And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and called his name Seth ...For God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, because Cain has slain him.
The murder of Abel had emptied the family of its one man of faith, and Cain's line was already building a world of its own away from God. Then a third son arrives. Eve's words over him carry the point of the verse: this seed is God's gift, not her achievement.
The name Eve gave the child carries the point.
Son of Adam and Eve, born after the death of Abel, and father of Enosh. His name means "appointed": God in this way continued the line of Abel, whom Cain slew, through the appointment of Seth. So Genesis 4:25-26 says of Seth, "Then people began to call upon the name of the Lord." Right after that comes, "This is the book of the generations of Adam." That gives the line through Seth and his descendants, and makes no mention of Cain and his descendants. From Seth the family line is traced to Noah, and the flood swept away all the rest.
Eve had spoken at a birth once before. Over Cain she said she had gotten a man.
Seth is the man appointed instead of both Abel and Cain: God has appointed, in contrast with I have gotten, as Eve said of Cain. So now, Seth from God.
Eve also names God differently at each birth. Over Cain she said Jehovah, the LORD; over Seth she said Elohim, God.
Here is something remarkable. The serpent had misled Eve to forget the special relationship of Jehovah Elohim. Yet at the birth of Cain she said, I have gotten a man from, or with the help of, Jehovah. It was like Sarah in Hagar's case, looking for the promised seed through nature. At the birth of Seth, in this same Genesis 4:25, she said instead, Elohim has appointed me another seed instead of Abel. This is all the more to be noticed, because the next verse tells us that then people began to call upon the name of Jehovah.
Commentators differ over the tone of Eve's words. One hears faith standing firm after bitter disappointment.
Disastrous events soon showed her mistake. They proved to her that this firstborn of her womb was anything but the promised Seed. Instead of crushing the serpent's head, he turned out to be the murderer of his brother. Still she is found on the rock where faith had fixed her soul. Over Seth she exclaims, "God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Though every cistern fails, she knows the fountain cannot.
Another hears a sobered, sadder note.
At Cain's birth Eve seems to have been too excited. She expected, I think, a deliverer in the child she named as gotten from Jehovah. At Seth's birth she seems to me to express a sobered, if not despondent, feeling: "God has appointed me another seed." In this second son she saw only a child given by God in the natural way.
Seth comes in place of a murdered brother. Writers see in that a picture of Christ risen.
Abel was a type of Christ in His death: Seth is a picture of Him in His resurrection, and we read of Seth's seed in Genesis 5. As the second Man, the last Adam, the Lord Jesus has triumphed over death. His resurrection brings in a new chosen seed. Cain, clinging to the first creation, seems to gain the most, but he must lose it all, while what Christ has gained in resurrection is eternal.
One writer marks where the picture stops.
The man of grace — Abel, a type of Christ and of those who are His — is rejected and left without inheritance here below. Man, his enemy, is judged and left to himself. Another, Seth, is the object of God's counsels, and he becomes heir of the world on God's part. We must remember, though, that these are only figures. In the reality, the Man who is heir of all is the same as the One who was put to death.
From here the human story runs in two lines.
Then people begin to call upon the name of the Lord. From then on there are two races. One is the natural human line by Cain, citizens and improvers of the world. The other is the death-and-resurrection line by Seth, who call upon the Lord.
- Appointed — Seth's name means "appointed." God, not Eve, secured the seed after Abel's murder.
- Given, not gotten — over Cain she said "I have gotten"; over Seth, "God has appointed" — the giver replaces the grasper.
- Faith or fatigue — commentators differ on Eve's heart. One hears faith holding on after crushing disappointment. Another hears a sobered woman expecting less.
- Instead of the slain — Seth comes in place of a murdered brother. So he pictures Christ risen, bringing in a new seed.
- Two lines — from here the race divides. Cain's line builds and improves the world. Seth's line calls on the name of the Lord, and Genesis 5 follows Seth's line alone.
And to Seth, to him also was born a son; and he called his name Enosh. Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah.
Genesis 4 ends with two births and one sentence that changes the atmosphere of the whole chapter. Cain's family fills most of it. Then a quieter family appears, and with them the first recorded calling on God's name.
Seth names his son Enosh, or Enos, and that name unlocks the verse. It is a confession about what man has become.
Yet there is a remnant. It begins with one who, by divine appointment, takes the place of the murdered Abel. His son's name, Enos, means "frail man." In a day when names still had meaning, that name shows that man had accepted the humbling reality of his own condition. And "then," we read, "men began to call on the name of Jehovah." God gets His place when man takes his. And so it always is.
The verse gives an order: first the name, then the calling. One writer finds the same order in every soul that comes to God.
One of the first signs of faith springing up in the heart is that a man admits he is a sinful creature under the death sentence. The next thing is that, in the light of this, he begins to call upon the Name of the Lord. So the closing words of our chapter are very striking. In the New Testament we find that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom. 10:13).
Adam and Enos are both names for man. The difference between them explains why prayer starts here.
The first time prayer is mentioned in the Scriptures, we believe, is here. Both names, Adam and Enosh, are Hebrew words for man. The first comes, it is said, from Adamah, red earth, meaning that God formed man out of the dust of the ground. The second, Enos, means frail, sinful, mortal man, soon passing away. Seth, in giving this meaningful name to his son, admitted the condition sin had brought man into, and so his need of prayer. Prayer is the means of telling God our needs and wants.
The verse names one particular name: Jehovah, the LORD. Earlier in the chapter, Cain had walked out from the presence of that same LORD.
Then a distinct people of God began, connected with the name "Jehovah" — not a people called out by it as Israel was. Cain had gone out from the presence of Jehovah and taken care of himself. He settled down where Jehovah had made him a wanderer. But in Seth's time the matter began again, and Jehovah was owned on earth.
Something new happens here that Abel's offering did not yet show.
God noticed this and had it written down. Here we have the beginning of regular worship. They started to serve the Lord and to call on His Name, and this was not an individual but a collective matter. "At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD." Abel was the first man to bring an offering that pleased God. He did so alone, as far as we can gather from the beginning of Genesis 4. But Seth, the one who came in the place of the dead Abel, and his offspring did it together.
Commentators differ on how much this sentence claims. Some read it as real faith. One writer allows less: only that the knowledge of God had not died out before the flood.
The words in Gen. 4:26, "At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD," do not have to mean that they were righteous. They may mean only that the idea of God was not wholly lost. For Adam was still alive.
There is a second way to read the same words. It moves the sense from praying to taking God's name as your own:
"At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD," or "to call themselves by the name of the LORD."
What starts here runs on through the Bible. When things fall apart, the godly turn to the same place.
In every day of difficulty the godly find their resource in the Lord. In the day of ruin before the flood there were those who, like Cain, "went out from the presence of the LORD." But there were also the godly who "began… to call upon the name of the LORD" (Gen. 4:16, 26)… In the early days of the Church, believers were known as those who "called on this Name" (Acts 9:21). In the middle of their persecutions it was to the Lord that they turned. And in the middle of the ruin of these last days, we are assured that there will still be those "who call on the Lord from a pure heart" (2 Tim. 2:22).
- Weakness owned. Enos means frail, mortal man. Seth named his son after the truth about man, not against it.
- Then calling. God gets His place when man takes his. The calling starts only after the admission — and here the Bible mentions prayer for the first time.
- A name, not a notion. They called on Jehovah, the LORD, while Cain's line had gone out from His presence. That calling marked out a people joined to His name.
- Together, not alone. Abel offered by himself; with Seth's family shared worship begins, and God had it written down.
- The thread continues. From the days before the flood to the early Church, the godly are known as those who call on that Name. And the promise of Romans 10:13 still stands: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.