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RighteousOld Testament

Righteous Forefather Mahalaleel

Antediluvian; lived 895 years (Genesis 5:17)

Also known as Mahalalel · Maleleel

An antediluvian patriarch in the line from Seth to Noah.

December 14New Calendar
Feast Day
December 27Old Calendar
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Commemorated as

The Holy Righteous Forefather Mahalaleel

Life

Mahalaleel (also spelled Mahalalel; rendered Maleleel in the New Testament) is one of the antediluvian patriarchs of the Sethite line that runs from Adam through Seth to Noah. Scripture names him chiefly within its genealogies and records little else about his life.

He is the son of Cainan (Kenan) and the father of Jared, and so the grandfather of Enoch and a forefather of Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. The Orthodox Church commemorates him among the Holy Forefathers, the ancestors of Christ according to the flesh, on December 14 and on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers before the Nativity.

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Place in the Antediluvian Line

All that Scripture relates of Mahalaleel is a genealogical notice in Genesis 5. According to that account Cainan was seventy years old when he begat Mahalaleel; Mahalaleel in turn was sixty-five years old when he begat Jared, lived eight hundred and thirty years afterward, and died at the age of eight hundred ninety and five years.

Through this line he stands between Cainan and Jared in the descent from Seth to Noah, making him an ancestor of Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. He appears again in the genealogical list of 1 Chronicles 1:2 and in the genealogy of Jesus Christ given in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 3:37). The traditional rendering of his name is 'the shining one of El,' though the Genesis narrative supplies no account of his deeds.

Among the Holy Forefathers

Mahalaleel is venerated not for a recorded individual story but as one of the righteous forefathers of the Old Covenant. On the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, which falls between December 11 and 17 before the feast of the Nativity, the Church commemorates the ancestors of Christ according to the flesh who lived before the Law and under the Law, especially the Patriarch Abraham, and among whom the antediluvian patriarchs of the Sethite line from Adam to Noah are numbered.

His commemoration thus rests on his place in the genealogy that the Gospel traces back to Adam, rather than on any narrative beyond it.

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Synaxis of the Holy Forefathers and Foremothers
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Family
His father in the genealogy of Christ.
Righteous Forefather Cainan
Son; the line continued through him.
Righteous Forefather Jared
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Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints