What Does Genesis 5:29 Mean?

(29) **He called his name Noah.**—This is the first recorded instance, since the days of Eve, of a child being named at his birth, and in both cases the name ended in disappointment. Noah brought no rest, but in his days came the flood to punish human sin. We have already noticed that this longing of Lamech for comfort is in strong contrast with the arrogance of his namesake of the race of Cain. (Comp. Genesis 4:18.) **This same shall comfort us . . . of our hands.**—These words form a couplet in the Hebrew, and rhyme like the Arabic couplets in the Koran. **The ground (adâmâh)** **which the Lord hath cursed.**—It is usual to style this section Elohistic, because it so evidently takes up the narrative at Genesis 2:3. Yet, first, the writer distinctly refers to Genesis 3:17, where it is Jehovah-Elohim who curses the ground; and next he uses the name Jehovah as equivalent to God, according to what we are told in Genesis 4:26. Here, then, as in several other places, the idea that Genesis can be arranged in two portions, distinguished as Elohistic or Jehovistic, according to the name of God employed in them, entirely breaks down. It is remarkable, also, that the word for “toil” in Lantech’s distich is the same as that rendered *sorrow *in Genesis 3:16-17, and that it occurs only in these three places.