to bear young · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Irad
עִירָ֔ד'i.Rad
H5897
Irad · proper noun, a man's name
Irad
וְעִירָ֕דve.'i.Rad
H5897
Irad · conjunction + proper noun, a man's name
begat
יָלַ֖דya.Lad
H3205
to bear young · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Mehujael
מְחֽוּיָאֵ֑לme.chu.ya.'El
H4232
Mechujael or Mechijael · proper noun, a man's name
Mehujael
וּמְחִיּיָאֵ֗לu.me.chi.ya.'El
H4232
Mechujael or Mechijael · conjunction + proper noun, a man's name
begat
יָלַד֙ya.Lad
H3205
to bear young · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Methusael
מְת֣וּשָׁאֵ֔לme.Tu.sha.'El
H4967
Methusael · proper noun, a man's name
Methusael
וּמְתוּשָׁאֵ֖לu.me.tu.sha.'El
H4967
Methusael · conjunction + proper noun, a man's name
begat
יָלַ֥דya.Lad
H3205
to bear young · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Lamech
לָֽמֶךְLa.mekh
H3929
Lemek · proper noun, a man's name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 36:2 Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Z…
Genesis 5:21 And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 4:16-18
We have here a further account of Cain, and what became of him after he was rejected of God.
I. He tamely submitted to that part of his sentence by which he was hidden from God's face; for (Gen 4:16) he went out from the presence of the Lord, that is, he willingly renounced God and religion, and was content to forego its privileges, so that he might not be under its precepts. He forsook Adam's family and altar, and cast off all pretensions to the fear of God, and never came among good people, nor attended on God's ordinances, any more. Note, Hypocritical professors, that have dissembled and trifled with God Almighty, are justly left to themselves, to do something that is grossly scandalous,…
builded a city--It has been in cities that the human race has ever made the greatest social progress; and several of Cain's descendants distinguished themselves by their inventive genius in the arts.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 4:17
She - bare Enoch - As חנוך Chanoch signifies instructed, dedicated, or initiated, and especially in sacred things, it may be considered some proof of Cain's repentance, that he appears to have dedicated this son to God, who, in his father's stead, might minister in the sacerdotal office, from which Cain, by his crime, was for ever excluded.
John Gill on Genesis 4:18
And unto Enoch was born Irad,.... But of neither of them is any other mention made, either in sacred or profane history; nor is it said how old Enoch was when Irad was born, nor how long he lived after; as is recorded of Adam, Seth, and their posterity:
and Irad begat Mehujael, and Mehujael begat Methusael; of whom also we have no other account:
and Methusael begat Lamech; and it seems for the sake of Lamech that the genealogy of Cain's posterity is described and carried down thus far, some things being to be taken notice of concerning him. The names of the immediate posterity of Genos or Cain, according to Sanchoniatho, and, as Philo Byblius (l) has translated them, were light, fire, and…
The Church Fathers
That Cain remained alive until the seventh generation is clear. First, … it had been so decreed concerning him. Second, the length of the lives of those first generations also testifies to it. For if his father Adam remained alive until the ninth generation, that of Lamech, and was gathered from the world in the fifty-sixth year of Lamech, it is no great thing that Cain should remain until the seventh generation.
The text runs: "Methushael begot Lamech, who took two wives: the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Sella. And Ada brought forth Jobel; who was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of herdsmen. His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the psaltery and cittara. Sella bore Tobel; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tobel was Noema." This is as far as the line of descent from Cain is carried. There are eight generations in all, including Adam. The seventh is that of Lamech, who was the husband of two wives; the eighth is that of his children, among whom is the woman who is mentioned by name. What is here delicately intimated is that to the very end of its existence the earthly city will be propagated by physical births proceeding from the union of the sexes. This is why we are given the proper names of the wives of the last man mentioned as begetting children—a practice unheard of before the flood, except in the case of Eve.
Moreover, Enoch begot Irad, and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech, who took two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the other was Zillah, and Adah bore Jabal. The progeny of Cain is counted up to the seventh generation, and in this generation, he himself was killed by Lamech, being freed from the sevenfold punishments which he had long borne. In this entire offspring that was born from him, having been also polluted by the adultery of Lamech adding to the curse, perished with the coming flood. Defiled indeed by adultery in the sixth generation, but destroyed by the flood in the seventh generation, in which it is spiritually conveyed that the city of the impious, that is, the entire society of the reprobate, will corrupt itself with crimes in the six ages of this world, but in the seventh, which is in the future, it will perish eternally. For just as Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was taken up into paradise and man did not see him, because he lives in peace with God, so the seventh from Cain, Jabal, is interpreted as "Change," and he was destroyed by the flood with his brothers and all his progeny, and man did not see him, because he was punished with eternal death, and from the glory of the world which he loved, he was changed into the punishment which he did not foresee. In these, it is clearly indicated, as we have said, that the holy tend towards rest in another life after the six ages of this world, and the reprobate towards punishment, as also the history narrated by the Lord about the poor Lazarus and the proud rich man clearly proves.
Dictionary and topics
Cain — A possession; a spear. (1.) The first-born son of Adam and Eve (Gen. 4). He became a tiller of the ground, as his brother Abel followed the pursuits of pastoral life. He was “a sullen, self-willed,…
Deep — Used to denote (1) the grave or the abyss (Rom. 10:7; Luke 8:31); (2) the deepest part of the sea (Ps. 69:15); (3) the chaos mentioned in Gen. 1:2; (4) the bottomless pit, hell (Rev. 9:1, 2; 11:7;…
Enoch — Initiated. (1.) The eldest son of Cain (Gen. 4:17), who built a city east of Eden in the land of Nod, and called it “after the name of his son Enoch.” This is the first “city” mentioned in Scripture.…
Irad — Runner; wild ass, one of the antediluvian patriarchs, the father of Mehujael (Gen. 4:18), and grandson of Cain.
Lamech — The strikerdown; the wild man. (1.) The fifth in descent from Cain. He was the first to violate the primeval ordinance of marriage (Gen. 4:18-24). His address to his two wives, Adah and Zillah (4:23,…
Mehujael — Smitten by God, the son of Irad, and father of Methusael (Gen. 4:18).
Methusael — Champion of El; man of God, a descendant of Cain (Gen. 4:18), so called, perhaps, to denote that even among the descendants of Cain God had not left himself without a witness.
Naamah — The beautiful. (1.) The daughter of Lamech and Zillah (Gen. 4: 22). (2.) The daughter of the king of Ammon, one of the wives of Solomon, the only one who appears to have borne him a son, viz.,…
And Cain knew his wife. From the context we may gather that Cain, before he slew his brother, had married a wife; otherwise Moses would now have related something respecting his marriage; because it would be a fact worthy to be recorded, that any one of his sisters could be found, who would not shrink with horror from committing herself into the hand of one whom she knew to be defiled with a brother's blood; and while a free choice was still given her, should rather choose spontaneously to follow an exile and a fugitive, than to remain in her father's family. Moreover, he relates it as a prodigy that Cain, having shaken off the terror he had mentioned, should have thought of having children:…
The family of the Cainites. - Gen 4:16. The geographical situation of the land of Nod, in the front of Eden (קדמת, see Gen 2:14), where Cain settled after his departure from the place or the land of the revealed presence of God (cf. Jon 1:3), cannot be determined. The name Nod denotes a land of flight and banishment, in contrast with Eden, the land of delight, where Jehovah walked with men. There Cain knew his wife. The text assumes it as self-evident that she accompanied him in his exile; also, that she was a daughter of Adam, and consequently a sister of Cain. The marriage of brothers and sisters was inevitable in the case of the children of the first men, if the human race was actually to…
the father of: Or the ancestor of, and so throughout the verse. Hebrew genealogies do not necessarily list every single generation.
Rashi on Genesis 4:18
.חנוך AND IRAD BEGET — There are passages where it says of the male הוליד, and there are places where it says ילד, because this root ילד is used in two senses: in reference to a woman giving birth to a child through the agency of a male old French naitre; English to give birth to and the act of begetting by a man old French engendrer; English engender, beget. When it says הוליד, [in the Hiphil form] it speaks of the man in his relation to the act of giving birth by the woman — this or that man caused his wife to give birth to a son or daughter; when it says ילד it refers to the act of begetting by the man himself.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
— General references
Lamech · 1. Father of Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal- — 1. Father of Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-
Mehujael · General references — General references
Methusael · Father of Lamech — Father of Lamech
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).