Genesis 05

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:52utc

Chapter five is more than "the written account of Adam's line" as the NIV calls it or the KJV's and the RSV's: "the book of generations of Adam." It is a genealogy with a message.

It does give the family tree of Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalahel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah and Noah's three sons. A total of eleven generations. The Pulpit Commentary adds up the ages of the fathers at the birth of their sons and comes up with a total of 1656 years in the Hebrew text. The Septuagint, however, adds up to a different total of 2262. The question is if we are looking at an exact genealogy or a sketch of the development of mankind. The tendency in other genealogical lists in the Bible seems to be to omit names of people, who have made no impact on the history of salvation. This list is highly selective, as we can see from the fact that only one son in each family is mentioned; so we do well not to take this chapter as a basis for calculating the age of man on earth.

This genealogy has its highlights in different places: Adam, Enoch and Noah are the main points of focus, Adam as the original man made in God's image, Enoch because of his intimate fellowship with God, and Noah because of his role in the preservation of the human race during the flood.

The first two verses go back to Paradise. We read: "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them 'man.' "

Seen in the context of the preceding and following chapter, this chapter sheds light on the reason of what happens next. Chapter six is one of almost total despair, we would almost say, even for God. This chapter brings us to the reality of things. In the middle of it shines a light that has eclipsed the degeneration of mankind for centuries: Enoch's walking with God and his "translation" into glory. The reminder of God's likeness in man in the beginning and the promise of salvation at the birth of Noah, are the important points to ponder in these verses.

I remember a teacher in elementary school explaining the importance of the phrase "then he died," which occurs eight times. It starts with the death of Adam and ends with Lamech's. He thought the emphasis on death to be the main message of this chapter. But in between we see the victory over death in Enoch, which my teacher overlooked. After thus flying over the chapter and getting the bird's eye view, we should approach it more systematically.

The first verse pictures man as a creation in the likeness of God, as male and female. It mentions the blessing of procreation and that God gave the name "man" (Adam), Eve being included in the word. But when we get to verse three we have jumped an enormous chasm, almost as big as the one between ch.1:1 and 2. The image of God in man is damaged, almost beyond recognition.

The woman has disappeared from this chapter. Of course she is there in the birth of every child, but she is never mentioned, and the blessing of producing life turns into the bringing into the world of a being that is doomed to die. The chapter starts in Paradise with the creation of man in the likeness of God. Without overly spiritualizing the chapter we can see a picture of Jesus Christ in these words. As we said before, God must have had the body of Jesus in mind when He created Adam.

Nobody bore so strongly the likeness of the Father as the Son, even to the point that He could say to Philip: "Do not you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father?' "[ 1 ] And the writer to the Hebrews says: "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being."[ 2 ]At the end of the chapter we see the picture of the Holy Spirit in the type of Noah, in connection with whom is it said: "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed."

At the beginning of creation the Spirit of God brooded over the water. During the flood the Holy Spirit of Christ was in Noah in the ark on the water.[ 3 ]But in vs. 3 we read: "When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth."

The difference between the likeness of God in Adam and the image of Adam in Seth is the difference of the fall. Seth was born with the experience of evil in him. He was a sinful human being, far removed from the original purity of his parents when they were created. And as soon as he was old enough to act on his own he proved that he was a son of his father, who chose for his own will instead of for the will of God.

When he was born and grown up "men began to call on the name of the LORD." But this was not the fellowship Adam and Eve had know with God in the cool of the day; it was a "Kyrie eleison!" (Lord have mercy!)

As we said before, this chapter does not describe the history of mankind, but the history of salvation. When Noah was born the world population had grown impressively. It is hard to guess how many there would have been, but we are probably talking about one or more million. Yet, only one family tree is traced, which eventually leads to the Messiah. Vs. 4 says: "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters." We know that before Seth was born Adam had other sons and daughters also. Otherwise the mention of Cain's wife would really be a mystery. Of all these patriarchs nothing is said except that they had a son, that they lived a certain number of years and that they died. Scripture seems to rush over these centuries to come to one man: Enoch. The span of Enoch's life on earth was a paltry 365 years, nothing in comparison with the others, particularly with his son Methuselah. But the quality of his life outshines all the others. We read in the verses 22-24: "And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." We could wish for more details on this first man who never died.

Scripture sheds a little more light on him in Hebrew epistle, where we read: "By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God."[ 4 ]Yet, Enoch must have been a sinful man. He was a son of Adam and he had inherited Adam's nature. But he must have taken his sin seriously and he must have applied the atoning blood of the sacrifices he brought daily and consistently. I have an inkling that he must have interceded for his generation to the point of offering his life to God in death in order to save others. Something in Enoch must have reminded God of His Son, Jesus Christ. Enoch must have taken the attitude of Moses, when he interceded for the people of Israel. We read that Moses said to God: "But now, please forgive their sin; but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."[ 5 ]People who are willing to die for the salvation of others never die even if their body expires. But even Enoch's body did not expire.

The Bible does not tell us any of these things about Enoch, but our conjecture cannot be too far off. After all, God could not compromise His righteousness. He did not just like Enoch. Enoch could only become the object of His eternal love, when the conditions of God's righteousness were met, and evidently somehow they were. The result is that "Enoch walked with God!" The Bible uses the same expression about Noah in ch. 6:9. We will get to that later. The Pulpit Commentary says about the expression "to walk with God": "The phrase, used also of Noah, and by Micah (ch.vi, 8...) portrays a life of singularly elevated piety; not merely a constant realization of the Divine presence, or even a perpetual effort at holy obedience, but also 'a maintenance of the most confidential intercourse with the personal God.' It implies a situation of nearness to God, if not in place at least in spirit; a character of likeness to God (Amos iii.3), and a life of conversing with God."

The life of Enoch proves two things: first that it is possible to love God even in the presence of sin. Enoch not only lived in a world that was so sinful that God abhorred it, and came to the terrible conclusion that He was sorry He had made man (ch. 6:6), but sin was in Enoch's own heart. He needed atonement just as much as the most corrupted of his race. But in a world full of sin and with a heart that tried to deceive him daily, he walked with God.

Secondly, death was conquered in Enoch for the first time in human history. God did with Enoch that which could not be done. Not only did Enoch get an advance payment on the atoning death of Jesus on the cross in the forgiving of his sins, but he also got an advance payment on the resurrection of Christ in the translation of his body and extraction of his sinful nature. God gave him a taste of the fruit of theTree of Life . Theologically this is impossible. But what is impossible for theologians is not impossible with God. With God all things are possible!

He even got a preliminary hearing of the sound of the last trumpet. Because to Enoch happened, what the Apostle Paul prophecies will happen to believers on the last day. In his First Corinthian epistle he says: "In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed."

How Satan must have cringed when Enoch walked straight into heaven, without even getting close to death. He must have realized how fragile his grip on mankind was. He rules over this earth through fear of death, but who can be afraid of death when he remembers Enoch? Who can be afraid of death when he remembers Jesus Christ?!

The Bible mentions one more thing about Enoch; that he was a prophet. In Jude we read: "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: 'See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones. To judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.' "[ 6 ]Jude quotes from the apocriphycal book of Enoch, chapter 1:9.

The Pulpit Commentary calls it an apocalyptic book and considers it a product of the second century BC, but admits that there are traces of ancient parts in it. The commentary believes that the book was ascribed to Enoch. There is no point in entering into such a controversy of Bible criticism here. If the Holy Spirit inspired the book of Jude, it means that Enoch was a prophet, who uttered a clear condemnation of his generation. There is in The Pulpit Commentary an interesting paragraph about manuscripts of the book of Enoch, found in the nineteenth century.[ 7 ]

Enoch walked with God. The expression stands for an intimate relationship. Such intimacy with God is rare among men, but we find some examples if it in the Bible. When God says about Abraham: "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?"[ 8 ] that surely shows an intimate relationship. James comments on the fellowship Abraham had with God by saying: "And the scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,' and he was called God's friend."[ 9 ]This was after Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. David is called by God "a man after his own heart."[ 10 ]And of Daniel we read that he is addressed by Gabriel: "O Daniel, man greatly beloved."[ 11 ]Davis says in the psalms: "The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant."[ 12 ]I like the KJV of this verse even better: "The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him."

Again we have to ask ourselves the question why there are so few people who enter into this intimacy with God? It can hardly be that God has favorites among His creatures in the sense that He loves some and others He does not like. God's eternal love goes out to all men. But some people respond and experience this love in a deeper way, like John, the apostle, who calls himself in his Gospel "the disciple whom Jesus loved,"[ 13 ]as if he was the only one in the crowd. By the grace of God I want to be such a man.

Enoch's son Methuselah sets the record for living the longest on earth; thirty one years short of a millennium. We get the impression that there was in the pre-flood condition of the world something, that is lacking in our present time, that stimulated longevity. Several years ago I read in TIME magazine that scientists had analyzed an air bubble inside a piece of amber which supposedly dated from the pre-flood period. It was discovered that the oxygen content of the air trapped inside was much higher than in the air in our present atmosphere. This could account for better health and a slower aging process. But this is peculation.

If it is true that before the flood our planet was wrapped in a much thicker layer of atmosphere than it is now, that sunlight was much more defused and ultra violet sun rays were blocked almost one hundred percent, which would have created living conditions quite different from ours. But we do not know. It is almost impossible for us, who are worn out at the age of seventy or eighty, to imagine what it would be like to live almost one thousand years. Obviously, the flood did make difference, since people's life span started to be greatly reduced from that time on.

One of the implications of the extreme aging of mankind (from our perspective at least), is that at the time of the flood, which would have been only 1500 years after Adam, if we follow the Hebrew age diagram in The Pulpit Commentary , Adam's grandson, or great grandson was still alive when it occurred. If we follow the Septuagint, which adds another 606 years, we are only one generation further down. Cainan, or Mahalaleel would have perished in the flood. This is hard for us to imagine.

The chapter rushes to the birth of Noah, who is Methuselah's grandson. Lamech calls the son that is born to him Noah. We read in vs.29 "He named him Noah and said, 'He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed.' " The root of the name Noah is nch in Hebrew which means 'to sigh, breathe, rest, lie down,' according to Murphy, quoted in The Pulpit Commentary . So the idea of comfort in the name is that of rest.

I recently read in The Quotable C. S. Lewis remarks about the purpose of labor, which according to Lewis, quoting Aristotle, is relaxation. We labor to be able to rest. If the goal of our work is not to enable us to stop working, we are indeed slaves. Evidently, the curse of the pre-flood population was the same as of our generation that we live to work, instead of working to live. The Ecclesiastes was right: it is only when a man is blessed by God that he is able to enjoy what he is doing, that he finds satisfaction in life. "What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, For without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."[ 14 ]

Lamech's naming of his son turned out to be rather ironical. Noah was the instrument of drastic changes in the world. But I am sure what happened during the flood was not the kind of comfort or rest from heavy labor that Lamech had in mind. Lamech died just a few years before the flood. Vs. 28 tells us that he was 182 years old when Noah was born. The flood started when Noah turn 600, according to ch. 7:6. Lamech would be been 782 at that time, but he died at the age of 777, we are told in ch. 5:31. Now we have come where this chapter wanted us to arrive. Noah is the last one of the pre-flood generation and the first one of the post-flood world population.

Chapter six is now going to introduce us into the conditions of the pre-flood time and the actual reason why God felt He had to destroy mankind and start anew.

[ 1 ] John 14:9

[ 2 ] Heb. 1:3

[ 3 ] See I Pet.3:18-20

[ 4 ] Heb.11:5

[ 5 ] Ex. 32:32

[ 6 ] Jude vs. 14,15

[ 7 ] Vol.22. Commentary on Jude, pg 12

[ 8 ] Gen. 18:17

[ 9 ] James 2:23

[ 10 ] I Sam.13:14

[ 11 ] Dan.10:11

[ 12 ] Ps. 25:14 (RSV)

[ 13 ] See John 13:13; 21:7,20

[ 14 ] Ecc.2:22-26