Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 4:23

23. And Lamech said unto his Wives, Adah, and Zillah , Hear my voice, ye Wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: For I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt .

Who, observing his fierceness and cruelty, feared that the vengeance of God or men would fall upon him, and upon them for his sake.

(i. e.) Be it so that I have slain a man, and that a young man, why do you concern your selves in it? It is to my own wounding and hurt, not to yours, I must suffer for it, not you. Some take this to be a sorrowful confession of his bloody crime, q. d. I have murdered a man, to my wounding, &c. (i. e.) to my utter ruine or to the wounding and grief of my Heart and Conscience. But this seems not to agree either with the quality of Cains Family, or with the temper of Lamechs Person, or with the scope of the Holy Ghost in this place, which is to describe not the vertues, but the crimes, of that wicked race. According to the Marginal Translation, the sense may be this, fear not for me, for if any man, though in his youth and strength, should assault me and give me the first wound, he should pay dearly for it, and though I were wounded and weakned, the remainders of my strength would be sufficient to give him his deaths wound. The words also may be otherwise rendred, the particle chi being taken interrogatively, as it is, Isa. 29. 6. and 36. 19. and elsewhere, Have I slain a man to my wounding, and [or, or] a young man to my hurt? (i. e.) that thereby I should deserve such a mortal wound or hurt to be inflicted upon me by way of retaliation? You have therefore no cause of fear either for my sake, or for your own.

Marginal references: Or, I would slay a man in my wound, &c.; Heb. a Child.; Or, in my hurt.