Littérature du Second Temple sur La Genèse 4:25

[10] Adam, then, is driven out by God; Cain goes out voluntarily. Moses is showing us each form of moral failure, one of free choice, the other not so. The involuntary act, not owing its existence to our deliberate judgement, is to obtain later on such healing as the case admits of, “for God shall raise up another seed in place of Abel whom Cain slew” (Gen. 4:25). This seed is a male offspring, Seth or “Watering,” raised up to the soul whose fall did not originate in itself.

[54] Surely he is not ignorant how the names of persons should be given. We see indeed that later on he will show his knowledge plainly in speaking of this same person Eve. “Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and brought forth a son, and called his name Seth” (Gen. 4:25). Surely it was far more necessary in the case of the firstborn, who was the beginning of human generation through two parents, first to state the male sex of the child, and then to give his personal name, Cain, as it might be.

Returning to Gen. 4:25 Philo deduces from the word “raised up out of” (the earth) the doctrine that God sows nothing futile in our souls. He takes the word “another” (seed) to mean ‘other than Cain’ in one way, ‘other than Abel’ in another way, and goes on to work out Seth’s ‘otherness’ from Abel. Whereas Abel has relinquished all that is mortal, and gone hence to a higher life, Seth, sprung from human excellence, will never relinquish the human race, but be ‘enlarged’ in it. He is ‘enlarged’ in righteous Noah, the tenth from Adam; in faithful Abraham, another tenth; in Moses, wise in all things, seventh from Abraham. The limit of knowledge attained by Seth is Noah’s starting-point; Noah’s limit is Abraham’s starting-point; and Abraham’s limit the starting-point of Moses (170–174).