What Does Genesis 4:26 Mean?

(26) **He called his name Enos.**—Heb., *Enosh, *that is, *man. *We thus find language growing. Up to this time there had been two names for *man: *Adam, which also in Assyrian—another Semitic dialect—has the same meaning, as Sir H. Rawlinson has shown: and Ish, a *being. *(See on Genesis 2:23.) We have now Enosh, which, according to Fürst and others, signifies *mortal; *but of this there is no proof. Most probably it is the generic word for man. and is used as such in the Aramaic dialects. Thus in Syriac and Chaldee our Lord is styled *bar-enosh, *the son of man: not the son of a mortal, but the son of man absolutely. **Then began men (Heb., *then it was begun**) to call upon the name of the Lord (Jehovah).*—That is, the notion of Divinity began now to be attached to this name, and even in their worship men called upon God as Jehovah. Eve, as we have seen, attached no such idea to it; and when, in Genesis 4:3, we read that Cain and Abel brought an offering to Jehovah, these are the words of the narrator, who in the story of the fall had expressly styled the Deity Jehovah-Elohim, that is, Jehovah-God, or more exactly, “the coming God,” in order to show that Elohim and Jehovah are one. Two hundred and thirty-five years had elapsed between the birth of Cain and that of Enos, and men had learned a truer appreciation of the promise given to their primal mother, in Genesis 3:15, than she herself had when she supposed that her first child was to win back for her the Paradise. Probably they had no exact doctrinal views about His person and nature; it was the office of prophecy “by divers portions” to give these (Hebrews 1:1). But they had been taught that “He who should be” was Divine, and to be worshipped. It is the hopeless error of commentators to suppose that Eve, and Enos, and others, knew all that is now known, and all that the inspired narrator knew. They thus do violence to the plainest language of Holy Scripture, and involve its interpretation in utter confusion. Read without these preconceived notions, the sense is plain: that the name Jehovah had now become a title of the Deity, whereas previously no such sacredness had been attached to it. It was long afterwards, in the days of Moses, that it became the personal name of the covenant God of the Jews. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission. Bible Hub