by Eve, but doubtless with Adam's concurrence, implying especially that he was substituted for his slain brother.

-T Another seed. Another child; the term seed being applied to a single individual, as it is also Gen. 21. 13, and 38. 8. This usage confirms the apostle's argument, Gal. 3. 16, 'He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.'

which had actually happened, but as intimating the consequences of such a fact, provided it should happen. Suppose that when designedly and dangerously wounded by a murderous weapon, in the hand of a ruffian, I should slay my assailant, whether a grown man or a daring youth, yet as it would be done in self defence, I should not incur the guilt of murder. For if the man that should have killed Cain, who-The manner in which the mother of slew his brother without provocation, mankind speaks on this occasion is were to be punished seven-fold, then he much in favour of her personal religion. who should undertake to inflict ven- The language implies, that though at first geance upon me for slaying a man in she had doated upon Cain, yet as the bromy own defence, shall be punished sev- thers grew up, and developed their resenty and seven-fold.' Thus one sinner pective characters, Abel was preferred. takes liberty to sin from the suspension He was the child in whom all the hopes of judgment towards another. The of the family seem to have concentraspeech was prompted, perhaps, by La- ted; and therefore when he fell a sacrimech's having witnessed the mischiev-fice to his brother's cruelty, it was conous effects of some of his sons' newly-sidered as a very heavy loss. She was invented instruments of iron and brass, which probably began to be wielded to the injury or destruction of human life. The Chal. renders the passage, 'For I have not killed a man that I should bear sin for him; nor destroyed a young man that my seed should be consumed for him.' The speech is in hemistichs, according to the genius of Hebrew poetry, and, as it seems, not written by Moses, but handed down by tradition. Thus ends the account of the murderer Cain. We hear no more of his posterity, unless it be as tempters of the sons of God,' till they were all swept away by the deluge!

25. Called his name Seth. Heb. set, put, appointed; a name bestowed

not without a son when Seth was born, for Cain was yet alive; but he was considered as none, or as worse than none, and therefore when Seth was born, she hoped to find in him a successor to Abel. And so it proved; for his was doubtless the family in which the true religion was preserved in after ages.

26. Called his name Enos.

Heb.

Enosh; i. e. sick, weak, sorrowful, miserable; so called perhaps from the prevailing degenerate state of the world at that time. -T Then began

men to call upon the name of the Lord. The true import of these words, as read in the original, is somewhat difficult to be determined.

As the Heb.

term for 'began' will admit of being by taking upon them the profession of rendered profaned or profanely began, God's holy name, and by being recogthe Jewish interpreters for the most nised as his true worshippers. A simipart understand of the commence- lar phraseology obtains Is. 44. 5, 'One ment of idolatry, which consists in pro- shall say, I am the Lord's and another fanely calling upon and worshipping shall call himself by the name (77 idols under the name and titles of the D) of Jacob.' Ch. 48. 1, 'Hear ye true God, and thus as marking the be- this, O house of Jacob, which are callginnings of that great degeneracy ed by the name of Israel;' i. e. who prowhich finally led to the destruction of fess to belong to the people of Israel the earth and its guilty inhabitants by and to be of the same religion. Perthe flood. Accordingly, the Chaldee haps the distinction of 'sons of God' Targum reads it,' 'T'hen the sons of men and 'sons of men,' alluded to in the folleft off from praying in the name of lowing chapter, then began more genethe Lord,' or, 'became profane so that rally to prevail. On the whole, howthey prayed not.' The more common ever, we incline to the opinion that the interpretation, however, is, that about sense of profane invocation is really this time there began to be a more conveyed by the original word; but marked separation on the part of the that the other idea also of a pious propious from the ungodly, that the name fession of the name and worship of Jeof the Lord began to be invoked in a hovah is directly and necessarily inmore open and public manner, and the ferred from it, for the f ct of the invarious ceremonies of his worship to be creasing profaneness and irreligion of more solemnly observed. Adam and one portion of the race would naturally his pious offspring had undoubtedly be- tend to produce a more public and defore this maintained the worship of cided adherence to the worship of God God both in their families and their by the other, and the Heb. idiom, we closets; but till the human race were believe, allows us to consider both facts considerably multiplied there was no to be alluded to by one and the same occasion for what may be called public term.-In respect to this period of the worship. But when the families be- sacred history we may properly cite came so numerous that they were obli- the words of the celebrated Jewish wriged to separate, then it was necessary ter Maimonides as translated by Ainsto call them together at stated times worth :-'In the days of Enos the sons and seasons, that, by forming different of Adam erred with great error, and congregations, they might all receive the counsel of the wise men of that age instruction at once, and keep up in their became brutish; and their error was minds an habitual reverence for God. this: They said, forasmuch as God hath 'Calling upon the name of the Lord' is created these stars and spheres to govan expression elsewhere used to denote ern the world, and set them on high, all the appropriate acts and exercises of and imparted honour unto them, and the stated worship of God. Gen. 12. they are ministers that ininister before 8.-13. 4.-21. 33. 1 Chron. 16. 8. Ps. him; it is meet that men should laud, 105. 1. et al. Comp. Acts, 9. 14. The and glorify, and give them honour. For marginal rendering, for which there is this is the will of God, that we might also some ground, is, 'Then began men magnify and honour whomsoever he to be called by the name of the Lord,' magnifieth and honoureth, even as a i. e. then began a portion of men (viz. king would have them magnified that the children of Seth) to be distinguished stand before him. When this thing from others, the descendants of Cain, was come up into their heart, they be

gan to build temples unto the stars, and to offer sacrifices unto them, and to laud and glorify them with words, and to worship before them, that they might, in their evil opinion, obtain favour of the Creator. And this was the root of idolatry.'-Lightfoot supposes that Noah is called in 2 Pet. 2. 5, the eighthperson' in reference to these times, viz. the eighth in succession from Enos, in whose days the world began to be profane. Otherwise it may be rendered the 'eighth preacher.'

CHAPTER V.

3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, alter his image; and d called his name Seth :

4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

d ch. 4. 25. e 1 Chron. 1. 1, &c. f ch. 1. 28.

tailed, and which we have already sufficiently explained. Perhaps he designed also to hint at the different node of production in regard to Adam and his posterity. He came into being from the immediate hand of his Creator; they by generation from him.

2. Called their name Adam. As be fore remarked, ch. 1. 26, Adam is in truth the name of the species, of the whole human race in general, though frequently employed as the appellation of the first man exclusively. It is, however, a striking fact that the Holy Spirit should have adopted a phraseol1. This is the book of the generations ogy which teaches us that it was not of Adam. In other words, this is the merely an individual, but the human narrative or rehearsal of the remarka- race, whose history is given in the pre ble events pertaining to the creation ceding chapters; that it was the hu and the life of Adam (see Gen. 2. 4, on man race which was put upon probathe word 'generations'); and not only tion, was tempted, overcome, and ruin80, but also the list or catalogue of the ed by the fall. It is not easy to connames of his more immediate posterity.ceive of any theological view which Both senses are undoubtedly included shall weaken the force of this solemn in the expression, as the two first ver- consideration. ses imply the first, and the remaining part of the chapter the second. The phrase is at once retrospective and anticipative in its import. It is not the writer's object, however, to give a complete genealogy embracing all Adam's descendants to Noah, but only those through whom the line of the promises ran.- -T In the day that God created man. Heb. 'created Adam.' historian prefaces the ensuing genealogy with a brief recapitulation of the leading events which he had before de

The

3. Adam lived an hundred and thirty years. During which time he begat many other sons and daughters not enumerated in this catalogue. v. 4.

- Begat a son in his own likeness. The word 'son' does not occur in the original, but from what follows it is plain that the sense requires its insertion. Similar omissions are not infre quent in Hebrew. Thus 1 Chron. 18. 6, 'Then David put in Syria;' i. e. as we learn from 2 Sam. 8. 6, put gar risons in Syria.-¶ In his own like

5 And all the days that Adam were nine hundred and twelve lived were nine hundred and thir-years; and he died.

ty years; and he died.

6 And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: 7 And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daugh

ters:

8 And all the days of Seth

ness.

g ch. 3. 19. Heb. 9. 27. h ch. 4. 26.

9 And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan :

10 And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughter :

11 And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years; and he died.

Not only like him in the struc-in his family ending in the unnatural ture of his body and the faculties of murder of his second son by a brother's his mind, but like him also in the cor- hand. He was witness also to the ruption of his nature as a sinner. If beginnings of that universal corruption the former only had been intended, it which at last brought on the deluge; might have been said of Cain or Abel, and when he beheld himself the source as well as of Seth. But here the im- of these growing evils, he could not fail, plication is, that Seth, though a good with every succeeding year of his life, man and worthy of being substituted to entertain deeper and more appalling in une place of Abel as the progenitor views of the enormity of his transgresct the promised seed, yet even he was sion and the justice of his sentence. begotten and born in sin, and indebted This would naturally tend in his case, to the sovereign grace of God alone for as in every other, to heighten his estiall the moral excellence which he pos- mate at once of the goodness and the sessed. The evident drift of the sacred severity of God, and endear to him that writer is to hint at the contrast between promise which was the hope of a lost the image in which Adam himself was world. made, and that in which his children were begotten. Adam was created in the image of God, pure, upright, and holy; but after his fall he begat a son like himself sinful, defiled, frail, mortal, and miserable. 'Grace does not run in the blood, but corruption does. A sinner begets a sinner, but a saint does not beget a saint.' Henry.

5. All the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. Thus our great progenitor, having reached the fifty-sixth year of Lamech's life, and seen his issue in the ninth generation, left the world on which his apostacy had drawn down such dire effects. Besides the griefs which he experienced on account of his personal transgression, he had the mortification to see an early rupture

3-28. Of the genealogy contained in these verses we may remark, (1.) That it is a very honourable one. Not only did the patriarchs and prophets, and the church of God for many ages, descend from it, but the Son of God himself according to the flesh; and to show the fulfilment of the promises and prophecies concerning him is the principal reason of the genealogy having been recorded. (2.) Neither Cain nor Abel has any place in it. Abel was slain before he had any children, and therefore could not; and Cain by his sin had covered his name with infamy, and therefore should not terity, consequently, after the lapse of an hundred and thirty years must begin anew. (3.) The extraordinary length of human life at that period was wisely

Adam's pos

12 And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel:

13 And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:

14 And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.

15 And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared;

16 And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:

17 And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years; and he died.

society, and thus the phenomenon is traced back to the goodness and wis

after it becanie adequately colonised, but that the advancement of the race itself into high civilization and refine ment could not have taken place, had not each person been permitted to live during a much longer space of time than is found to be the case at present in every portion of the globe. The first generations having no past experience to look back upon, must have owed all their knowledge to their own individual exertions; and how far these would have carried them in the short space of seventy or eighty years, we need only examine the condition of the

ordered, not only for peopling the world, but for supplying the defect of a written revelation. From the death of Ad-dom of the Creator. For it is obviam to the call of Abraham, a period of ous to the least reflecting, not only that about eleven hundred years, there was the process of peopling the earth reliving either Enoch, Lamech, Noah, or quired at first a greater longevity in the Shem, besides other cotemporary god-human race, than would be necessary. ly persons, who would feelingly relate to those about them the great events of the creation, the fall, and the recovery of man. (4.) Notwithstanding the longevity of the antediluvians, it is recorded of them all in their turn, that they died. Though the stroke of death was slow in its approach, yet it was sure. If man could live a thousand years, yet he must die; and if he die in sin, he will be accursed. (5.) Though many of the names in this genealogy are passed over without any thing being said of their piety, yet we are not hence to infer that they were not so distinguished. Many might be in-wandering tribes in America to discovcluded among them who called upon the name of the Lord,' and who are denominated 'the sons of God,' though nothing is personally related of them.-head of this lower world, should live As to the extreme longevity that characterized this period, it was probably owing in part to physical and in part to moral causes. While the influences of climate and diet are to be recognized as contributing to it, yet we may admit that there were various other causes in operation which tended to the same result. There is in fact something in the intellectual nature of man which seems to require that the period of life granted to individuals, should be more extended in the infancy, than in the maturity of

er. It was not, however, in accordance with God's gracious design in creating, that man, whom he had appointed the

and die in a state of intellectual childhood. And hence he appointed to the antediluvians many centuries of existence, that they might discover, follow up, and lay the foundations of knowl edge for all future ages, in every useful and ornamental art. But the necessity for so very protracted an existence being of a temporary nature, God wisely with drew it, as soon as it had attained its purposes; and he did so, not more in wisdom, than in mercy, to the creature whose mortal life he curtailed. As we