This genealogy, unlike that of Priestly-Code in chapter 5, is not a mere list of names, but is compiled with the view of showing the origin of the principal arts and institutions of civilised life.¹ These are: Husbandry (verse ²; see above), city-life (¹⁷), [polygamy (¹⁹) ?], pastoral nomadism, music and metal-working (20–22). The Song of Lamech (23 f.) may signalise an appalling development of the spirit of blood-revenge, which could hardly be considered an advance in culture; but the connexion of these verses with the genealogy is doubtful.—It has commonly been held that the passage involves a pessimistic estimate of human civilisation, as a record of progressive degeneracy and increasing alienation from God. That is probably true of the compiler who placed the section after the account of the Fall, and incorporated the Song of Lamech, which could hardly fail to strike the Hebrew mind as an exhibition of human depravity. In itself, however, the genealogy contains no moral judgment on the facts recorded. The names have no sinister significance; polygamy (though a declension from the ideal of 2²⁴) is not generally condemned in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 21¹⁵); and even the song of Lamech (which is older than the genealogy) implies no condemnation of the reckless and bloodthirsty valour which it celebrates.—The institutions enumerated are clearly those existing in the writer’s own day; hence the passage does not contemplate a rupture of the continuity of development by a cataclysm like the Flood. That the representation involves a series of anachronisms, and is not historical, requires no proof (see Driver The Book of Genesis with Introduction and Notes 68).—On the relation of the section to other parts of the chapter, see page 98 above: on some further critical questions, see the concluding Note (page 122 ff.).
17. Enoch and the building of the first city.—The question where Cain got his wife is duly answered in Jubilees iv. 1, 9: she was his sister, and her name was ‛Âwân. For other traditions, see Marmorstein, ‘Die Namen der Schwestern Kains und Abels,’ etc., Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, xxv. 141 ff.—and he became a city-builder] So the clause is rightly rendered by Delitzsch, Budde, Holzinger, Gunkel, al. (compare 2120b, Judges 16²¹, 2 Kings 15⁵). The idea that he happened to be engaged in the building of a city when his son was born would probably have been expressed otherwise, and is itself a little unnatural.
That קַיִן is the subject of וַיְהִי only appears from the phrase כְּשֵׁם בְּנוֹ towards the end. Budde (120 ff.) conjectures that the original text was כִּשְׁמוֹ, making Enoch himself the builder of the city called after him (so Holzinger). The emendation is plausible: it avoids the ascription to Cain of two steps in civilisation—agriculture and city-building; and it satisfies a natural expectation that after the mention of Enoch we should hear what he became, not what his father became after his birth,—especially when the subject of the immediately preceding verbs is Cain’s wife. But the difficulty of accounting for the present text is a serious objection, the motive suggested by Budde (123) being far-fetched and improbable.—The incongruity between this notice and verses 11–16 has already been mentioned (page 100). Lenormant’s examples of the mythical connexion of city-building with fratricide (Les Origines de l’histoire², i. 141 ff.) are not to the point; the difficulty is not that the first city was founded by a murderer, but by a nomad. More relevant would be the instances of cities originating in hordes of outlaws, collected by Frazer, as parallels to the peopling of Rome (Fort. Rev. 1899, April, 650–4). But the anomaly is wholly due to composition of sources: the Cain of the genealogy was neither a nomad nor a fratricide. It has been proposed (Holzinger, Gunkel) to remove 17b as an addition to the genealogy, on the ground that no intelligent writer would put city-building before cattle-rearing; but the Phœnician tradition is full of such anachronisms, and shows how little they influenced the reasoning of ancient genealogists.—The name חֲנוֹךְ occurs (besides 518 ff., 1 Chronicles 1³) as that of a Midianite tribe in 25⁴ (1 Chronicles 1³³), and of a Reubenite clan in 46⁹ (Exodus 6¹⁴, Numbers 26⁵, 1 Chronicles 5³). It is also said that חנך is a Sabæan tribal name (Gesenius-Buhl¹² s.v.),¹ which has some importance in view of the fact that קֵינָן (59 ff.) is the name of a Sabæan deity. As the name of a city, the word would suggest to the Hebrew mind the thought of ‘initiation’ (v.i.). The city חנוך cannot be identified. The older conjectures are given by Dillmann (page 99); Sayce (Zeitschrift für Keilschriftsforschung, ii. 404; Hibbert Lectures, 185) and Cheyne (Encyclopædia Biblica, 624; but see now Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, 106) connect it with Unuk, the ideographic name of the ancient Babylonian city of Erech.
17. On וידע, see on verse ¹.—The verb חָנַךְ appears from Arabic ḥanaka to be a denominative from ḥanak (Hebrew חֵךְ), and means to rub the palate of a new-born child with chewed dates: hence tropically ‘to initiate’ (Lane, s.v.; Wellhausen Reste arabischen Heidentums 173). In Hebrew it means to ‘dedicate’ or ‘inaugurate’ a house, etc. (Deuteronomy 20⁵, 1 Kings 8⁶³: compare חֲנֻכָּה, Numbers 7¹¹, Nehemiah 12²⁷ etc.); and also to ‘teach’ (Proverbs 22⁶). See, further, on 5¹⁸.
18. The next four generations are a blank so far as any advance in civilisation is concerned. The only question of general interest is the relation of the names to those of chapter 5.
On the first three names, see especially Lagarde, Orientalia, ii. 33–38; Budde Die biblische Urgeschichte 123–9.—עִירָד] LXX Γαιδαδ (= עֵידָד), Peshiṭtå עִידָר (the latter supported by Philo), corresponds to יֶרֶד in 515 ff.. The initial guttural, and the want of a Hebrew etymology, would seem to indicate עירד as the older form which has been Hebraized in ירד; but the conclusion is not certain. If the root be connected with Arabic ‛arada (which is doubtful in view of LXX’s Γ), the idea might be either ‘fugitive’ (Dillmann al.), or ‘strength, hardness, courage’ (Budde). Sayce (Zeitschrift für Keilschriftsforschung, ii. 404) suggests an identification with the Chaldean city Eridu; Holzinger with עֲרָד in the Negeb (Judges 1¹⁶ etc.).—The next two names are probably (but not certainly: see Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, 164 f.) compounds with אֵל. The first is given by Massoretic Text in two forms, מְחוּיָאֵל and מְחִיָּ[י]אֵל. The variants of LXX are reducible to three types, Μαιηλ (מחייאל), Μαουιηλ (מחויאל), Μαλελεηλ (= מהללאל, 513 ff.). Lagarde considers the last original, though the first is the best attested. Adopting this form, we may (with Budde) point the Hebrew מַחְיִי אֵל or מְחַיִּי אֵל = ‘God makes me live’: so virtually Philo ἀπὸ ζωῆς θεοῦ, and Jerome ex vita Deus (cited by Lagarde). Both Massoretic forms undoubtedly imply a bad sense: ‘destroyed (or smitten) of God’ (though the form is absolutely un-Hebraic, see Driver Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel 14).—מְתוּשָׁאֵל is now commonly explained by Assyrian mutu-ša-ili, ‘Man of God,’¹ though the relative ša presents a difficulty (Gray, l.c.). The true LXX reading is Μαθουσαλα (= מְתוּשֶׁלַח, 521 ff.); Μαθουσαηλ occurs as a correction in some MSS—לֶמֶךְ] again inexplicable from Hebrew or even Arabic. Sayce (Hibbert Lectures 186) and Hommel connect it with Lamga, a Babylonian name of the moon-god, naturalised in South Arabia.²
18. On accusative אֵת with passive see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 116 a, b.—יָלַד in the sense of ‘beget’ is a sure mark of the style of Yahwist (see Holzinger Einleitung in den Hexateuch 99).—מְתוּ] archaic nominative case (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 90 o) of an old Semitic word (also Egyptian according to Erman) מֵת = ‘man’ (male, husband, etc.): compare Gesenius-Buhl s.v.
19. The two wives of Lamech.—No judgment is passed on Lamech’s bigamy, and probably none was intended. The notice may be due simply to the fact that the names of the wives happened to be preserved in the song afterwards quoted.
Of the two female names by far the most attractive explanation is that of Ewald (Jahrbücher der biblischen Wissenschaft, vi. 17), that עָדָה means Dawn (Arabic ġadin, but LXX has Ἀδα), and צִלָּה (feminie of צֵל) Shadow,—a relic of some nature-myth (compare Lenormant Les Origines de l’histoire² 183 f.). Others (Holzinger) take them as actual proper names of inferior stocks incorporated in the tribe Lamech; pointing out that עדה recurs in 362 ff. as a Canaanite clan amalgamated with Esau. This ethnographic theory, however, has very little foothold in the passage. For other explanations, see Dillmann page 100.
20–22. The sons of Lamech and their occupations.—At this point the genealogy breaks up into three branches, introducing (as Ewald thinks) a second age of the world. But since it is nowhere continued, all we can say is that the three sons represent three permanent social divisions, and (we must suppose) three modes of life that had some special interest for the authors of the genealogy. On the significance of this division, see at the close.—20. Yābāl, son of ‛Adah, became the father (i.e. originator: TargumOnkelos רַב) of tent- and cattle-dwellers (v.i.); i.e. of nomadic shepherds. מִקְנֶה, however, is a wider term than צאן (verse ²), including all kinds of cattle, and even camels and asses (Exodus 9³). The whole Bedouin life is thus assigned to Jabal as its progenitor.—21. Yûbāl, also a son of ‛Adah, is the father of all who handle lyre and pipe; the oldest and simplest musical instruments. These two occupations, representing the bright side of human existence, have ‛Adah (the Dawn?) as their mother; recalling the classical association of shepherds with music (see Lenormant i. 207).—22. Equally suggestive is the combination of Tûbal-ḳáyin, the smith, and Na‛ămāh (‘pleasant’), as children of the dark Ẓillah; compare the union of Hephæstos and Aphrodite in Greek mythology (Dillmann al.).—The opening words of aβ are corrupt. We should expect: he became the father of every artificer in brass and iron (see footnote). The persistent idea that Tubal-cain was the inventor of weapons, Bereshith Rabba, Rashi, and most, which has led to a questionable interpretation of the Song, has no foundation. He is simply the metal-worker, an occupation regarded by primitive peoples as a species of black-art,¹ and by Semitic nomads held in contempt.
On the names in these verses see the interesting discussion of Lenormant Les Origines de l’histoire² i. 192 ff.—The alliterations, Yābāl—Yûbāl—Tûbal, are a feature of legendary genealogies: compare Arabic Habîl and Ḳabîl, Shiddîd and Shaddâd, Mâlik and Milkân, etc. (Lenormant. 192). יבל (LXX Ἰωβελ -ηλ) and יובל (Ἰουβαλ) both suggest יֹבֵל (Hebrew and Phœnician), which means primarily ‘ram,’ then ‘ram’s horn’ as a musical instrument (Exodus 19¹³), and finally ‘joyous music’ (in the designation of the year of Jubilee). On a supposed connexion of יבל with הֶבֶל in the sense of ‘herdsman,’ see above, page 103.—תּוּבַל is a Japhetic people famous in antiquity for metal-working (see on 10²); and it is generally held that their heros eponymus supplies the name of the founder of metallurgy here; but the equation is doubtful. A still more precarious combination with a word for smith (tumā́l, dubalanza, etc.) in Somali and other East African dialects, has been propounded by Merker (Die Masai, 306). The compound תובל קין (written in Oriental MSS as one word) may mean either ‘Tubal [the] smith’ (in which case קין [we should expect הקין] is probably a gloss), or ‘Tubal of (the family of) Cain.’¹ LXX has simply Θοβελ; but see the footnote. Tuch and others adduce the analogy of the Τελχῖνες, the first workers in iron and brass, and the makers of Saturn’s scythe (Strabo, XIV. ii. 7); and the pair of brothers who, in the Phœnician legend, were σιδήρου εὑρεταὶ καὶ τῆς τούτου ἐργασίας.—נַֽעֲמָה (LXX Νοεμα) seems to have been a mythological personage of some importance. A goddess of that name is known to have been worshipped by the Phœnicians.² In Jewish tradition she figures as the wife of Noah (Bereshith Rabba), as a demon, and also as a sort of St. Cecilia, a patroness of vocal music (TargumJonathan: compare Lagarde Onomastica Sacra, 180, 56: Νοεμὶν ψάλλουσα φωνῇ οὐκ ἐν ὀργάνῳ [Nestle, Marginalien und Materialien, 10]).
20. ישֵׁב אֹהֶל וּמִקְנֶה] LXX οἰκούντων ἐν σκηναῖς κτηνοτρόφων, perhaps reading אהלי מקנה as in 2 Chronicles 14¹⁵ (so Ball). Vulgate (atque pastorum) takes מַקְנֶה as a participle; Peshiṭtå inserts (‡ Syriac word), and TargumOnkelos ומרי, before ‘cattle’; similarly Kuenen proposed וקנה מקנה. The zeugma is somewhat hard, but is retained by most commentaries for the sake of conformity with verse 21 f.; Gesenius-Kautzsch § 117 bb, 118 g.—21. וְשֵׁם אָחִיו] compare 10²⁵ (Yahwist) (1 Chronicles 7¹⁶).—אבי וגו׳] LXX καταδείξας ψαλτήριον καὶ κιθάραν.—כִּנּוֹר וְעוּגָב] Vulgate cithara et organo; Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word); TargumOnkelos כנורא ואבובא (∥ נבלא). See Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie², 237–246; Wellhausen Psalms (Polychrome Bible), 219 f., 222 f.; Riehm, Handwörterbuch des biblischen Altertums 1043 ff. The כנור is certainly a stringed instrument, played with the hand (1 Samuel 16²³ etc.), probably the lyre (Greek κινύρα). The עוגב (associated with the כנור in Job 21¹² 30³¹: elsewhere only Psalms 150⁴) is some kind of wind instrument (Vulgate, TargumOnkelos),—a flute or reed-pipe, perhaps the Pan’s pipe (σύριγξ).—22. גם הוא] in genealogies (as here, 4²⁶ 10²¹ 19³⁸ 2220. 24 [Judges 8³¹]) is characteristic of Yahwist.—תובל קין] LXX Θοβελ· καὶ ἦν. Other versions have the compound name, and on the whole it is probable that καὶ ἦν is a corruption of Καιν, although the next clause has Θοβελ alone.—לֹטֵשׁ וגו׳] LXX καὶ ἦν σφυροκόπος, χαλκεὺς χαλκοῦ καὶ σιδήρου, Vulgate qui fuit malleator et faber in cuncta opera aer. et f; Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word); TargumOnkelos רבהון דכל ידעי עיבידת נ׳ וב׳. To get any kind of sense from Massoretic Text, it is necessary either (a) to take לֹטֵשּׁ (‘sharpener’ or ‘hammerer’) in the sense of ‘instructor’; or (b) take חֹרֵשׁ as neuter (‘a hammerer of every cutting implement of,’ etc.); or (c) adopt the quaint construction (mentioned by Budde 138): ‘a hammerer of all (sorts of things),—a (successful) artificer in bronze,’ etc.! All these are unsatisfactory; and neither the omission of כל with LXX (Dillmann), nor the insertion of אבי before it yields a tolerable text. Budde’s emendation (139 ff.) ויהי למך חֹרֵשׁ וגו׳ [for קין] is much too drastic, and stands or falls with his utterly improbable theory that Lamech and not Tubal-cain was originally designated as the inventor of weapons. The error must lie in the words קין לטש, for which we should expect, הוא היה אבי (Olshausen, Ball). The difficulty is to account for the present text: it is easy to say that לטש and קין are glosses, but there is nothing in the verse to require a gloss, and neither of these words would naturally have been used by a Hebrew writer for that purpose.—בַּֽרְזָל] The Semitic words for ‘iron’ (Assyrian parzillu, Aramaic פַּרְזָל (‡ Syriac word), Arabic farzil) have no Semitic etymology, and are probably borrowed from a foreign tongue. On the antiquity of iron in West Asia, see Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece i. 616 ff.
23, 24. The song of Lamech.—A complete poem in three distichs, breathing the fierce implacable spirit of revenge that forms the chief part of the Bedouin’s code of honour. It is almost universally assumed (since Herder) that it commemorates the invention of weapons by Tubal-cain, and is accordingly spoken of as Lamech’s ‘Sword Song.’ But the contents of the song furnish no hint of such an occasion (Wellhausen); and the position in which it stands makes its connexion with the genealogy dubious. On that point see, further, below. It is necessary to study it independently, as a part of the ancient legend of Lamech which may have supplied some of the material that has been worked into the genealogy.—The verses may be rendered:
²³Adah and Zillah, hear my voice!
Wives of Lamech, attend to my word!
For I kill a man for a wound to me,
And a boy for a scar.
²⁴For Cain takes vengeance seven times,
But Lamech seventy times and seven!
23a. Holzinger raises the question whether the words ‘Adah and Zillah’ belong to the song or the prose introduction; and decides (with Vulgate) for the latter view, on the ground that in the remaining verses the second member is shorter than the first (which is not the case). The exordium of the song might then read:
Hear my voice, ye women of Lamech!
Attend to my word!—
the address being not to the wives of an individual chieftain, but to the females of the tribe collectively. It appears to me that the alteration destroys the balance of clauses, and mars the metrical effect: besides, strict syntax would require the repetition of the לְ.—23b. The meaning is that (the tribe?) Lamech habitually avenges the slightest personal injury by the death of man or child of the tribe to which the assailant belongs. According to the principle of the blood-feud, אִישׁ and יֶלֶד (י׳ is not a fighting ‘youth,’—a sense it rarely bears: 1 Kings 128 ff., Daniel 14 ff.,—but an innocent man-child [Budde, Holzinger]) are not the actual perpetrators of the outrage, but any members of the same clan. The parallelism therefore is not to be taken literally, as if Lamech selected a victim proportionate to the hurt he had received.—24. Cain is mentioned as a tribe noted for the fierceness of its vendetta (7 times); but the vengeance of Lamech knows no limit (70 and 7 times).
The Song has two points of connexion with the genealogy: the names of the two wives, and the allusion to Cain. The first would disappear if Holzinger’s division of 23a were accepted; but since the ordinary view seems preferable, the coincidence in the names goes to show that the song was known to the authors of the genealogy and utilised in its construction. With regard to the second, Gunkel rightly observes that glorying over an ancestor is utterly opposed to the spirit of antiquity; the Cain referred to must be a rival contemporary tribe, whose grim vengeance was proverbial. The comparison, therefore, tells decidedly against the unity of the passage, and perhaps points (as Stade thinks) to a connection between the song and the legendary cycle from which the Cain story of 13 ff. emanated.—The temper of the song is not the primitive ferocity of “a savage of the stone-age dancing over the corpse of his victim, brandishing his flint tomahawk,” etc. (Lenormant); its real character was first divined by Wellhausen, who, after pointing out the baselessness of the notion that it has to do with the invention of weapons, describes it as “eine gar keiner besonderen Veranlassung bedürftige Prahlerei eines Stammes (Stammvaters) gegen den anderen. Und wie die Araber sich besonders gern ihren Weibern gegenüber als grosse Eisenfresser rühmen, so macht es hier auch Lamech” (Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments² 305). On this view the question whether it be a song of triumph or of menace does not arise; as expressing the permanent temper and habitual practice of a tribe, it refers alike to the past and the future. The sense of the passage was strangely misconceived by some early Fathers (perhaps by LXX, Vulgate), who regarded it as an utterance of remorse for an isolated murder committed by Lamech. The rendering of TargumOnkelos is based on the idea (maintained by Kalisch) that Lamech’s purpose was to represent his homicide as justifiable and himself as guiltless: ‘I have not slain a man on whose account I bear guilt, nor wounded a youth for whose sake my seed shall be cut off. When 7 generations were suspended for Cain, shall there not be for Lamech his son 70 and 7?’ Hence arose the fantastic Jewish legend that the persons killed by Lamech were his ancestor Cain and his own son Tubal-cain (Rashi al.; compare Jerome Epistula Hieronymi ad Damasum papam, 125).¹—The metrical structure of the poem is investigated by Sievers in Metrische Studien, i. 404 f., and ii. 12 f., 247 f. According to the earlier and more successful analysis, the song consists of a double tetrameter, followed by two double trimeters. Sievers’ later view is vitiated by an attempt to fit the poem into the supposed metrical scheme of the genealogy, and necessitates the excision of עדה וצלה as a gloss.
Apart from verse 23 f., the most remarkable feature of the genealogy is the division of classes represented by the three sons of Lamech. It is difficult to understand the prominence given to this classification of mankind into herdsmen, musicians, and smiths, or to imagine a point of view from which it would appear the natural climax of human development. Several recent scholars have sought a clue in the social conditions of the Arabian desert, where the three occupations may be said to cover the whole area of ordinary life. Jabal, the first-born son, stands for the full-blooded Bedouin with their flocks and herds,¹—the élite of all nomadic-living men, and the ‘flower of human culture’ (Budde 146). The two younger sons symbolise the two avocations to which the pure nomad will not condescend, but which are yet indispensable to his existence or enjoyment—smith-work and music (Stade 232). The obvious inference is that the genealogy originated among a nomadic people, presumably the Hebrews before the settlement in Canaan (Budde); though Holzinger considers that it embodies a specifically Ḳenite tradition in which the eponymous hero Cain appears as the ancestor of the race (so Gordon, The Early Traditions of Genesis, 188 ff.).—Plausible as this theory is at first sight, it is burdened with many improbabilities. If the early Semitic nomads traced their ancestry to (peasants and) city-dwellers, they must have had very different ideas from their successors the Bedouin of the present day.² Moreover, the circumstances of the Arabian peninsula present a very incomplete parallel to the classes of verses 20–22. Though the smiths form a distinct caste, there is no evidence that a caste of musicians ever existed among the Arabs; and the Bedouin contempt for professional musicians is altogether foreign to the sense of the verses, which certainly imply no disparaging estimate of Jubal’s art. And once more, as Stade himself insists, the outlook of the genealogy is world-wide. Jabal is the prototype of all nomadic herdsmen everywhere, Jubal of all musicians, and Tubal (the Tibareni?) of all metallurgists.—It is much more probable that the genealogy is projected from the standpoint of a settled, civilised, and mainly agricultural community. If (with Budde) we include verses ² and 17b, and regard it as a record of human progress, the order of development is natural: husbandmen, city-dwellers, wanderers [?] (shepherds, musicians, and smiths). The three sons of Lamech represent not the highest stage of social evolution, but three picturesque modes of life, which strike the peasant as interesting and ornamental, but by no means essential to the framework of society.—This conclusion is on the whole confirmed by the striking family likeness between the Cainite genealogy and the legendary Phœnician history preserved by Eusebius from Philo Byblius, and said to be based on an ancient native work by Sanchuniathon. Philo’s confused and often inconsistent account is naturally much richer in mythical detail than the Hebrew tradition; but the general idea is the same: in each case we have a genealogical list of the legendary heroes to whom the discovery of the various arts and occupations is attributed. Whether the biblical or the Phœnician tradition is the more original may be doubtful; in any case “it is difficult,” as Driver says, “not to think that the Hebrew and Phœnician representations spring from a common Canaanite cycle of tradition, which in its turn may have derived at least some of its elements from Babylonia” (The Book of Genesis with Introduction and Notes page 74).³
23. The Introduction of the song is imitated in Isaiah 28³² 32⁹; compare also Deuteronomy 32¹. The words הֶֽאֱזין and אִמְרָה are almost exclusively poetical.—On the form שְׁמַעַן, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 46 f.—הָרַגְתִּי is perfect of experience (Davidson § 40 (c); Driver A Treatise on the use of the Tenses in Hebrew § 12), rather than of single completed action, or of certainty (Abraham Ibn Ezra, Delitzsch, Budde, al.).—כִּי is not recitative, but gives the reason for the call to attention.—לְפִצְעִי, לְחַבּוּרָתִי] On this use of לְ see Brown-Driver-Briggs, s.v. 5, f.: LXX εἰς τραῦμα [μώλωπα] ἐμοί; Vulgate in vulnus [livorem] meum.—24. כִּי] again introducing the reason, which, however, “lies not in the words immediately after כי, but in the second part of the sentence” (Brown-Driver-Briggs, s.v. 3, c): compare Deuteronomy 18¹⁴, Jeremiah 30¹¹.—יֻקּם on accusative, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 29 g. The Niphal יִקֹּם would yield a better sense: ‘avenges himself’ (Budde, Dillmann, Holzinger).