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כי שבעתים יקם קין IF CAIN SHALL BE AVENGED SEVENFOLD — (according to Rashi, as previously explained, it signifies “If vengeance shall be taken on Cain after seven generations”). If in the case of Cain who killed with premeditation the punishment was suspended for him until the seventh generation, in the case of myself who slew inadvertently does it not necessarily follow that it should be suspended for me until many seven generations?

ולמך שבעים ושבעה. My anguish over what I have done will be many times greater than the anguish of Kayin who had been condemned to be a constant fugitive on the earth. 'כי שבעתים יוקם קין וגו, for if Kayin’s punishment was indeed great, my punishment for having killed my son will be many times greater. [he referred to the anguish he suffered over what he had done, not to the punishment imposed upon him externally, as retribution. Ed.]

כי שבעתים, this has already been explained in the previous verse. The purpose of the Torah recording all this for all posterity is to demonstrate that in former times, even during the era of idolatry which began with Enosh, people were convinced that G’d supervises the personal fates of His creatures here on earth, meting out punishment to the wicked and reward to the deserving.

His wives separated from him once they fulfilled... because it had been decreed. This phrase [“once they fulfilled...”] is not found in our text of Bereishis Rabbah. It seems that Rashi added this phrase on his own, to explain why they gave birth until now: they wished to fulfill the mitzvah of “Be fruitful and multiply.” See Re’m. (Nachalas Yaakov)

כי שבעתים יוקם קין, “if even Kayin, who had deliberately murdered his brother will be avenged sevenfold if someone took the law into his own hands and killed him, after G-d had been content to merely exile him, how much more so will anyone killing me be avenged, seeing that I had not done any harm to anyone deliberately, ever!? He is threatening his wives of what would happen to them if they felt they had to avenge Kayin’s death by harming him or killing him.

שבעים ושבעה SEVENTY AND SEVEN — He uses a term that denotes many periods of seven generations. Thus did R. Tanchuma 1:1:11 explain this passage; but the Midrash Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah 23:4) does not mention that Lamech slew anyone at all, and only states that his wives had lived apart from him after they had born children, because God’s decree had been issued that Cain’s descendants should be exterminated after seven generations. They said, “Why should we bear children only to be destroyed? Soon the Flood will come and will sweep everyone away!” Lamech then said unto them, “Did ‘I’ slay a man ‘לפצע for my wounding” (i.e. that I should be wounded — punished)? Did “I” slay Abel who was a man in height but a child in years, that my descendants should be exterminated on account of this sin (the sin of Cain who killed Abel)? If Cain who did kill had his punishment suspended until the seventh generation, I who have not killed — does it not necessarily follow that my punishment) should be suspended for many seven generations? This, however, is an absurd argument a fortiori, for if so, the Holy One, blessed be He, could never exact his debt nor fulfil his word.

And sweep everything away. I.e., everyone will die. You might ask: At first Rashi said they separated from Lemech because of the decree on the descendents of Kayin. Why does he say here that it was because of the Flood? The answer is: His wives knew the Flood would come in the days of Lemech. They mistakenly thought it would be in the days of [their husband] Lemech son of Mesushael, a descendent of Kayin. But it was [later,] in the days of [a different] Lemech, the son of Mesushelach [a descendent of Sheis].

שבעים ושבעה, “seventy seven times.” According to Rashi, Lemech’s wives had separated from him after he had fulfilled the commandment of being fruitful, as they knew that the descendants of the killer of Kayin had been cursed by G-d for the following seven generations, so why would they have to bring children into the word in order for them to have to endure that curse? They would all be killed by the deluge. There appears to be a contradiction here in Rashi’s commentary. If these wives refused to bear more children because by that time, more than 120years prior to the deluge, that threat had already been known, then their refusals to bear children on account of a curse resting on the seven generations following Kayin’s killer are quite irrelevant.[Seeing that the Torah does not provide us with details of the ages at which Kayin’s descendants were born relative to Adam’s expulsion from Gan Eden, the only clue we have is the tradition that Naamah, Lemech’s daughter, became the wife of Noach, who started having children about 100 years before the deluge (1656). Seeing that the people mentioned in the Torah, with the exception of Chanoch, had all lived for more than 800 years the fact that Lemech (the descendant of Kayin), not to be confused with the Lemech who was a descendant of Sheth, and Noach’s father, had every reason to expect to be still alive when the deluge would occur. After all, 777 years of the 1656 years prior to the deluge had already elapsed at the time Kayin was killed. The tradition concerning’ Naamah’s ancestry is plausible unless we were to believe that none of Kayin’s descendants survived the deluge. Ed.] Our author prefers to believe that the daughters of Lemech erred in their calculations about during which Lemech’s lifetime the deluge would commence. Their father was the sixth generation from Adam, but seeing that Kayin married presumably at a much younger age than his brother Sheth who was 130 years younger than he, this is not plausible either, as Noach’s father died before his own father Metushelach who lived to 969, until the week before the commencement of the deluge. [Noach was the tenth generation, counting from Adam. Ed.] Our author believes that Rashi believes that Lemech and his daughters must have been great fools if they believed that G-d will allow 7 generations to pass before avenging someone’s wrongful death. If that were G-d’s way, who would ever associate the penalty with the wrongdoer, seeing that seven generations had elapsed since the crime had been committed? It is clear that what Rashi wrote was not his own interpretation, but he quoted the foolish notions entertained by Lemech’s daughters. [How could G-d then have punished the generation born less than a generation before the deluge started?]

This is an absurd kal vachomer. But according to [Rashi’s first explanation,] Midrash R. Tanchuma, the kal vachomer is not absurd since it does not contradict Kayin’s punishment; it applies only to Lemech’s [unintentional] sin. (Re’m) You might ask: What was Lemech’s reasoning [when he put forth his absurd argument]? The answer is that he thought as follows: Kayin killed intentionally and should have been killed immediately, as it says (9:6), “Whoever sheds the blood of man, through man shall his blood be shed.” Yet with his prayer, he held back the decree for seven generations. I, who killed unintentionally, can surely hold back the decree with prayer. (Maharshal)