Seth and His Descendants

Abel's life ended tragically when his brother Cain murdered him, but God gave Adam and Eve a replacement son, Seth, who would become the ancestor of some great godly men.

When Cain was born, Adam and Eve may have thought he would be God’s promised deliverer. As Cain and Abel grew up, Adam and Eve observed their attitudes and behavior before God and may have begun to place their hope in Abel as the promised one. When Cain killed his brother, they must have been deeply disappointed, not only in Cain, but also in the realization that the son they thought was the promised one was no more.

Then they had another baby boy. Eve named him Seth, and said, “God has given me a son in the place of Abel. (Seth in this context means substitute.) How excited Adam and Eve must have been to have another son. God was keeping His promise. They had many other sons and daughters, too, and when Seth grew up, he had a son whom he named Enosh. It was during Enosh’s lifetime that men and women began to worship God together.

Sometimes people say the stories in the Bible are just myths—that these events weren’t a part of history. But God has given us many indications that the Bible is true. One indication is the genealogies He recorded for us in the Bible. By studying genealogies, we see that the Bible characters were real historical people who lived on this earth, had families, and died. Here is one example of a genealogy in the Bible:

God created humankind as man and woman to be like Himself and blessed them. After the man Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son who was just like him, whom he named Seth. After Seth was born, Adam had many other sons and daughters and lived 800 years. Then he died. After Seth lived for 105 years, he had a son whom he named Enosh.

The genealogy goes on and on, telling how long each person lived, who his most prominent son was, and when he died. This genealogy in Genesis 5 takes us all the way to Noah. His father named him Noah (which means “rest”) because he believed that somehow his son, Noah, would bring comfort from the pain and labor that the cursed ground had brought them all those years. He may have been wrong about the relief Noah would bring, but he did have hope that God would do something special through Noah. And He did.