Seth

Seth (Heb. Shet, “appointed” or “granted”) is the third named son of Adam and Eve. Genesis records his birth at the close of chapter 4: “God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew” (Gen.4.25). The Sethite line is set in deliberate contrast to the line of Cain. Where Cain’s descendants build a city and turn to violence (Gen.4.17–24), Seth’s descendants are marked by worship: in his days “men began to call upon the name of the LORD” (Gen.4.26). His son Enosh, grandson Kenan, and great-grandsons run through the genealogy of Genesis 5, ending with Noah ten generations later. Seth himself lived 912 years (Gen.5.8). The New Testament traces the genealogy of Jesus through Seth (Luk.3.38), so that the promised seed of the woman (Gen.3.15) comes through this preserved line. Evangelical interpretation reads Seth not as a mythic figure but as a real ancestor in the antediluvian chronology.