Mahalalel

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

His life, according to Scripture

According to the Hebrew (Masoretic) text, Mahalalel was sixty-⁠five when Jared was born. He lived eight hundred and thirty years afterward and had other sons and daughters, and in all he lived eight hundred and ninety-⁠five years (Genesis 5:12-17). The Septuagint, which the Orthodox Church follows, gives a hundred and sixty-⁠five years at the birth of Jared and seven hundred and thirty afterward, the same total. His father, Kenan, was seventy (in the Septuagint a hundred and seventy) when Mahalalel was born.

By the chronology of the Hebrew text, Mahalalel lived at the same time as Adam, Seth and the patriarchs down to Noah. He saw his grandson Enoch, who pleased God and was taken by Him without seeing death (Genesis 5:24), while Mahalalel was still alive. He died when Noah was two hundred and thirty-⁠four.

The name

The name Mahalalel is usually explained as the Hebrew word for "praise" with the name of God, so "God is praised" or "praise of God." The exact sense is not fully certain.

Veneration

The Church remembers Mahalalel with the other patriarchs on the Sundays before the Nativity of the Lord. Scripture says nothing about his deeds or his tomb. Books outside the canon, such as Jubilees and the Book of Enoch, mention him, but the Church does not receive them as Scripture.