Seven Generations (Gen 4:18)

You Can’t Go Home Again

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¹⁸ And Irad generated Mehujael; וְעִירָ֕ד יָלַ֖ד אֶת־מְחֽוּיָאֵ֑ל

and Mehijael¹ generated Methusael; וּמְחִיּיָאֵ֗ל יָלַד֙ אֶת־מְת֣וּשָׁאֵ֔ל

and Methusael generated Lémekh. וּמְתוּשָׁאֵ֖ל יָלַ֥ד אֶת־לָֽמֶךְ׃

We’ve got three subjects today:

• the grammatically unusual way in which these boys come into the world;

• a few comments on their names; and

• the remarkable likeness between these names and some of those we’ll see in Genesis 5.

First, let’s get these boys born.

We saw last time that Irad came into the world in a grammatically unusual (though not unique) way: He “was born,” marking him as the subject of a passive verb, and then was marked with the sign את et, marking him as the object of an active verb. Okay, it happens.

Whether or not Irad learned from his mistake (or from his father’s mistake), the next generations are described in a quite different way: father (subject) / verb (active) / son (object). Seems more rational, no? But there are a couple of grammatical peculiarities here too.

Some of you, I suppose, were expecting to see that Irad begot Mehujael. Don’t worry, we’ll be getting to that verb in Genesis 5. Despite the fact that all the translations I’ve looked at use the same English here and there, the verbs in the two places are not the same. Both use the root ילד y-l-d, but Genesis 5 uses it in the Hiphil while our text uses it in the Qal. As I’ve pointed out over and over, changing the verb pattern — the binyan (see Lesson 15 of my Hebrew course) — is supposed to change the meaning of the root. Rashi explains:

Sometimes “begot” is expressed by the causative Hiphil form holid; sometimes, as here, by the simple Qal form yalad, which elsewhere means “give birth.” The basic meaning of the Hebrew verb is “to generate.” In the Hiphil it means that a male is causing the female to generate a child; in the Qal, that the male is generating a child by means of his seed.

I’ve made these men “generate” their sons for the reason Rashi notes, and also to evoke the tol’dot (literally “generations”) that we first saw in Gen 2:4 as a structuring device for the book of Genesis. I realize that’s not a very literary translation for a guy who claims Genesis is literature. However, I don’t claim to be able to make the translation as literary as it ought to be; instead, as you know, I’m translating in a way that forces us to think about the text rather than read it superficially.

It's worth noting that the verbs in all three of these phrases are not “consecutive” verbs, telling us that these births followed in sequence — though they obviously did. It may be that we are not actually reading prose but listening to a recitation, where narrative grammar gives way to a sort of chanting. That’s why I’ve placed each phrase on a separate line rather than grouping them like prose.

Could that be the reason the verbs say “bear” rather than “beget”? Could be. We’ll see the same phenomenon in Genesis 10, the Table of Nations. The old Brown-Driver-Briggs dictionary notes: “in Hex a mark of J” — that is, in the Hexateuch (Genesis through Joshua), it is the J source that uses the Qal of ילד to mean “beget.” TDOT adds:

In line with the basic meaning “bring forth,” the qal is used with a male subject in genealogies (Genesis, 1 Chronicles), but also in Prov. 17:21; 23:22, 24; in these instances it means “beget.”

The (presumably pre-exilic) J source and (Persian period) 1 Chronicles would not seem to belong together, but as we’ll see shortly, Chronicles used Genesis as reference material. Here’s what must have happened with this verb, as explained by S.R. Driver (the Driver of Brown-Driver-Briggs), whom I’m quoting from a 2000 article by Ronald Hendel:

יָלַד was for a time used indifferently of either parent, though far more frequently in actual usage of the mother; and to this fact is due, doubtless, the adoption of הוֹלִיד, for greater distinctness, of the father.

We’ll have many more occasions to speak about changes in the language over the 1,000 years during which the Bible was written.

Now a few words on what, if anything, the names can tell us:

• Enoch: as noted, we’ll add to what we already said when we talk about him in Genesis 5.

• Irad: has to have been named after the city of Eridu.

• Mehujael: has been derived (per Sarna) from ḥ-y-h, meaning “God makes live”; from m-ḥ-h, meaning “blotted out by God”; and from Akkadian maḫḫû, “an ecstatic,” meaning “seer of God.”

• Methusael: perhaps “man of God,” since mt means “men” or “people” (see Gen 34:30).

• Lémekh: per HALOT, Arabic (of what era?) has a word yalmak meaning “a very powerful man.” Cassuto suggests a relationship with Akkadian lumakku, “which signifies a certain class of priests.”

It’s worth noting that Mehijael and Methusael have -el names, that is, their names incorporate the name of the God called El, originally the head of the council of the gods before YHWH took over that role and, eventually, that name as well. There’s not another such name until we get to Gen 10:28, and El himself will not appear until Genesis 14, so perhaps I can find a way to come back to this subject on a much sooner Sunday.

For today, I want to make sure we look at the eight generations from Adam to Noah given here in comparison with those given in Genesis 5.

• Genesis 4

  • 1    Adam

  • 2    Cain

  • 3    Enoch [חנוך]

  • 4    Irad

  • 5    Mehijael

  • 6    Methusael

  • 7    Lémekh

  • [Noah]

• Genesis 5

  • Adam = 1 of the Genesis 4 list

  • Seth [replaces 2]

  • Enosh [אנוש]

  • Kenan ~= 2

  • Mahalalel ~= 5

  • Jared ~= 4

  • Enoch = 3

  • Methuselah ~= 6

  • Lémekh = 7

  • [Noah]

And don’t forget this one:

^{1 Chr 1:1} Adam, Seth, Enosh; ² Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared; ³ Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech; ⁴Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. [NJPS]

That’s exactly our Genesis 5 list, of course — plus 3 members of Generation 11 for lagniappe.

David Kimhi (in my Commentators’ Bible translation) offers an illuminating remark:

Though our chapter does not say so, all these names were meant to commemorate some particular incident or other. That was the custom in the early generations. Sometimes the reason for the name is given, other times not. But the midrash explains these particular names.

To me it seems worth noting that the two lists are counting generations differently. For Genesis 5, Adam is Generation 1 and Noah is Generation 10, which certainly seems significant. For Genesis 4, Noah comes not in the 7^thgeneration, but after 7 generations (presuming that is significant, which I do presume). There are two different chains of tradition here.

Explaining them as coming from two different sources, as most scholars would do, does not really tell us what we’d most like to know: Where did these traditions come from, and who preserved them so differently and yet so similarly? Sorry — I also don’t have the answer to that question.

We’ll talk more about Lémekh (including why I don’t name him Lamech, as translations typically do) next time.

1. I’m replicating the Hebrew text, which replaces the ו of מחויאל, this second time, with a י, presumably by mistake; the two letters are easy to confuse when handwritten.