1 Chronicles 1:1

The book of Chronicles is a look back at the history of the people of Judah. It was written after the people returned from their captivity in Babylon. The closing words of the book are the proclamation from Cyrus king of Persia: “The LORD, the God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you—may the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up” (2 Chronicles 36:23).

Although Cyrus allowed other captive peoples to return home, the significance for the Jews was that they were once again restored to the Promised Land, and there they wold await the coming of the Savior, promised from the very earliest times. The first promise of the Messiah, sometimes called the protevangel or “First Gospel,” was given as God was expelling Adam and Eve from Eden and speaking this curse to the devil: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

אָדָם שֵׁת אֱנוֹשׁ׃

1 Adam, Seth, Enosh

Before he brings us to his present moment, our author takes us back to the time of Adam with the simplest possible words: Adam, Seth, Enosh. After Adam and Eve's firstborn son Cain killed his younger brother Abel, God gave them many more children. After many years, they had a certain son that they named Seth. שֵׁת “Seth” is not the Hebrew spelling of the Egyptian god Set (Sutekh); rather, it means either “granted” or “substitute.” He was born when Adam was 130 years old (Gen. 5:3).

When Seth’s son Enosh (אֱנוֹשׁ) was born (Adam was by now 235; Seth was a mature 105, Genesis 5:6), men “began to call on the name of the LORD” (Genesis 4:26b). This meant that men began to go out of their way to preach and share the gospel. After 235 years, the world was becoming filled with people. With more than 9 generations born and raised, the thousands of people in Seth’s family line were beginning to encounter the thousands of people in Cain’s family line, and the need to share the message of forgiveness was more and more obvious as they saw so many who, as Paul says, “live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.” (Philippians 3:18-19).

After Enosh died, 1,140 years after God formed Adam from the red clay of Eden, there was an emptiness in the world. Sin and death were the things common to all mankind. But by this time, Enoch, the great-great grandson of Enoch, was already taken up into heaven—the promise of life after death, a heaven even more beautiful and blessed than the Eden they were forbidden from re-entering, was there in the promise of the protevangel and the story of Enoch.

A savior from sin—everything in Chronicles points us back to this; to him. The Savior is the descendant of these men: Christ traces his human lineage back through them: Adam, Seth, Enosh. And we find our forgiveness and our eternal salvation in Christ.