Note: When doing a study on a book in the Bible you use a lot of resources. The major influence for me on this study of Genesis is The Genesis Record by Henry Morris. This study was done such a long time ago I am not sure what other sources was used but I thought it was interesting for the studies in Genesis.
The Decendants of Seth
Introduction
Three facts seem to be emphasized in the record of the ten antediluvian patriarchs in Genesis 5: (1) God was preserving and recording the divinely ordained line of the promised Seed, with the appropriate genealogical and chronological data; (2) God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” was being carried out, since the record recites that each one in the line “begat sons and daughters”; (3) God’s curse was also in effect, since in spite of the fact that each man lived many hundreds of years, eventually “he died.”
This list of names and ages of the antediluvians, which may seem dull and monotonous at first, thus becomes meaningful and exciting on closer inspection. It is from this section, telling us that men once were able to live almost a thousand years, that we deduce something of the marvelous nature of the world’s primeval environment. It also indicates that men were able to father children during most of their long lives (Enoch had a son at age sixty-five, for example, and Noah at age five hundred). There is no reason to think, of course, that the men whose names are listed were the first born sons of their fathers. Seth, the first in the list, was the third son of Adam; and Shem was possibly the second or third son of Noah (Genesis 10:21). The recorded names are those sons who turned out to be in the line of the promised Seed.
Rom 5:12-14 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned; (13) (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. (14) Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
Adam’s Generation Ends
Gen 5:1 This is the book (what book? The bible) of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God (this is about to change in verse 3). 2) He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.
It is interesting to note that the record of Cain’s descendants stops with the deeds of Lamech, who was in the seventh generation from Adam. From the chronologies of Genesis 5, it is evident that Adam died during the lifetime of Enoch, who was also in the seventh generation from Adam. This suggests that Adam still kept up with Cain and his descendants as long as he lived, even though Cain had so severely alienated himself from his family. Likewise, there was apparently stilt some belief in his father’s God, as noted before, in Cain’s own line, until about this same time.
It is also interesting to note that, while Genesis 5:1 contains the first mention of “book” (or, one might say, “Bible”) in the Old Testament, the first mention of “book” in the New Testament is in Matthew 1:1, “the book of the generation of Jesus Christ.” Thus the first book tells of the origins of the first Adam; the second book speaks of the origins of the last Adam, who is “the Lord from heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:47).
3) And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness (in Adam’s own likeness), after his image, and named him Seth. 4) After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5) So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. (“for the wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23
Generations of Seth to Enoch
6) Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh. 7) After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters. 8) So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died. (Gen 5:9) Enosh lived ninety years, and begot Cainan. (Gen 5:10) After he begot Cainan, Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and had sons and daughters. 11) So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died. 5:12) Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Mahalalel. 13) After he begot Mahalalel, Cainan lived eight hundred and forty years, and had sons and daughters. 14) So all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died. 15) Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, and begot Jared. 16) After he begot Jared, Mahalalel lived eight hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters. 17) So all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred and ninety-five years; and he died. 18) Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and begot Enoch. 19) After he begot Enoch, Jared lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters. 20) So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died.
Age at Birth Of Next
Patriarch Year of Birth Patriarch Year of Death
Adam 1 130 930
Seth 130 105 1042
Enos 235 90 1140
Cainan 325 70 1235
Mahalaleel 395 65 1290
Zared 460 162 1422
Enoch 622 65 987*
Methuselah 687 187 1656**
Lamech 874 182 1651
Noah 1056 500 2006
*Enoch did not die, but was translated.
**Methuselah died in the very year that the Flood came.
Assuming no gaps in these genealogies (a possibility which perhaps cannot be ruled out completely, but for which there is certainly no internal evidence), there was a total of 1,656 years from the Creation to the Flood. The recorded ages are somewhat larger in the Septuagint and certain other ancient versions, but most scholars believe these have been somewhat artificially elongated and that the Massoretic text preserves the original numbers.
Taking the recorded ages at face value, it is interesting to note that Adam lived until Lamech, the father of Noah, was fifty-six years old, and Noah was born only fourteen years after the death of Seth. Most likely, the oldest of the living patriarchs maintained the primary responsibility for preserving and promulgating God’s Word to his contemporaries. Since both Enoch and Lamech were outlived by their fathers, there were only seven men in the line before Noah who had this responsibility. This probably explains why, in 2 Peter 2:5, Noah is called “eighth preacher of righteousness” in the “old world.”
Enoch
21) Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. (Gen 5:22) After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. 23) So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. 24) And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Enoch’s “walk” with God was probably not literal in the sense in which Adam had walked with Him in the garden before the Fall. Enoch shared the fallen nature of all men and thus could not physically even “look upon God and live,” unless God chose to veil His glory in theophanic revelation, as He later did on occasion to Abraham and Moses. In any case, “by faith” (Hebrews 11:5), in prayer and by obedience to His Word, Enoch maintained close fellowship and communion with God, a privilege equally possible to us today (Col 2:6 As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, ; Gal 5:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.; 2Co 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.). It is important to note that his walk with God was not such a mystical, pietistic experience as to preclude an effective family life or a strong and vocal opposition to the unbelief and wickedness of his day.
The climax of Enoch’s testimony was an event all but unique in history. “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him” (Hebrews 11:5). This is the inspired interpretation of the phrase here in Genesis: “he was not, for God took him.” Somehow, in actual physical flesh Enoch was supernaturally carried up into heaven, where presumably he still is today.
Nearly twenty-five centuries later, another prophet, Elijah, was similarly taken into heaven without dying (2 Kings 2:11). It is significant that Enoch prophesied about midway between Adam and Abraham, and Elijah about midway between Abraham and Christ, and that both ministered in times of deep apostasy.
One intriguing possibility to consider is that Enoch and Elijah may have been taken into heaven without dying because of a further ministry God has for them in the futurenamely, that of serving as God’s “two witnesses” during the coming Tribulation Period. These witnesses are also identified as the “two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth” in Zechariah 4:14. These anointed ones, these witnesses, are real men, not angels, as is evident from the fact that they are to be slain when they have “finished their testimony,” and then resurrected (Revelation 11:7-12) and translated. But if they are men in the flesh and yet were “standing by” the Lord in the days of Zechariah, they must have been born in the world sometime before Zechariah’s day. Somehow they must have been preserved against death, in heaven, for many centuries. So far as we can judge from Scripture, only Enoch and Elijah could meet such specifications.
Methuselah
25) Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and begot Lamech. 26) After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had sons and daughters. 27) So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.
A further intriguing aspect of Enoch’s prophetic ministry is suggested by the name of his son Methuselah, born when Enoch was sixty-five years old (that the long ages of the patriarchs were measured in true years and not in months, as some have suggested, is obvious from the implication that such an interpretation would have made Enoch only five years old when his son was born!).
The meaning of this name is doubtful, though many scholars have said it means “man of the spear.” Such a name as this, however, would hardly have been in character for Enoch to select as a name for his favorite son.
Many ancient and modern commentators have interpreted the name Methuselah as meaning “When he dies, it shall be sent.” If this suggestion is correct (and there is at least a possible basis for it), then a justifiable inference is that Enoch, the prophet of coming judgment, had receivedat the time of the birth of this sona special revelation concerning the coming judgment of the great Flood. God, however, promised him that it would not come as long as Methuselah lived; and Enoch gave him a name to commemorate that prophetic warning and promise. This may possibly be the significance of the fact that Methuselah lived longer (969 years) than any other man in history whose age was recorded. “God is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). As He is long-suffering toward godless men today, so He was long ago, “when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing” (1 Peter 3:20).
28) Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and had a son. 29) And he called his name Noah, saying, "This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed." 30) After he begot Noah, Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years, and had sons and daughters. 31) So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years; and he died. 32) And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Methuselah’s son Lamech, like his grandfather Enoch, was a prophet of God (prophesying at least concerning his own son Noah). These are the only two antediluvian patriarchs from whom portions of their actual prophecies have been recorded in Scripture. It is also interesting that these are the only two antediluvian patriarchs who were outlived by their own fathers (Enoch was translated 435 years before Jared’s death, and Methuselah outlived Lamech by five years).
For some reason also, Enoch and Lamech are the only two whose names had already been given to certain of their distant relatives in the ungodly line of Cain. It is probable that the Cainite Enoch and Lamech were both living when the Sethite Enoch and Lamech were born. One wonders whether the latter may even have been named after the formerpossibly in the hope that this gesture of family affection might be a testimony which would lead them back to God. On the other hand, they may simply have been common names in the population of that day.
The antediluvian line culminates in Noah (whose name means “rest”) and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. At Noah’s birth, his father Lamech prophesied of a coming time when the curse would be removed, indicating that the memory of Creation and the Fall was still fresh in the minds of at least those who had received and believed the records transmitted to them from Adam. This is strong evidence that there cannot be any large “gaps” in the genealogies of Genesis 5. It is impossible to harmonize this record with the evolutionary speculations placing man’s origin at several million years ago.
Lamech (as well as Adam, Abel, and Enoch) was undoubtedly one of those in Peter’s mind when he spoke of “the times of restitution [or ‘restoration’] of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). Noah, as the one who would by his ark preserve life as the cursed earth was being “cleansed” by the waters of the Flood, was only a precursory fulfillment of Lamech’s prophecy, of course. The promised Seed was still future, but in Him and His promised coming were true “rest” and “comfort.”
Lamech, like all the other patriarchs, “begat sons and daughters” in addition to Noah. It seems probable that these brothers and sisters of Noah must have perished in the Flood. Moreover, there must have been many others in the Sethite line that also perished, since it could hardly have been only the Cainites who had begun “to multiply on the earth” (Genesis 6:1). Thus, the wickedness and corruption which had become rampant had affected both branches of the human family by this time, except probably for the godly remnant in the direct line from Enoch to Noah.
