Daily Word

Signs of hope | Genesis 4:25-26

25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” 26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.

Genesis 4:25-26 (ESV)

Family trauma

What strikes me about this passage is the family trauma. This was the first family so there was no precedent, no trauma counselor, no recourse. Death of a child is already unbearable but to have one son murder the other – unconscionable! It’s a good thing Adam and Eve didn’t succumb to depression and kill themselves out of grief or decide never to have kids again. Thankfully, they chose to continue to obey and trust God and had Seth.

Signs of hope

Seth was another sign of hope – that God would provide. The first sign was the promise to Eve that her seed would crush the serpent’s head. Seth, in turn, had a son, Enosh. As we mentioned yesterday, Adam and Eve had other children besides these, especially daughters that are not identified. The focus is on the lineage…leading to Noah and to Christ..

Call on the Lord

So there were other people around as we just mentioned, other children of Adam and Eve. At this point in time, contemporaneous with (and maybe tied to) Enosh’s birth, people started to call on the name of the Lord.

  • What does it mean, to call on the name of the Lord? Some expositors think it refers to prayer but most times in the OT it refers to public worship.
  • What did they do before this? Didn’t Adam and Eve have a relationship with the Lord, and Abel, before he was murdered? If it means public worship, there was not much of a “public” until Enosh’s time. 

One final note about this chapter from Dr. Thomas Constable: “Chapter 4 also teaches that it is important for the righteous to preserve the knowledge of God when they live in an ungodly society. The Israelites needed this encouragement as they anticipated entering the Promised Land, as we do today. Jesus taught His disciples the same lesson (Matt. 5:14-15).” (planobiblechapel.org)

RЯeflection

  • Do we live in an ungodly society? Do we have a vice versa problem where right is called wrong and wrong is right so people can feel free to follow any vice they please? We need to be truth bearers preserving the knowledge of the Holy One, the Creator, Jehovah, the Word Jesus Christ.
Hope springs from cut down tree. Image from Pxfuel.com

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