What Does Genesis 4:26 Mean in the King James?
And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The same Hebrew verb names Enosh and calls upon the LORD, linking human mortality to a voice that turns toward divine nature.
THE MEANING
Your mortality is named without being hidden, and your voice still has somewhere to turn. To call on the LORD’s name is to call on the nature carried in that name, not merely to repeat a formula.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that mortality closes the story: here, the mortal is named, and people begin calling on the LORD’s nature.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָא
wayyiqra
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־א
q-r-ʾ
To call, summon, or proclaim.
“called / call upon” in this verse is wayyiqra. The Hebrew repeats qara: first a man calls the child Enosh, then people begin to call on the LORD’s name. English makes these sound like separate uses of “call”; the shared root links naming and invocation, with the LORD’s name carrying nature.
ALSO GROWS
qeri’ah: A calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
This branch keeps the voice audible: calling on the LORD’s name is speech that expresses what that name holds.
miqra: A convocation or assembly.
מִקְרָא
A calling can gather people together, opening the verse’s repeated call into a shared turning toward the LORD’s nature.
אֱנוֹשׁ
Enosh
GROWS FROM
אנשׁ
ʾ-n-sh
To be weak or frail; the root also describes grievous sickness.
“Enos” in this verse is Enosh. Enosh is more than a personal label: its name is bound to mortal humanity. The scene places the beginning of calling amid human fragility, where the LORD’s nature becomes the name toward which people call.
ALSO GROWS
enosh: A mortal human being.
אֱנוֹשׁ
The name carries the vulnerability of human life into the verse’s first act of calling.
anush: Grievously sick or incurable.
אָנֻשׁ
This related form keeps the root’s sense of frailty visible beneath the name Enosh.
THE PATTERN
When vulnerable human life calls on the LORD’s name, the call opens toward deliverance.
And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.THE THREAD
And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,The Hebrew verb translated “proclaimed” is qara, the same root repeated in Genesis 4:26. Here the LORD’s name is spoken together with the qualities carried in it, opening the phrase “call upon the name” as a call toward the LORD’s nature.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us