לֶ֫מֶךְ
Lamech
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Lamech’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H3929 appears in the Book of Genesis — 9 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Genesis
- Genesis 4:18 לָֽמֶךְ n Proper To Enoch was born Irad. Irad became the father of Mehujael. Mehujael became the father of Methushael. Methushael became the father of Lamech.
- Genesis 4:19 לֶ֖מֶךְ n Proper Lamech took two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.
- Genesis 4:23 לֶ֜מֶךְ לֶ֔מֶךְ n Proper n Proper Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice, You wives of Lamech, listen to my speech, For I have slain a man for wounding me, A young man for bruising me.
- Genesis 4:24 וְ/לֶ֖מֶךְ conj + n Proper If Cain will be avenged seven times, Truly Lamech seventy-seven times."
- Genesis 5:25 לָֽמֶךְ n Proper Methuselah lived one hundred eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech.
- Genesis 5:26 לֶ֔מֶךְ n Proper Methuselah lived after he became the father of Lamech seven hundred eighty-two years, and became the father of sons and daughters.
- Genesis 5:28 לֶ֕מֶךְ n Proper Lamech lived one hundred eighty-two years, and became the father of a son,
- Genesis 5:30 לֶ֗מֶךְ n Proper Lamech lived after he became the father of Noah five hundred ninety-five years, and became the father of sons and daughters.
- Genesis 5:31 לֶ֔מֶךְ n Proper All the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy-seven years, then he died.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
למך — transliterated Lemek — is a Hebrew name carrying the sense “Lamech.” More than three-quarters of its appearances fall in Genesis. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 10 verses — uncommon. It first appears in Genesis 4:18. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3929 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 10 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Genesis 9 verses 90%
- 1 Chronicles 1 verse 10%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 10 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 9 verses · 90%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 10%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Lamech 10×
- American Standard Version: Lamech 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: Lamech 11×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Lamech 11×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3929 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3929 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3929 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3929 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 2 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
- 1. son of מְתוּשָׁאֵל (Cainite) Gn 4:18, 19, 23(×2), 24 (all J). e.g. Genesis 4:18
- 2. son of מְתוּשֶׁלַח (Sethite) Gn 5:25, 26, 28, 30, 31 (all P), 1 Ch 1:3.—𝔊 Λαμεχ. e.g. Genesis 5:25
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
n.pr.m. (on orig. form cf. LagBN 77; conj. as to meaning BuUrgesch. 102, 129);—ל׳ Gn 4:19 + 7 times; לָ֑מֶךְ 4:18 + 2 times;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from an unused root of uncertain meaning
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms H3929 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| לֶ֔מֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 4:23 | 3 |
| לָֽמֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 4:18 | 3 |
| וְ/לֶ֖מֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 4:24 | 1 |
| לֶ֕מֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 5:28 | 1 |
| לֶ֖מֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 4:19 | 1 |
| לֶ֗מֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 5:30 | 1 |
| לֶ֜מֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 4:23 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3929, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Lamech). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
The strikerdown; the wild man. (1.) The fifth in descent from Cain. He was the first to violate the primeval ordinance of marriage (Gen. 4:18-24). His address to his two wives, Adah and Zillah (4:23, 24), is the only extant example of antediluvian poetry. It has been called "Lamech's sword-song." He was "rude and ruffianly," fearing neither God nor man. With him the curtain falls on the race of Cain. We know nothing of his descendants.
(2.) The seventh in descent from Seth, being the only son of Methuselah. Noah was the oldest of his several sons (Gen. 5:25-31; Luke 3:36).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(powerful), properly Lemech.
+ The fifth lineal descendant from Cain. (Genesis 4:18-24) He is the only one except Enoch, of the posterity of Cain, whose history is related with some detail. His two wives, Adah and Zillah, and his daughter Naamah, are, with Eve, the only antediluvian women whose names are mentioned by Moses. His three sons, Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-cain, are celebrated in Scripture as authors of useful inventions. The remarkable poem which Lamech uttered may perhaps be regarded as Lamech's son of exultation on the invention of the sword by his son Tubal-cain, in the possession of which he foresaw a great advantage to himself and his family over any enemies. + The father of Noah. (Genesis 5:29)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
poor; made low
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 10 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
