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If the slaughter of Cain shall be punished in him that shall kill him, whosoever he be, my death shall be much more certainly and severely revenged by God upon any man that shall murder me. These words may be either,

1. A profane scoff: q.d. Since Cain, my father and pattern in murder, was so far from being punished by the hand of God, that he had a special protection from him that no man should dare to touch him, I (whose murder is not so heinous as his was) shall not fare worse than he, and therefore have no reason to fear either God or men. Or,

2. An argument or ground of his security: q.d. I am not only secured by my own puissance, but by God’s providence; which certainly will be more watchful over me, who have not committed any such horrid crime, than over him that killed his own innocent brother.

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She gave the name, but not without Adam’s consent, Genesis 5:3. She spoke by Divine inspiration.

Note that the word

seed is used of one single person here, and Genesis 21:13, Genesis 38:8; which confirms the apostle’s argument, Galatians 3:16.

Instead of Abel; to succeed his father Adam, as Abel should have done in the priesthood, and administration and care of holy things in the church of God.

Enos properly signifies a miserable man, to note the great wickedness and wretchedness of that generation, which the Hebrew writers generally observe.

To call upon the name of the Lord; to pray unto God, to worship God in a more public and solemn manner; praying being here put for the whole worship of God, as Genesis 12:8, Genesis 26:25, and in many other places. According to the marginal version, the sense is this: Then when the world was universally corrupt, and had forsaken God and his service, good men grew more valiant and zealous for God, and did more publicly and avowedly own God, and began to distinguish and separate themselves from the ungodly world, and to call themselves and one another by the name of God, i.e. the sons, servants, or worshippers of God as they are expressly called; and that, as it seems, upon this occasion, Genesis 6:2. And in this sense this phrase is elsewhere taken, as Isaiah 43:7, Isaiah 44:5, Isaiah 65:1. Some render the place thus, Then began men to profane the name, i.e. the worship, of the Lord, by idolatry or superstition. But this seems neither to agree with the Hebrew phrase, nor to suit with this place, where he speaks of the posterity of Seth; who were the holy seed, and the only church of God then in the world.

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The manner of man’s creation repeated, Genesis 5:1-2. The genealogy, age, and death of the fathers from Adam to Noah, in the line of Seth. Seth begotten of Adam after his image, Genesis 5:3. The piety and translation of Enoch, Genesis 5:24. Lamech’s prophecy of his son Noah, Genesis 5:29. Sons born to Noah, Genesis 5:32.

This is the book, i.e. the list or catalogue, as this word is taken, Nehemiah 7:5 Matthew 1:1, as it is also put for any short writing, as for a bill of divorce, as Deu 24:1-2.

The generations of Adam, i.e. his posterity begotten by him; the word being passively used. But he doth not here give a complete list of all Adam’s children, but only of his godly seed, which preserved true religion and the worship of God from Adam to the Flood, and from whose loins Christ came, Luke 3:1-38.

God created man. This is here repeated to note the different way of the production of Adam, and of his posterity; his was by creation from God, theirs by generation from their parents. See Genesis 1:26.

See Genesis 1:26 Matthew 19:4 Mark 10:6. He

blessed them with power to propagate their kind, and with other blessings. See Genesis 1:28.

Called their name Adam; which name is given both to every man, as Genesis 9:6 Psalm 49:20, and to the first man, as Genesis 2:23, and to the whole kind, both the man and the woman, who are called by one name, to show their intimate union and communion in all things.

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Adam lived an hundred and thirty years after he was created, in which time he begat other sons and daughters, as appears from what was said before.

After his image; either,

1. In regard of the natural frame of his body and soul; but this was so evident of itself, that the mention of it had been frivolous. Nor is there any reason why that should be said of Seth, rather than of Cain or Abel. Or,

2. In regard of his corruption, q.d. a weak, sinful, mortal man, like himself; for Adam’s image is here plainly opposed to the likeness of God, wherein Adam is said to be created, Genesis 5:1. And this is fitly said of Seth to signify, that although he was a worthy and good man, and, Adam excepted, the most eminent person of the whole church of God; yet he, no less than wicked Cain, was begotten and born in sin; and that all the difference which was between him, and consequently between other good men, and the wicked progeny of Cain, was not from the nature which they received from Adam, but from the grace infused into them by God.

Whose names and numbers are here passed over in silence, as not belonging to the genealogy of Christ, nor to the following history.

The long lives of men in ancient times, here noted, are also mentioned by heathen authors; and it was wisely so ordered by God, both for the more plentiful increase of mankind in the first age of the world, and for the more effectual propagation of true religion and other useful knowledge to the world. And many natural reasons might be given why their lives were then longer than afterwards.