Lamech combined his violence with a desire to put himself ahead of God. Notice that he refers back to how God would avenge Cain’s death. Who would avenge Cain if someone killed him? It was God himself, of course.
God’s justice is perfect. He takes everything into account, and knows the heart of every single person, and why they do what they do. He makes no mistakes. He will never sin – He can’t sin. He is perfect. There is such a thing as righteous anger, though some versions remove that; jesus tells His disciples that He who is angry with his brother *without a cause* is sinning. But, God has cause. He created each of us to follow Him, and to not sin. When people commit sin, He has every right to punish us, because we have fallen short of the mark of perfection.
Thankfully, God is also merciful. He doesn’t want to punish sin. He wants to show love and peace to everyone, but we must confess and forsake our sins to do so.
Lamech had no mercy. His idea of vengeance was totally based on the outward appearance, and went totally against God’s ways. His terror and intimidation is just like the devil, who wants to steal our freedom and put God’s creatures under the yoke of oppression.
In doing thins, Lamech was either placing himself above God in the delusional belief that he could cause people to avenge him like that, or he may have actually had such a large mob. If the latter, he would certainly not be the last person to have a huge group of people organized to follow his every command, and avenge any injustice. World dictators for centuries have done the same thing.
More importantly, however, Lamech continued a pattern that was seen since the dawn of time, a pattern of ignoring God in his life. However, he didn’t just disobey God, as Adam and Eve had done. He totally profaned God, by claiming the same rights as God, to determine how he was going to be avenged, and by deciding how life would be governed, ruling by oppression and not by love. Only God, who combines perfect justice with perfect love and mercy, among many other attributes, has the right to decide who lives and who dies. Even when He appoints people to do so, He is truly the one making the decision.
