After their son A'bel had been slain by his brother Cain, and Ad'am and Eve had been deprived of Cain as a result of the curse of God upon him, a third son was born to them. He was called Seth, which means "compensation" or "substitute." At the time of his birth his mother exclaimed: God hath given me another."
Little is known of Seth except there sprang from his lineage E'noch and No'ah, the two most notable characters of the next few centuries, and that he was head of the Messianic line which Je'sus came into the world. Ad'am reached the great age of 937 years, and many sons and daughters were born to him and Eve. These children increased in the same manner, as did their descendants, and since people of that era often lived eight or nine centuries the population was greatly increased.
For a period of more than a thousand years the history of the human race was overshadowed with a pale of silence and oblivion. The multiplied thousands who lived during that period had ideas, emotions, and habits common to all humanity, sustained relations to one another and to the universe much the same as those who live today, and owed supreme allegiance and obedience to God. New discoveries were made, great deeds were wrought, communications received from God, and the race moved forward in material progress. The Divine record, however, mentions only the fact that the people increased in wickedness until God so greatly repented their creation that He brought upon the world a deluge which destroyed every living creature except those who were preserved in the Ark which Noah prepared under His direction. As God looked down upon the world He saw that every imagination of man was continually evil, there were no doubt some good men whom the knowledge of God kept alive on the earth throughout that dark period. Only one man, however, was sufficiently distinguished for righteousness and true spiritual religion to gain recognition in the sacred annals. His name was E'noch, the subject of our next chapter.
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