Genesis 5:4

וַיִּֽהְיוּ יְמֵי־אָדָם אַֽחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־שֵׁת שְׁמֹנֶה מֵאֹת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנֽוֹת׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

Tap a word to see its entry

✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַיִּֽהְי֣וּ יְמֵי־אָדָ֗ם אַֽחֲרֵי֙ הוֹלִיד֣וֹ אֶת־שֵׁ֔ת שְׁמֹנֶ֥ה מֵאֹ֖ת שָׁנָ֑ה וַיּ֥וֹלֶד בָּנִ֖ים וּבָנֽוֹת׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἐγένοντο δὲ αἱ ἡμέραι Ἀδάμ μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Σὴθ ἑπτακόσια ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Et facti sunt dies Adam, postquam genuit Seth, octingenti anni: genuitque filios et filias.

Spanish

Después del nacimiento de Set, Adán vivió ochocientos años más, y tuvo otros hijos e hijas.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y fueron los días de Adam, después que engendró á Seth, ochocientos años: y engendró hijos é hijas.

English

And after he had become the father of Seth, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse states the number of years Adam lived after fathering Seth — eight hundred years (shemoneh me'ot shanah, H8083/H3967/H8141) — and closes the notice by saying he fathered additional banim ("sons", H1121A) and banot ("daughters", H1323G). This follows the pattern of the Genesis 5 genealogy, which records lifespans in two segments: before and after a named son's birth.

Key words

yihyu ("they were", H1961) — qal verb with narrative vav, opening the clause as a continuation of the genealogical account ("and [the days] were...").
acharei ("after", H0310A) — construct form governing the infinitive that follows, marking the temporal starting point for the count of years.
holido ("his fathering", H3205) — hiphil infinitive (causative stem, "to cause to bear/beget") with the third-person suffix -o ("he"), meaning "his begetting [Seth]."
shemoneh me'ot shanah ("eight hundred years", H8083/H3967/H8141) — numeral construction: shemoneh ("eight") modifying me'ot ("hundreds," feminine plural), followed by shanah ("year," singular used distributively after numerals).
vayyoled ("and he fathered", H3205) — same hiphil root as holido, now narrative finite verb form, marking a new event in sequence ("and then he fathered...").

What the text says

The verse is built around two occurrences of the hiphil root y-l-d ("to father/beget"), first as an infinitive construct (holido) inside a temporal clause introduced by acharei ("after"), and second as a finite narrative verb (vayyoled) that advances the story. This grammatical repetition ties the number of years directly to the act of fathering Seth: the days of Adam are counted "after his fathering Seth," and the numeral phrase shemoneh me'ot shanah ("eight hundred years") specifies that count.

The object marker et (H0853) before Shet signals that Seth is the direct object of the infinitive holido, confirming the grammatical link between father and son within the temporal clause, rather than Seth being merely mentioned in passing. The final clause, joined by the conjunction u- ("and", H9002) before banot ("daughters"), lists banim ("sons") and banot ("daughters") as plural nouns without specifying number or names, contrasting with the singular named son, Seth, mentioned earlier.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew states shemoneh me'ot shanah ("eight hundred years"), which the Vulgate renders as "octingenti anni" ("eight hundred years"), matching the Hebrew numeral. The LXX (Swete text), however, gives ἑπτακόσια ἔτη ("seven hundred years"), a numerically different figure from the Hebrew and Vulgate. This is a divergence in the specific numeral recorded, not in the general structure of the verse, which in all versions states years lived after fathering Seth, followed by the notice of additional sons and daughters.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.