest, it is not likely that blind men went a hunting even before the Deluge; and the story has other improbabilities too obvious to need indication. No more need be said. Josephus did not receive this tradition, if it existed in his time. He gives a favourable turn to the whole matter, observ ing that Lamech, who saw as far as any man into the course and method of divine justice, felt great concern in the prospect of that judgment which he apprehended to hang over his family for the murder of Abel, and under the force of that apprehension spoke of the matter to his wives. It is on this hint that Shuckford, followed by others, appears to have founded his view of these verses. He thinks that the death of Abel had occasioned a complete alienation between the family of Seth and that of Cain; that the latter, although living apart, were kept in constant apprehension that a bloody vengeance would some day be exacted; but that Lamech, when he came to be the head of a people, sought to reason them out of their apprehensions by the argument contained in his words, which are understood to mean: If sevenfold vengeance were denounced upon the slayer of Cain, who murdered his own brother, there must surely be a far sorer punishment for those who may attempt to destroy any of us on the same account. The fault of this is, that it is too vague and hypothetical, and has not a sufficiently pointed application to the words of the text. It is an ingenious thought of some, that the wives of Lamech took alarm at the invention of more formidable weapons than had hitherto been seen by Tubal-Cain, and fancied that they might be some day employed against his life; but that he here comforts them by the assurance that, as he had never shed the blood of man, no one had an interest in destroying him. On the other hand, many have thought that Lamech had slain not only one, but two ('a man' and 'a young man'); and that, considering how Cain had enhanced his crime and punishment by obdurate concealment, he here openly avows his offence, and contritely confesses himself a greater sinner than Cain. Our own impression, coinciding with that of Lowth, is, that Lamech had slain in self-defence some man by whom he had been assaulted and wounded. His wives would apprehend the exaction of blood-revenge by the friends of the man who had been slain, on which he puts his justifiable homicide on the proper footing, by contrasting it with the murder committed by Cain, and urges that the difference of the offence rendered the danger of vengeance in his case but small. If the life of Cain were protected by the penalty of sevenfold vengeance, surely his by seventy times seven. Fourth Week-Fifth Day. JABAL AND JUBAL.-GENESIS IV. 20, 21. 6 ONE of the sons of Lamech by Adah was Jabal. He,' we are told, 'was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.' This is a very important fact. It shows that man had existed thirteen centuries upon the earth before the origin of the nomade life, to which a large proportion of mankind have since been addicted. There had been shepherds before, and sheep had before this been kept; but it was not until the time of Jabal that pasturage was organized into a distinct form of social existence. By him men were led to extend their care to larger animals than sheep; they were also taught to cast off the restraints which the habit of living in towns and villages imposed, and to betake themselves wholly to the pastures, dwelling in portable habitations, and removing from place to place for the convenience of pasturage. This is a mode of life frequently brought under our notice in the Scriptures, being essentially that of the patriarchs whose history occupies the greater portion of the book of Genesis. The circumstance, therefore, will come frequently under our notice, and will not need here any anticipatory description. Jabal had a brother named Jubal, and 'he was the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ.' Had, then, the world been for above a thousand years without music, till Jubal appeared? Perhaps not. Man could scarcely for so long a time have been without some efforts to produce musical sounds; and the birds could scarcely for so many ages have poured forth their melodious throats to him, without some attempts at imitation. But hitherto, probably, all their attempts had been vocal, until Jubal discovered that instruments might be con trived to give vent to musical sounds of greater compass and power. We may conceive that he had many anxious thoughts, many abortive trials, until perseverance conquered-as it always does-and he had brought his 'harp and organ' to perfection. The 'harp' was something of that sort which we call a lyre, and the form and character of which are better known to us from sculptures, paintings, and medals, as well as from poetical descriptions, than from actual knowledge, the instrument being virtually extinct. And let not 'the organ' of Jubal perplex us with large ideas of pipes, and keys, and bellows. It was nothing more than a simple 'mouth organ' -a bundle of reeds, a Pandean pipe, that is, such a pipe as the god Pan is seen to blow in ancient sculptures, and such as is often enough to this day witnessed in our street exhibitions. Jubal has been, of course, a favourite with the poets, who strive to render due honour to the great promoter, if not the originator, of the sister art. Du Bartas, to whom we always. refer with pleasure, very fancifully supposes that the idea of instruments for producing musical notes may have been suggested to Jubal by the regulated strokes of the hammer upon the anvil of his Vulcanian brother, and his companions: 'Thereon he harps, and ponders in his mind, And glad and fain some instrument would find In milder notes, and with a sweeter voice.' Accident, such as only occurs to the thoughtful and the observant, who know how to take the hints which nature offers to all but the slow of understanding, enabled the son of Lamech to realize his hopes: 'It chanced that, passing by a pond, he found Strikes on those strings, and lends attentive ear; The hills to dance, the heavens to retrograde, Nor does he stop here: 'This art, still waxing, sweetly marrieth His prancing fingers to his warbling breath : So a poet of our own day-whose very name is a word of honour James Montgomery, in his World before the Flood, renders due homage to Jubal, though he finds no place for Jabal or Tubal-Cain. There is a touching and beautiful conception with reference to him, which we should be reluctant to omit noticing: 'Jubal, the prince of Song (in youth unknown), He sings to his instrument of God, of man, and of creation. The song is given: then couched before him, like a lion watching for its prey, be beheld a strange apparition: 'An awful form, that through the gloom appear'd, Half brute, half human, whose terrific beard, And hoary flakes of long dishevell❜d hair, Like eagle's plumage ruffled by the air, Veil'd a sad wreck of grandeur and of grace.' Who was this? It was Cain, who had seven years since gone mad under the stings of conscience : 'Jubal knew His kindred looks, and tremblingly withdrew : He, darting like the blaze of sudden fire, Leap'd o'er the space between, and grasp'd the lyre : |