Genesis 4:18 names him as a son of Irad (עירד), Kayin's grandson. The Masoretic text is somewhat bewildering though, because it names him twice in the same verse, but differently: first as Mechuya-El, then as Mechiya-El (מחייאל).
Nor is the etymology very obvious, though most scholars reckon that it is probably not a Yehudit word anyway. Those who insist that it is Yehudit root it in Machah (מחה) + El (אל) = "struck down" by El, but nothing in the story corroborates it (mostly because he is named, but there is no story).
The problem lies in the Vav-Yud (וי) or Yud-Yud (יי) middle letters, which tends to suggest either a missing letter or a confusion over two letters resolved by using both - but which is it? If we read Mechuya-El as Machah-Yah-El (מחה-יה-אל), the interpretation would be "he who extended the worship of Yah to the worshippers of El" - which of course is precisely what happened at some point when the Phoenicians and the aboriginal Beney Kena'an first came in contact, probably around 2000 BCE, at or just before the time of Av-Raham. If we also read Metusha-El (מתושאל= Methuselah) - the son of Mechuya-El, according to the following verse - as a variant upon Metushelach (מתושלח), as the alternate list in Genesis 5 suggests, the logic of this is further emphasised, since the root-word Shalach (שלח) likewise means "to send" or "to extend". Metusha-El may then be read as "man of El", from the Kena'ani (Canaanite) word Metu (מתו) = Man; or may be linked to the Underworld god Mot (מות).
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