Enos (biblical figure)

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For other uses, see Enos.

Enos or Enosh (Hebrew: אֱנוֹשׁ, Standard Enoš, Tiberian ʼĔnôš; "mortal man; sick") is a biblical name in the genealogies of Adam, and consequently referred to within the genealogies of Chronicles, and of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. He is the son of Seth, father of Kenan, and grandson of Adam (Gen. 5:6-11; Luke 3:38). He supposedly lived nine hundred and five years.

In his time “men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26), meaning either (1) then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord (marg.) i.e., to distinguish themselves thereby from idolaters; or (2) then men in some public and earnest way began to call upon the Lord, indicating a time of spiritual revival. The tradtional Jewish writing of this verse, though, implies that it marked the beginning of idolatry, i. e. that men starting dubbing "Lord" things that were mere creatures. This is because the previous generations, notably Adam, had already "begun calling upon the name of the Lord", which forces us to interpret הוחל huchal not as "began" but as the homonym "profanated". In this light, Enosh suggests the notion of a humanity (Enoshut) thinking of itself as an absolute rather than in relation to God (Enosh vs. Adam).

This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.