Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Enosh lived ninety years, and became the father of Kenan. Enosh lived after he became the father of Kenan eight hundred fifteen years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. All of the days of Enosh were nine hundred five years, then he died.“
(Genesis 5:9-11)

Enosh had Kenan when Adam was 325 years old – not even middle age! They had another 605 years together before Adam died. Enosh outlived Adam by 210 years and his own father Seth by 98 years. Enosh died 1,140 years after Adam and Eve came out of the garden. Enosh was 821 years old when Noah was born and they had 84 years together. That means that Noah’s knowledge of God could have been second-hand knowledge (Adam to Enosh to Noah).

Kenan means networker or composer from the verb קנן (qanan), to weave into dynamic networks. It is similar to Cain’s name, and according to the sage Steinsaltz, also has intimations of ownership and acquisition [kinyan].

Like Adam and Seth, Enosh also had other sons and daughters. The exact number is not given, but with their long lives the population at this point could have been quite large. After all, we are only following a single line here. We’re not told of all the sons and daughters that their sons and daughters were having. Assuming a conservative average of six (6) children per couple (three females and three males) with an average of twenty-five (25) years per generation, after one hundred (100) years there would be over one thousand five hundred (1,500) people. Since this pattern continues for several generations, even if they were all waiting for a hundred years before starting, we can see that by the time of the Flood there could have been not only hundreds of thousands of people, but even millions.