Gen 4:17-24, Luk 16:8 | JFB | STEP | 17-22. builded a city-- It has been in cities that the human race has ever made the greatest social progress; and several of Cain's descendants distinguished themselves by their inventive genius in the arts.

‏ Genesis 4:17-24

17-22. builded a city--It has been in cities that the human race has ever made the greatest social progress; and several of Cain's descendants distinguished themselves by their inventive genius in the arts.

23-24. Lamech said unto his wives--This speech is in a poetical form, probably the fragment of an old poem, transmitted to the time of Moses. It seems to indicate that Lamech had slain a man in self-defense, and its drift is to assure his wives, by the preservation of Cain, that an unintentional homicide, as he was, could be in no danger.

‏ Luke 16:8

8. the lord--evidently the steward's lord, so called in Lu 16:3, 5.

commended, &c.--not for his "injustice," but "because he had done wisely," or prudently; with commendable foresight and skilful adaptation of means to end.

children of this world--so Lu 20:34; compare Psa 17:14 ("their portion in this life"); Php 3:19 ("mind earthly things"); Psa 4:6, 7.

their generation--or "for their generation"--that is, for the purposes of the "world" they are "of." The greater wisdom (or shrewdness) of the one, in adaptation of means to ends, and in energetic, determined prosecution of them, is none of it for God and eternity--a region they were never in, an atmosphere they never breathed, an undiscovered world, an unborn existence to them--but all for the purposes of their own grovelling and fleeting generation.

children of light--(so Joh 12:36; Ep 5:8; 1Th 5:5). Yet this is only "as night-birds see better in the dark than those of the day owls than eagles" [Cajetan and Trench]. But we may learn lessons from them, as our Lord now shows, and "be wise as serpents."