3.1.3 Gen. 4, 17-24: The list of Cainites

The so-called Cainite list has a striking interest in the emergence of culture and reports the beginnings of cultural history between farming and nomadism. The descendants of Cain were good semi-sedentary and known as blacksmiths, tinkers and musicians. But the beginning of art is at the same time the beginning of another stronger differentiation and brutalization, as the Lamech song shows, that certainly belongs to the bedrock of Genesis. 

The Lamech principle (4, 23) with its brutal enforcement of the stronger shows the “spirit of a wild self-assertion” (vRad zSt.) in the history of the  accretion of sin. It is recaptured in the Torah very early in the Book of the Covenant by the Talion principle (Ex. 21, 24). 

Probably Jesus alludes directly to the Lamech song when asking about  forgiveness with the number seven. (Mt. 18,22)