names...

^{Genesis 4}

²⁵ Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” ²⁶ Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.

At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD.

***

We return to the original pair.

Apparently, this is the first time 'Adam' appears without a definite article in front of it.  Previously it could be translated as 'Adam' or 'the man', but now it is more characteristically a proper name.

Seth is born to Adam's wife, and as with her other sons, she does the naming, seeing him as a gift from God in the face of what happened to Abel.  The text is unlittered by feeling, with no glimpses of maternal emotion, but something in the phrase suggests to me that there is gladness where formerly there was sadness.  Perhaps that's just me. After all, one of her two previous sons was murdered; the other was his murderer.

Seth also produces a child, and he names him Enosh - the first time a father has named a son.

At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD.

An interesting phrase, and I suspect one that has been discussed at length by various commentators and scholars.

Is this the first reference to worship ritual?  Is the distance from God needing something to fill it - are the humans reaching out to their creator?  Are they trying to work out to cover the distance, by calling on his name?*

*I find the use of God's name in these passages interesting.  God reveals himself as 'YHWH' to Moses in Exodus, but not only does the narrator(s) use it to refer to God in some of these passages, but it's put in the mouths of the humans themselves (see Eve, Genesis 4:1).  Is this a suggestion of the previous intimacy in the garden - implying that they know his name? 

Is this reference to calling on the name of Yahweh a reference to the divine name being used, or simply a way of saying they were calling on God himself?  Is 'calling on the name of Yahweh' synonymous with calling on Yahweh himself - just a particular way of putting it?