Seth (Gen 4:25)

You Can’t Go Home Again

²⁵ Adam was intimate with his wife again וַיֵּ֨דַע אָדָ֥ם עוֹד֙ אֶת־אִשְׁתּ֔וֹ

In vv. 23–24, Adam’s great-great-great-great-grandson uttered his song, or his boast, or his war-cry, or whatever you want to call it, to the two women who had borne Adam’s great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Yet now, in v. 25, we return to the (implied) conception of Adam’s own (third) child.

We’ll review this once again when we start Genesis 5; for now, let’s remember that vv. 17–22 of Genesis 4 seem to have come from a genealogy, one which most likely was recited to keep it in memory. But the “real” genealogy, the one that carries our story forward, will be the one in Genesis 5, as repeated so many centuries later in the first four verses of the book of Chronicles.