Genesis Deeper ㉒ Calling on the Name · How Were Cain's Family and Seth's Family Different? (Genesis 4:25~26)
This series takes one Bible passage at a time and looks at it a little more closely. The images are free to use in worship, class, and on social media.
Adam knew his wife again. She gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, saying, “for God has given me another child instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” A son was also born to Seth, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on Yahweh’s name.
Genesis 4:25~26 (World English Bible)
1. Two Verses After Lamech’s Song
The previous passage ended with Lamech’s song. Lamech, a descendant of Cain, had killed a man. Then he took the ‘sevenfold’ that God had spoken to protect Cain and turned it into a boastful song of ‘seventy-seven times.’
Right after that song, Genesis turns the story back to Adam and Eve. The two have another son, and Eve names the child Seth. Seth grows up, has a son, and names him Enosh. Then chapter 4 ends with this line:
“…At that time men began to call on Yahweh’s name.”
The eight verses before were the story of Cain’s family. These two verses are the opening of the story of Seth’s family. The two families are set side by side. That raises a question. How were Cain’s family and Seth’s family different?
2. Seth’s Family Has No Achievements on Record
When you read the two families side by side, one thing stands out first. Cain’s family fills eight verses. We meet a man who built a city, a man who lived in tents and kept livestock, a man who played the harp and pipe, and a man who made tools of brass and iron.
Seth’s family gets two verses. Nothing built and nothing made is recorded. A child is born and named, and that is almost all. On the surface, Cain’s family left behind far more.
The word ‘began’ is also puzzling. Abel had already brought an offering (4:4), and Adam and Eve had spoken with God. Does this mean that no one had spoken to God until then? Read that way, it does not fit the story so far.
Both puzzles are solved in the same place. What the text uses to set the two families apart is not a list of achievements. It is the verb ‘to call.’
3. Going Deeper · A Family That Gave Names, a Family That Called on the Name
Here is the answer first. Cain’s family put the name of Cain’s son on a city. In Seth’s family, people called on God’s name for the first time. Follow one Hebrew verb, and the difference becomes clear.
‘To call’ in Hebrew is qara. From Genesis 1 to Genesis 4, this verb appears fifteen times. Thirteen of those times it is used for giving something a name. God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night.’ Adam gave names to the animals and to his wife. Cain, Eve, and Seth named a city and their children.
Only twice is it used not for naming, but for calling out to someone. The first time is Genesis 3:9.
“Yahweh God called to the man…”
This is where God called to the man hiding among the trees. The second time is today’s verse, 4:26, where people called on Yahweh’s name. Even in English you can see the link, because the World English Bible uses the same word in both places: God “called to the man” in 3:9, and at the end of chapter 4 “men began to call on Yahweh’s name.” Until now in Genesis, the one calling out to someone has always been God. In the last verse of chapter 4, for the first time, people call on God.
So ‘began’ does not mean that no one had spoken to God before. Adam answered when God called him (3:10), and Cain also spoke to Yahweh (4:13). Answering and speaking to God had happened before. But people calling out to God by his name is first recorded here. That first time is what ‘began’ points to.
Carry this verb back to Cain’s family, and the difference sharpens. In verse 17, ‘call’ and ‘name’ also appear together.
“…He built a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.”
Cain put a name on the city he built, and the name was his own son’s. Verse 26 also uses ‘call’ and ‘name’ together. But this time no name is put on anything. Instead, people call on Yahweh’s name. In the Hebrew of chapter 4, the word ‘name’ appears eight times. The names of the city, Cain’s son, Lamech’s two wives, Jabal’s brother Jubal, Seth, and Enosh come one after another, and the eighth and last is the name of Yahweh.
The one thing recorded about Seth’s family is not an achievement. It is that they called on that name. And with that one thing, the text sets the two families apart.
4. Word Study · Seth · Enosh · Began · Call on the Name
① Seth · shet (שֵׁת). When Eve gives this name, she says that God ‘has given’ her another child. The word translated ‘has given’ is shat (שָׁת), which basically means ‘to put’ or ‘to set.’ Shet and shat sound almost the same. The child’s name carries Eve’s words, ‘God has set him here for me.’
② Enosh · enosh (אֱנוֹשׁ). It is a person’s name, and it is also a word that means ‘man’ or ‘human being.’ The word appears most often in Job and Psalms. It is the ‘man’ in Psalm 8:4, “what is man, that you think of him?…” and in Psalm 103:15, “As for man, his days are like grass…” So some have read this name as ‘frail, mortal man.’ After Lamech sang of seventy-seven times, it was in the days of a child with this name that people began to call on Yahweh’s name.
③ Began · huchal (הוּחַל). The verb ‘to begin’ is used here in the form ‘it was begun.’ In exactly this form, it appears only here in the entire Hebrew Bible. The text does not put the spotlight on who started it. It simply records that the calling began.
④ Call on the name · liqro beshem (לִקְרֹא בְּשֵׁם). In Genesis, ‘call on Yahweh’s name’ appears five times, and the first is 4:26. The other four are Abraham three times (12:8 · 13:4 · 21:33) and Isaac once (26:25). What began in Seth’s family continues in the fathers of faith.
5. One More Thing · Eve’s Two Sentences
In chapter 4, Eve speaks at the births of two of her sons. When her firstborn Cain was born, she said:
“…I have gotten a man with Yahweh’s help.” (Genesis 4:1)
When Seth is born, she says:
“…God has given me another child instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” (Genesis 4:25)
The first sentence also mentions Yahweh. But the subject of the sentence is ‘I.’ In the second sentence, the subject has changed to ‘God,’ and Eve herself stands in the place of the one who receives: ‘me.’ This second sentence also holds the names of Abel, the son she lost, and Cain, the son who killed him.
One son has died, and the other has left Yahweh’s presence. After all that, Eve says of her new son, ‘God has given.’ She makes God, not herself, the subject of her sentence. And in the very next verse, in that son’s family, people begin to call on Yahweh’s name.
6. For Us Today
This passage leaves us with one message. What sets a family’s story apart is less what it achieved than whose name it calls on.
Just as Cain put his son’s name on a city, we also spend our days putting names on things. We quietly write our own names on the work we have done, the roles we hold, and the promises we have kept. That is not wrong in itself. The text does not blame Cain’s family for the city they built or the tools they made.
But some days, when we look back, there is not much to write down. Seth’s family had no achievements on record either. Yet the Bible remembers that family as the family that called on God’s name. Even on a day when we achieve little, the place for calling on God’s name is still open. At the end of today, we can simply say, “God,” and call on his name once.
“God, you called first to the one who was hiding. Now we call on your name. When we are busy putting our own names on what we have done, keep us from losing the place where we call on your name. On days when we have achieved little, help us count first what you have given. Amen.”
🕊 How to Use This in Ministry
Opening question
Ask, “What things in our classroom have name tags on them?” and find a few together. Then say, “In today’s Bible story, there is someone who put a name on something, and there are people who called on a name,” and move into the passage.
Activity
Divide the board into two columns. Write ‘Verse 17: Cain’ on the left and ‘Verse 26: Seth’ on the right, and copy out both verses underneath. Read the two verses together and circle every ‘name’ and ‘named.’ For each circle, ask, “Where was this name put?” On the left, write ‘His son Enoch’s name was put on the city.’ On the right, write ‘The name Enosh was put on his son.’ When you ask the same question at the last circle on the right, ‘Yahweh’s name,’ it becomes clear that it was not put on anything. It was called on. Next, show the two images captioned ‘At that time men began to call on Yahweh’s name’ and ask the children what the people are doing. Finally, with the ‘God has given me another child’ image on screen, read verse 25 and find together who Eve says has given.
Application
Have each child write a one-line prayer on a small card, starting with “God,”. This week, once a day before bed, they can read the card aloud, starting from that first word.
🖼️ Today’s Four Images · Press and hold or right-click to save
At that time men began to call on Yahweh’s name |
God has given me another child |
At that time men began to call on Yahweh’s name |
He named him Enosh |
📄 Image license CC0 (public domain) · Free to use, modify, and redistribute without attribution.
🤖 These images were created with AI (Grok).
📖 Genesis Deeper ㉑ Seventy-Seven Times · how Lamech took God’s word without God and turned it into a boast of his own
🇰🇷 한국어 · 🇺🇸 English (current) · 🇰🇭 ភាសាខ្មែរ
Origin Bible · Mission Zedero
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✍️ This article was written with the help of AI and reviewed by a person.
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