Righteous Forefather Seth

Place in the Genealogy

Genesis records that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born (the Septuagint gives the figure as 230). Seth in turn lived 105 years and then begat a son, Enos (also rendered Enosh). Through Enos the line continues — by way of Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech — to Noah, so that Seth is reckoned the ancestor of Noah and, through him, of all later mankind. The same descent is repeated in the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 1:1-3.

In the New Testament, Seth appears in the genealogy of Jesus given in Luke 3:23-38, which traces the human ancestry of Christ back through Seth and Adam to God. This is the ground of his veneration among the Holy Forefathers: he stands in the chain of righteous ancestors through whom the line leading to the Incarnation was preserved.

Genesis records that all the days of Seth were 912 years, and that he died.

Calling on the Name of the Lord

Of Seth's own deeds the Scripture says little. Its one distinctive note attaches to his son: "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" (Genesis 4:26). The flowering of the worship of God in the days of Seth's son is thus traditionally read as marking the line of Seth as a godly lineage, set apart from the line of Cain — the reason Orthodox memory honors him among the righteous forefathers of Christ rather than for any narrated act of his own.