Мидраш к Берешит 5:28

Lamech lived a hundred and eighty-two years and begot his son (Gen. 5:28), through whom the world was to be reestablished. He called him Noah (lit. “comfort, ease”), saying: This one will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hand (Gen. 5:29). How did he know that this one would comfort us in our work? Was Lamech a prophet? R. Simeon the son of Yehozadak said: There was a tradition that when the Holy One, blessed be He, told Adam: Cursed be the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it (Gen. 3:17), Adam inquired: “Master of the Universe, how long will the ground be cursed?” He replied: “Until a man-child already circumcised shall be born.” When Noah was born circumcised, Lamech understood immediately that this was the one concerning whom the Holy One, blessed be He, had said: This one will comfort us in our work (ibid. 5:29).

And when Lamech was one hundred and eighty-one years of age, he went and took Ashmia, ‎the daughter of Elisha, son of Enoch his uncle, to wife, and she conceived. At that time the ‎sons of man sowed and had somewhat of a harvest in return. But the people did not turn from ‎their evil ways and they revolted against their masters.‎ And after a year came around the wife of Lamech bare a son, and Methuselah called his name ‎Noah, saying: The earth has ceased in his days to destroy the seed. But Lamech his father ‎called him Menachem, saying: This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our ‎hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.‎ And the boy grew up and was weaned, and he walked in the paths of his sire Methuselah, ‎ever upright and perfect with the Lord.‎And at that time all the sons of man, as they increased and multiplied begetting sons and ‎daughters upon the face of the earth, turned from the ways of the Lord.‎ And they taught one another their wickedness, and they grew more and more refractory and ‎rebellious against the Lord.‎ And every man manufactured his own god, and they plundered and robbed and persecuted ‎every man his neighbors and his relatives, and they corrupted the earth, and all the earth was ‎full of violence.‎ And even their judges and overseers would go among all the daughters of man, and take them ‎to wives by force even from the sides of their husbands, if so they chose.‎ And also of the cattle and of the beasts of the fields, and of the birds of the air, the sons of ‎man would bring together and train them to mate each other, one kind with another kind, in ‎order to provoke the Lord with such transgressions.‎ And God saw the whole earth and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh hath perverted its ways ‎upon the earth, all men as well as all the animals.‎ And the Lord said, I will wipe out the man whom I have created from the entire face of the ‎earth, all flesh, even from man unto the fowl of heaven, the cattle and the beast of the field; ‎for it repenteth me having made them.‎ And the few good men that still remained upon the earth died in those days, before the Lord ‎was to bring about the evil which he resolved to do unto all flesh, for it so pleased the Lord ‎that they should not live to see the great curse which the Lord had pronounced, to come over ‎the sons of man. Noah and his sons however found grace in the eyes of God, and the Lord ‎selected them to preserve through them seed upon the whole earth. ‎