cainan Summary and Overview

possession; smith. (1.) The fourth antediluvian patriarch, the eldest son of Enos. He was 70 years old at the birth of his eldest son Mahalaleel, after which he lived 840 years (Gen. 5:9-14), and was 910 years old when he died. He is also called Kenan (1 Chr. 1:2). (2.) The son of Arphaxad (Luke 3:36). He is nowhere named in the Old Testament. He is usually called the "second Cainan."

(possessor) 1. Son of Enos, aged 70 years when he begat Mahalaleel his son. He lived 840 years afterwards, and died aged 910. #Ge 6:9-14| 2. Son of Arphaxad, and father of Sala, according to #Lu 3:36,37| and usually called the second Cainan. The is nowhere named in the Hebrew MSS. It seems certain that his name was introduced into the genealogies of the Greek Old Testament in order to bring them into harmony with the genealogy of Christ in St. Luke's Gospel.

CAI'NAN (possession, or a smith). 1. The son of Enos. Gen 6:9-14; Luke 3:37. He is called Kenan, which is the correct form, in 1 Chr 1:2. He lived 910 years. 2. A son of Arphaxad, Luke 3:36; but as the name is not found in the Hebrew, it is probably an unwarranted interpolation into the Septuagint, and thence copied by Luke into his Gospel.

("possessor" or "weapon-maker"), as Tubal-cain comes from the Arabic "to forge" (Genesis 4:22). Son of Enos; aged 70 when he begat Mahalaleel; he lived 840 years more, and died at 910 (Genesis 5:9-14; 1 Chronicles 1:2). In Luke 3:36-37, second Cainan is introduced in the genealogy of Shem after the flood, a son of Cainan. A transcriber seems to have inserted it from the margin, where it was noted down from the Septuagint version of Genesis 10:24; Genesis 11:12; 1 Chronicles 1:18, but not in verse 24. For no Hebrew manuscript has it, nor the Samaritan Pentateuch, Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate versions from the Hebrew. Nor had even the Septuagint originally, according to Berosus, Polyhistor, Josephus, Philo, Theophilus of Antioch, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome. Beza's manuscript D, of Luke, omits it. Ephrem Syrus says the Chaldees in the time of Terah and Abraham worshipped a graven god, Cainan. The rabbis represented him as the introducer of idol worship and astrology.