Seed, under the designation of Jehovah, or Melach Jehovah, when he was locally and visibly present. It is to be considered that Moses wrote about 2500 years after the creation; that the children of Israel had retained the language and customs of their ancestors, so as to render it superfluous to particularize either the religious or civil institutions of earlier times, any farther than was necessary to the personal narratives or historical notices of individuals and families. They understood and practised what had been handed down from the beginning through Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and others, and though to some extent infected with the idolatrous spirit of the Egyptians, were familiar with the ritual, the sacrifices and offerings, and other institutions of the revealed system of religion. Moreover, all that concerned their religious doctrines and rites was, under his ministry, renewed, and with new revelations and ordinances set forth in writing for their instruction, and that of their successors. Hence the scanty, and for the most part merely incidental, mention of things of that nature in his retrospective history. It by no means follows from the brevity and infrequency of his notices, that such men as Abel, Enoch, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Job, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose united lives extended from the first institution of religious rites down to the settlement of Israel in Egypt, had not a clear and comprehensive knowledge of all the leading truths and essential doctrines of revealed religion, which were known to Moses or any of his successors prior to the advent of Christ. On the contrary, judging from the characters and relations which they sustained, the personal converse with Jehovah which most of them are recorded to have had, and the references made to several of them in the prophets and in the New Testament, we must conclude that they had such knowledge. They received instruction directly from the Great Revealer. Most of them were, at times, inspired, and prophesied. And one might as well conclude that Solomon did not understand even the simplest forms of numerical computation, because mathematics are not mentioned among the subjects upon which he spoke or wrote, as to conclude, because so little is recorded of them in detail by Moses, that these men of world-wide celebrity for their religious faith and practice, and their eminence as princes and heads of nations, did not understand the doctrines and the faith which they professed, and for which they are set forth as examples to Christian believers under the present dispensation. The possession of such knowledge on their part, and the reality of the local presence and often the visible appearance of the Messiah, the Messenger Jehovah, may be illustrated by reference to the personal history of Moses, Noah, and Joshua, and to the use of terms by them and by other sacred writers.