Kenan

Kenan (Qenan in Hebrew, Cainan in Romanian) was one of the patriarchs before the flood, of the line of Seth, the son of Enosh and the father of Mahalalel. The holy Evangelist Luke counts him among the ancestors of the Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 3:37-38). The Church honours him with the other holy forefathers, on the Sundays before the Nativity.

His life, according to Scripture

According to Genesis 5:9-14, Kenan was born when Enosh was ninety (in the Septuagint, a hundred and ninety). When he was seventy, a hundred and seventy in the Septuagint, he fathered Mahalalel. He lived eight hundred and forty years afterward (seven hundred and forty in the Septuagint), had other sons and daughters, and died at nine hundred and ten. By the chronology of the Hebrew text, he lived at the same time as Adam, Seth and Enosh, and died when Noah was a hundred and seventy-⁠nine.

The meaning of the name is uncertain. The Kenan of this life should not be confused with another Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, whom the Gospel of Luke (3:36) and the Septuagint (Genesis 11:12) mention but the Hebrew text lacks.

Veneration

The Church remembers Kenan with the other patriarchs on the Sundays before the Nativity of the Lord. Scripture says nothing about his deeds or the place where he died. Through him runs the line of Seth from Adam to Noah and on to Abraham, David and Christ. The Book of Jubilees, which is not Scripture, gives the name of his wife, but the Church does not receive that book.