"begat Cainan..." A philological analysis of the name of this patriarch reveals the identity of its meaning with the name "Cain", i.e. "acquisition, possession"; and this, of course, does not cast any unseemly shadow on this pious Sethite, since the very name of Cain, according to the idea contained in it, was significant and bright (IV:1).

10. After the birth of Cainan, Enos lived eight hundred and fifteen (715) years and begat sons and daughters. 11. And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years; and he died. 12. Cainan lived seventy (170) years and begat Mahalaleel.

"Cainan... begat Mahalaleel", which means: "praise, glory to God, or he who praises, glorifies Him". This apparently indicates the flourishing of religious interests under Cainan, the son of Enos, the first organizer of the service of God, in which a prominent place was occupied by the solemn invocation and glorification of the Creator (IV:26), the Provider of the world and the Redeemer of mankind.

13. After the birth of Mahalaleel, Cainan lived eight hundred and forty (740) years and begat sons and daughters. 14. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died. 15. Mahalaleel lived sixty-five (165) years and begat Jared. 16. After the birth of Jared, Mahalaleel lived eight hundred and thirty (730) years and begat sons and daughters. 17. And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred and ninety-five years old; and he died.

"Mahalaleil... begat Jared..." Derived from the Heb. The verb jarad, meaning "to descend, to descend," the name of this new patriarch refers to him as a man from somewhere "descending, descending, falling." Keeping both the literal and figurative meaning of the word, we are justified in assuming that it refers to both the physical descent of the Sethites from a certain height and their moral decline. Since the generation of Jared, the fifth from Adam through Seth, was contemporary with the generation of Lamech, the fifth from Adam through Cain, and since, on the other hand, there is a tradition that originally the Setites lived on the high places, and the Cainites in the low-lying valleys, it is not without plausibility that the Sethites, being carried away in the age of Jared by the beauty of the Cainite women of their time (headed by the beautiful Noah, IV:22), descended from their heights into the valleys of the Cainites, entered into criminal relations with them, and thereby fell morally. This opinion, proceeding from philology, is also based on the ancient Jewish tradition, recorded, among other things, in Book II. Enoch.

18. And Jared lived a hundred and sixty-two years, and begat Enoch. 19. After the birth of Enoch, Jared lived eight hundred years and begat sons and daughters. 20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died.

"Jared... begat Enoch..." The name of this patriarch, already known to us from the genealogy of the Cainites, points to his bearer as a renovator, initiator, sanctifier, in a word, to something new and, as a beginning, dedicated to God. But while Enoch the Cainite was the beginning of their temporal power and cultural domination (expressed in the construction of the first city of the same name), Enoch the Sethite, on the contrary, was a typical representative of primitive faith, hope and piety, in a word, everything that is united in the concept of Old Testament "righteousness".

21. Enoch lived sixty-five (165) years and begat Methuselah.

"Enoch... begat Methuselah..." In literal translation from Hebrew, this name, according to authoritative Hebrewists, means: "man of the arrow, man of weapons." Since, according to a more probable calculation, Methuselah perished in the very year of the flood, it is found possible to see in his name a symbolic indication of his death from this arrow of divine wrath, i.e., from the flood. And this is all the more probable since Methuselah's father, the righteous Enoch, according to the Apostle Jude (14-15) [374a], prophesied about the flood and, therefore, in the spirit of this insight, could easily give a corresponding name to his son.

22. And Enoch walked with God, after begat Methuselah, three hundred (200) years, and begat sons and daughters.

"And Enoch walked with God..." Such an expression occurs repeatedly in the Bible (VI:9; Micah VI:8 [374]; Mal II:6 [375], etc.), and everywhere it signifies the highest degree of the moral direction of man's life, when he has become deeply imbued with a reverent sense of divine omnipresence, that with the eyes of faith he constantly sees God before him, and in strict accordance with this he harmonizes the whole manner of his behavior and every step of his life. This expression is even somewhat broader, namely, it contains an allusion to the consequences of such good behavior, in the form of a special and exceptional closeness to God, as it is rendered in the Slavonic text: "and Enoch please God," as well as the Apostles Paul (Hebrews XI:5 [376]) and Jude (14 [377]).

24. The piety of Enoch and his taking alive to heaven.

23. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. 24. And Enoch walked with God; and he was gone, because God took him.

"and he was no more, because God took him..." "And not being found" (LXX, Slavic) — Enoch, i.e. he was not absolutely destroyed, but mysteriously disappeared from among men. This one deviation of the biblical author from his usual way of expressing the death of the patriarchs shows that the end of Enoch's earthly life did not resemble the death of the other patriarchs, and, therefore, was not ordinary. The further words of the text "because God took him" reveal this very idea, although perhaps also not sufficiently detailed and clear, turning to the biblical parallels for clarification of this phrase, we find that they are literally repeated once again regarding the prophet Elijah (2 Kings II), from whose history it is positively known that he was miraculously taken alive to heaven. The same thing, according to the Apostle Paul's interpretation, had happened even earlier with Enoch (Hebrews XI:5 [376]; cf. Sir L:16 [378]).