4:23Genesis 4:23

The song is part of Genesis 4 as a whole, which records a departure from God's plain commands until transgression and sin filled the world and led God to destroy it.Lt 10, 1909, par. 4–9 It belongs to the account of the descendants of Cain, whose great wickedness was reproved by Enoch, who separated himself from them.ST Feb 20, 1879 The speaker is Lamech, the fifth in descent from Cain, addressing his two wives after adding the sin of polygamy to the sin of murder begun by Cain, and his speech to them is boastful defiance about having killed, acknowledging God only to turn God's avenging of Cain into an assurance of his own safety as a killer.PP 81.1

His boast of killing is the fruit of Cain's influence and example, for Cain merited death yet was spared to give opportunity for repentance, but he hardened his heart, encouraged rebellion against divine authority, and became the head of a line of bold, abandoned sinners who tempted others and spread demoralizing power until the earth became corrupt and filled with violence that called for its destruction.PP 78.1–2 His defiance illustrates what would result from permitting the sinner to live on forever in rebellion against God, a lesson for the whole universe bearing on the great controversy.PP 78.1–2 God's forbearance only made the wicked more bold and defiant, and fifteen centuries after the sentence on Cain the crime and pollution that flooded the earth witnessed its fruition.PP 78.1–2 The history shows that the sentence of death on the fallen race for transgression of God's law was both just and merciful, for the longer men lived in sin the more abandoned they became, so cutting short a career of unbridled iniquity and freeing the world from hardened rebels is a blessing rather than a curse.PP 78.1–2