GENESIS 4

 

 ¹⁷And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

 

 

 ⁷"^(A)If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? ^(B)And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, ^(C)but you must master it."

¹²When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

 ¹³And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

 ¹⁴Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

 ¹⁵And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

Cain was given a sign, a masonic sign for protection.

Genesis 4:15 (American Standard Version)

¹⁶And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

 ¹⁷And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

 ¹⁸And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

 ¹⁹And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

 ²⁰And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

 ²¹And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

 ²²And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

Excerts From the encyclopedia of freemasonry:

Of Tubal Cain, the sacred writings, as well as the Masonic legends, give us but scanty information. All that we hear of him in the Book of Genesis is that he was the son of Lamech and Zillah, and was “an instructor of every artifices in brass and iron.” The Hebrew original does not justify the common version, for lotesh, does not mean “an instructor,” but “a sharpener “—one who whets or sharpens instruments. Hence Doctor Raphall translates the passage as one “who sharpened various tools in copper and iron.” The authorized version has, however, almost indelibly impressed the character of Tubal Cain as the Father of Artificers; and it is in this sense that he has been introduced from a very early period into the legendary history of Freemasonry.

From the mention made of Tubal Cain in the Legend of the Craft, the word was long ago adopted as significant in the primary Degrees, and various attempts have been made to give it an interpretation. Hutchinson, in an article in his Spirit of Masonry, devoted to the consideration of the Third Degree, has the following reference (page 162) to the word: The Mason advancing to this state of Masonry, pronounces his own sentence as confessional of the imperfection of the second stage of his profession, and as probationary of the exalted Degree to which he aspires, in this Greek distich, T, Struo tumulum. I prepare mar sepulchre. I make my grave in the pollutions of the earth. I am under the shadow of death. This distich has been vulgarly corrupted among us. and an expression takes place scarcely similar in sound, and entirely inconsistent with Masonry, and unmeaning in itself .

And from the book: Symbolical Masonry written by H.L. Haywood [1923]

p. 210

in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, at Poitiers, erected in 1161; and in the Wurtzburg Cathedral, in Bavaria, the work, it seems, of the Comacines. But at a very early date they were used by Masons for symbolical purposes, as testified by the history of the Compagnonage, and by the "Old Charges" of the Freemasons.

In the latter we find a curious legend. The Cooke MS. of about 1350 relates that before Noah's flood, Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal Cain knew that God was to destroy the world; "wherefore they wrote the sciences that they had found out on two pillars of stone. Hermes, that was son to Cush, afterwards found the two pillars, and the sciences written thereon; and Abraham taught them to the Egyptians." Inasmuch as it was supposed that Masonry had come from Egypt the old chronicles thus quaintly sought to link their traditions up to the very beginnings of the world. From these Old Charges, we may suppose, the legend crept into the symbolic lore of the Craft, and was thus preserved until Speculative days, when the Pillar symbolism became embodied in the Rituals as we now have them.

²³And 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.

 ²⁴If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

 ²⁵And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

 ²⁶And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

Hebrew Sheth(Seth) and shath (given) are a play on words. The Lord in this context is Adam, the father of the caucasian race.