Genesis 5:3
וַֽיְחִי אָדָם שְׁלֹשִׁים וּמְאַת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בִּדְמוּתוֹ כְּצַלְמוֹ וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־שְׁמוֹ שֵֽׁת׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַֽיְחִ֣י אָדָ֗ם שְׁלֹשִׁ֤ים וּמְאַת֙ שָׁנָ֔ה וַיּ֥וֹלֶד בִּדְמוּת֖וֹ כְּצַלְמ֑וֹ וַיִּקְרָ֥א אֶת־שְׁמ֖וֹ שֵֽׁת׃
ἔζησεν δὲ Ἀδὰμ διακόσια καὶ τριάκοντα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν κατὰ τὴν εἰδέαν αὐτοῦ καὶ κατὰ τὴν εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐπωνόμασεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Σήθ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Vixit autem Adam centum triginta annis: et genuit ad imaginem et similitudinem suam, vocavitque nomen ejus Seth.
Adán tenía ciento treinta años cuando tuvo un hijo a su imagen y semejanza, al que llamó Set.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y vivió Adam ciento y treinta años, y engendró un hijo á su semejanza, conforme á su imagen, y llamó su nombre Seth.
When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son in his own likeness, after his own image; and he named him Seth.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Genesis 5:3 states that Adam, at 130 years, fathered a son characterized as being "in his likeness, according to his image," and Adam named this son Seth. The verse repeats the vocabulary used in Genesis 1:26 to describe the creation of humanity, now applied to the transmission of that condition to the next generation.
Key words
- va-yechi ("and he lived", H2421) — qal narrative form of the verb "to live," opening the sentence with the standard narrative sequence marker (vav) that moves the story forward.
- bi-demuto ("in his likeness", H1823 + H9023) — feminine singular noun in construct with the pronominal suffix "his," governed by the preposition be ("in"), specifying the manner of the begetting.
- ke-tzalmo ("according to his image", H6754 + H9023) — masculine singular noun in construct with "his," governed by a different preposition, ke ("according to/like"), paired with demut to form a double expression.
- va-yiqra ("and he called", H7121H) — qal narrative form of "to call," marking the naming act as the final event in the sequence.
- sheloshim u-me'at shanah ("thirty and hundred year", H7970 + H3967 + H8141) — cardinal numbers combined to express "130," with shanah in the singular despite the plural quantity, a common construction for numbered years in this text type.
What the text says
The verse is built as a chain of three narrative verbs — yechi ("he lived"), yoled ("he became a father," hiphil causative of H3205), and yiqra ("he called") — each introduced by the narrative vav, producing the typical Hebrew storytelling rhythm of "and then... and then... and then." The age formula places the number before the noun shanah ("year"), with shanah remaining grammatically singular even though the quantity is 130, a pattern found elsewhere in this genealogical material.
The phrase describing the son combines two prepositions with two nouns: bi-demuto ("in his likeness") uses be, while ke-tzalmo ("according to his image") uses ke. Both nouns are in construct form with the third-person suffix "his," referring back to Adam. This is the same vocabulary pair (demut and tzelem) used earlier in the creation narrative, now describing the son's relation to the father rather than humanity's relation to the divine pattern. The direct object marker 'et before shemo ("his name") signals that "his name" is the grammatical object of the final verb yiqra ("he called").
Differences between versions
The LXX gives Adam's age at this event as "230" (διακόσια καὶ τριάκοντα) years, where the Hebrew sheloshim u-me'at and the Vulgate's centum triginta both read "130." The Vulgate renders the two-noun phrase as ad imaginem et similitudinem suam ("to image and likeness"), reversing the Hebrew order (demut then tzelem, i.e., "likeness" then "image"), while the LXX preserves the Hebrew sequence with eidea ("form") followed by eikona ("image").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.