Genesis 5
1 This is the written account of Adam's family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.
5 Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.
6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.
7 After he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.
9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.
10 After he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived a total of 905 years, and then he died.
12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13 After he became the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived a total of 910 years, and then he died.
15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. 16 After he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years, and then he died.
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch.
19After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years.
24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. 26 After he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Altogether, Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.
28When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 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.” 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Who's Your Daddy?
Genesis 5
I always feel like I am flying through the Bible at this point! So many important stories are packed into Genesis. We get a cool family tree here because the trunk is God.
Notice the creation of man is repeated briefly. Repetition of ideas is used a lot in the OT. Most people could not read and these ideas were read to them orally. Hearing things more than once helped provide context and aided long-term memory.
We are told that God named us mankind. Another version says we are all named man. Another says we were all named Adam. GNT says we were named human beings. How PC of God. Adam was made first, so I think it is ok that the mold is named after him. Our name and line are united in Adam. We are, wait for it, the Adam's family. Da-da-da-dump. Click-click. Ok, that was a side trip to weird.
God made Adam. We are also told that Adam lived to 930 and had a kid at 130. Can you imagine middle-age at around 500? I have a Biblehead friend who believes that every generation is less than the generation before it. Like we are leaking God's breath as we go on. I hate to think I am less than the previous generations I recall, but it is a theory. It is also counter-cultural because we are supposed to believe that we are progressing forward, not winding down. I also notice that this is ONLY Seth's line from Adam. Why? This is the line Christ came through. It is sort of fitting that the Son who dies comes through the line of the replacement for the son who died.
We are told that Seth was in Adam's image. This is a step down since Adam was taken from God. God is perfect and immortal, Adam is sinful and immoral. We resemble Adam more than we do God. Yep, I blame my nose on Adam and my hips on Eve.
Seth has Enosh when he is 105 years old. Seth only lives 912 years (he was so young, barely 900, they said at his funeral). This reminds me of a meme, I will attach.
Enosh, an early bloomer, had a kid named Kenan at youthful 90 years old. Enosh lived to 905.
Kenan has a kid at 70. The kid is Mahalalel – can you imagine yelling that name to get the kid home for dinner? Like yodeling! Kenan lives to 910.
Mahalalel, age 65, fathered Jared. He had other kids and lived until age 895.
Jared is next. My brain is sending me mixed messages involving the diamond store and the creepy Jared from the Subway commercials. This Jared did not have kids until he was 162. Oh, crazy youth! He gave birth to Enoch. He lived to be 962!
Enoch fathered Methuselah. A name I recognize! After Methuselah was born, Enoch began serving God. Enoch lived on earth one year for each day in the year and then God took him away. This is the first person in the Bible who did not die. I wonder what happened to bring him back to God. We are not told, but it does coincide with the birth of Methuselah. We also know that Enoch has a role later in the Bible in the Second Coming. So put a pin on that one.
Methuselah is the longest living person in the Bible and is a Legend. His name means, according to Bibleheads, a javelin weapon. I know in music, however, selah is a pause. Maybe he was both. One Biblehead says (see below for full material):
Methuselah lived 969 years. If you add up the length of time between Methuselah's birth and Noah entering the ark (187+182+600), it is also 969 years. That means, in the very year Methuselah died, the Flood was sent forth like a javelin on the earth.
Me again. I wonder which of Cain's kids was alive at this point. There is no way to know because we are not given the age of death for Cain's line. Interestingly, we get so much detail about some of the details in Cain's line, but no dates. Still found a few charts to attach.
Methuselah becomes a daddy at age 187 – the kid is Lamech. Didn't we have a Lamech in Cain's line? Looked and yep. Must have been in the popular name book for that millennium. A pretty thin book at that point. I still do not think I would reuse that one after what his distant cousin did.
This Lamech (at age 182) gave birth to Noah. He names him this to mean comfort in labor. Sounds like he wanted a ranch hand and got a sailor instead. Lamech lives for 777 years. If you look at the chart, he lives to the same year as his father. When they die, Noah is gearing up for the flood. Noah probably thought “I am glad Dad did not live to see this day.”
Another interesting thing about Noah is that he was the first generation alive without meeting Adam. Noah fathered Shem, Ham and Japheth. Names we know well. Noah is old by OT standards when he begets. Add Ham to my growing list of really bad Bible names. Really? Was Noah eating when Ham was born?
Chat:
TJ: Not a big fan of the family tree chapters like this one. It feels like we are looking at someone else's Ancestry account. Yawn. I know, it is Christ's account, but I do not know these people. I also do not really get the importance of all of this since the tree has gaps later on. I mean, if I could link things all the way back to Adam, I would understand. But there are gaps later. I know this: these lines were very important to believers in the OT. They were important to God. Understanding early believers is important to me. God is important to me. Thus, by the transitive property, I care about genealogies. But I don't have to like it!
