Genesis 5

I have, for witnesses to what I have said respecting the great length of patriarchal life, all those who have written antiquities, both among the Greeks and Barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian history, and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean monuments, and Mochus, and Hestiaeus, and those who composed the Phoenician history, agree to what I here say; Hesiod, also, and Hecateus, Hellanicus, and Acusilaus; and besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus, relate that the ancients lived a thousand years. Josephus.

The divine revelations and the facts of history in these early ages might be transmitted with perfect safety, inasmuch as during an interval of 2000 years from Adam to Abraham, they required to pass through the mouth of only two witnesses: Methuselah, the eighth from Adam, lived almost 100 years contemporaneously with him, while Noah was on the earth eighty-four years along with Enos the grandson of Adam, and downward 128 years with Terah the father of Abraham. It was thus possible for Noah to converse with six successive members of the race before him, as well as with nine generations after him, and so to communicate to them orally all that he had himself experienced, as well as what had been transmitted to him by the fathers. C. G. B.—It was easy for Moses to be satisfied of the truth of all he relates in the Book of Genesis, as the accounts came to him through the medium of very few persons. From Adam to Noah there was but one man necessary to the transmission of the history of this period. Adam and Lamech were contemporaries for fifty-six years. Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, lived to see both Adam and Lamech, and was likewise contemporary with Noah for 600 years. In like manner Shem connected Noah and Abraham, having lived to converse with both; as Isaac did with Abraham and Joseph, from whom these things might be easily conveyed to Moses. Horne.

The antediluvian origin of alphabetic writing is thought to be probable from reasons such as these:—That the genealogies of the patriarchs are recorded with an exactness superior to that of tradition: that the poetical address of Lamech possesses no internal recommendation to be preserved during a tract of centuries by tradition, and “yet differs essentially from all the specimens of known ideographic poetry:” that the Mosiac account of the Flood has the air of a description derived from an eye-witness, or placed on record by him: that the formulae, “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” and “These are the generations of Noah,” imply a transcript from authentic genealogical tables regularly kept in the patriarchal families: that the earlier part of the Book of Genesis is marked by differences of style denoting distinct compositions, from which Moses, under Divine direction, compiled his history, and that these archives were authentic memorials of and from antediluvian families: that (even supposing alphabetic signs were not the result of Divine suggestion like articulate sounds) the longevity of the antediluvians was highly favorable to the discovery; and that it is favored by the traditions of the most widely separated nations, and by almost all religions. J. H.

There has been much speculation respecting the longevity of the antediluvians. Out of nine men whose ages are recorded, one reached to nearly a thousand (969) years; and with the anomalous exception of Noah’s father, who was cut off prematurely at the age of 777, the lowest of the nine reached 895 years. The average of life, reckoned upon the whole nine, is 912 years. It was God’s purpose to make of one blood all the nations of men that dwell upon the face of the earth—that the tie of brotherhood might the more intimately subsist among them by their derivation from the same ancestors; but that the peopling of the world might not be retarded by this limitation, he gives an immense duration to the lives of the primeval generations, whereby the population of the earth goes on as rapidly as if he had in the first place given existence to twelve or fifteen pairs of human beings. Kit.

We may content ourselves with the general principle announced by Delitzsch, that “the duration of antediluvian life depended on circumstances and conditions of the earth which our present knowledge cannot reach.” Not to suggest that “climate, weather, and other natural conditions may have been quite different” and that “life was much more simple and uniform,” we may emphasize the statement that “the after-effects of the condition of man in paradise (destined for immortality) would not be immediately exhausted.” S. C. B.—The longevity of antediluvian life enabled men to acquire inconceivable dexterity in many of the mechanical arts. How great must have been the tact and proficiency resulting from the continued practice of centuries! The prospect of such longevity would encourage men to lay out comprehensive plans, and to enter on vast undertakings with the expectation of completing them, and of enjoying the fruits. Added to which, that in proportion as this longevity was physiologically dependent on superior climatic influences, it would be also conducive to bodily and mental exertion. J. H.

We can clearly see that such long continuance of life was absolutely necessary, if the earth was to be rapidly peopled, knowledge to advance, and, above all, the worship of God and faith in that promise about a Deliverer which He had revealed, to be continued. As it was, each generation could hand down to remote posterity what it had learned during the centuries of its continuance. Thus Adam was alive to tell the story of Paradise and the fall, and to repeat the word of promise which he had heard from the very mouth of the Lord, when Lamech was born; and though none of the earlier “fathers” could have lived to see the commencement of building the ark, yet Lamech died only five years before “the flood,” and his father Methuselah—the longest-lived man—in the very year of the deluge. On the other hand, it was possible to pervert this long duration of life to equally evil purposes. The rare occurrence, during so many centuries, of death with its terrors would tend still more to blunt the conscience; the long association of evil men would foster the progress of corruption and evil; and the apparently indefinite delay of either judgment or deliverance would strengthen the bold unbelief of scoffers. A. E.—Instead of tending to the good of the species, the great length of life seems generally to have been perverted to evil. The substance of Enoch’s prophecy, recorded in the Epistle of Jude (ver. 14, 15), shows how much the men of those days lived in forgetfulness of the judgment to come. W. G. B.—In the primitive world, the Cainites devoted themselves almost exclusively to the advancement of a material civilization; and the degeneracy to which it led was the first of a series of lessons which Providence has ever since been giving to man on the utter inefficiency of mere knowledge, power, and aesthetic progress, to save him from ruin; or rather, on the certainty of their conducting him to it, apart from the supreme influence of religion. The Sethites maintained, for a time, a high religious standing; but, descending from their holy elevation, their morality vanished with their religion, and they sank through the successive stages of a refined but death-struck civilization. J. H.

5. Adam lived 930 years.** By making Adam the depository of the first communication from heaven, and prolonging his life to nearly a thousand years, the Almighty may be regarded as making the wisest and most gracious arrangement for the welfare of his fallen posterity. For in each and all of the myriads to which they had multiplied, Adam would only behold the multiplications of himself, and would therefore be supposed to feel a father’s yearning solicitude for their recovery to God. And even as late as “in the days of Noe,” the comparative recency of the fall and its immediate results, by rendering these results so much the more impressive and personally interesting; the small amount and the simplicity of the revelation which had then been made, by rendering it so much the easier to be remembered and imparted; the universal prevalence of the same language, by rendering it so much the easier to diffuse that knowledge universally; and the continued longevity of man, by enabling one party to speak with the authority and tenderness of a parent, disposing the other to listen with the docility and faith of children, and giving to each a family interest in the religious welfare of all—afforded facilities for diffusing the knowledge of God, which strikingly evinced his readiness to save. J. H.

Adam was witness to the beginnings of that universal corruption which at last brought on the deluge; and when he beheld himself the source of these growing evils, he could not fail, with every succeeding year of his life, to entertain deeper and more appalling views of the enormity of his transgression and the justice of his sentence. This would naturally tend in his case, as in every other, to heighten his estimate at once of the goodness and the severity of God, and endear to him that promise which was the hope of a lost world. Bush.

5. He died.** Although this first thread of life was spun through centuries, it cannot last forever. Although divine long-suffering had delayed the execution of the sentence, no word of it had been retracted. “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” The tree of life no longer blossoms here below for the transgressor, who has plucked the fruit of sin. God be thanked that we know Him, the second Adam, who out of death, brought by the first into the world, has taken the sharpest sting. Van O.—Death must have originally come to man almost with the startling effect of an appalling revelation. The death of Abel would not, perhaps, on account of its violence, weigh much with the early generations of men as an illustration of the original sentence against sin. But when the first natural death occurred—and, still more, when at length, after the event had been suspended century after century—when he had seen his descendants in the ninth generation—when he had reached his nine hundred and thirtieth year—the report went forth of Adam “he is dead; the father of the race has expired,” what a deep shadow, as from the throne of justice brought near, must have fallen on the face of nature! And as, age after age, it had to be recorded of each individual of all these generations, “and he died,” what an affecting proof was furnished of “the exceeding sinfulness of sin,” what a demonstration of the fidelity of God to His word, and of the amplitude of His schemes who could defer its fulfilment either for a day or for a thousand years; and with what strained gaze, we may suppose, would the survivors labor to pierce the darkness which hung over the grave. J. H.

3-31. Lived and died.** Through the births and deaths of this old Antediluvian Patriarchy there is a moral lesson impressive and sad, giving to these dry numbers a sublime moral dignity. It is not obtrusive; it is not forced upon the notice; to the dull reader these details and repetitions may seem barren, but to the man whose spirit is awake, it is the solemn record of execution on the great judgment pronounced in a previous chapter; it is the commencement of that long death which our humanity has been dying ever since. It is the first great obituary, recorded, not on blank, intervening leaves, but in the beginning of “the volume of the book.” It is the title-page to that true history of the world, written on the tombs, and preserved where all else perishes, even in the dust of the earth. T. L.

There is something very impressive in this antediluvian record of deaths; the long periods of life only make it all the more so. It tells forcibly of there being no escape from this law. The cadence of “and he died” recurs with the effect of a tolling bell upon the imagination; and the length of interval between them adds to the solemnity of the lesson so given forth. The great practical truths of religion are not educed by an ingenious process of inference, but lie before us on the surface of the Bible—on the surface of observation. The thing wanted is that we should consider them; and this unvarying register of a mortality which no strength of endurance in the vital principle could exempt from, should speak powerfully home to the fears and the urgent interests of the men who now live in this era of puny and ephemeral generations. T. C.

It is reported of one, that, hearing the 5th of Genesis read, so long lived, and yet the burden still, they died, he took so deep the thought of death and eternity, that it changed his whole frame, and set him from a voluptuous to a most strict and pious course of life. How small a word will do much, when God sets it into the heart! But sure this one thing would make the soul more calm and sober in the pursuit of present things, if their term were truly computed and considered. How soon shall youth, and health, and carnal delights, be at a end! How soon shall all the great projects of the highest wits and spirits be laid in the dust! But to a soul acquainted with God, and in affection removed hence already, no thought so sweet as this; it helps much to carry it cheerfully through wrestlings and difficulties, through better and worse; they see land near, and shall quickly be at home; that is the way. The end of all things is at hand: An end of a few poor delights and the many vexations of this wretched life; an end of temptations and sins, the worst of all evils; yea, an end of the imperfect fashion of our best things here, an end of prayer itself, to which succeeds that new song of endless praises. Leighton.—The dead—we speak of them as those who are not. But in this sense there are no dead in the universe; of the mighty catalogue written in heaven’s book of men who have been, not one has passed into nothingness; of every human being, it is true, that when he began to be, he began to be immortal; he may have changed his place and his mode of existence, his dust may have returned to the earth as it was; but yet he lives as truly as he ever did, and will continue to live through ceaseless ages; and what is true of all before us is and will be true of each one of ourselves. There is a “life to come,” and in a very short time we shall be mingling in its scenes with those who have preceded us. E. M.

24. Enoch walked with God.** We are reminded of the saying, that these primeval genealogies are “monuments alike of the faithfulness of God in the fulfilment of his promise, and of the faith and patience of the fathers.” Every generation lived its appointed time; they transmitted the promise to their sons; and then, having finished their course, they all “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” That is absolutely all we know of the majority of them. But the emphatic and seemingly needless repetition in each case of the words, “And he died,” with which every genealogy closes, tells us that “death reigned from Adam unto Moses,” with all the lessons which it conveyed of its origin in sin, and of its conquest by the second Adam. Only one exception occurs to this general rule—in the case of Enoch; when, instead of the brief notice how many years he “lived” after the birth of his son, we read that “he walked with God after he begat Methusaleh three hundred years;” and instead of the simple closing statement that “he died,” we are not only a second time told that “Enoch walked with God,” but also that “he was not; for God took him.” Thus both his life and his translation are connected with his “walk with God.” A. E.

Enoch and Noah, as they alone of the antediluvians were endowed with the spirit of prophecy, so they alone also are said to have “walked with God,"—an expression never used of any who lived in later times, and denoting the nearest and most confidential intercourse, as if they had all but regained the old paradisiacal freedom of communion with Heaven. And as the divine seal upon this higher elevation of the life of God in their souls, they were both honored with singular tokens of distinction—the one having been taken, without tasting of death, to still nearer fellowship with God, to abide in His immediate presence, while the other became under God the saviour and father of a new world. The contemporaries of Enoch had within their reach the means of knowing that in consideration of his eminent piety he was taken direct to a higher sphere, without undergoing the common lot of mortality. That there should have been but one such case during the whole antediluvian period, could not but be regarded as indicating its exceptional character, and stamping it emphatically as a revelation from Heaven. P. F.

Enoch is the type of those who take the spiritual as distinguished from the sensuous view of human life; who, while they bear their part in all the labors that are done under the sun, seek in everything they do to do it as to God; and while they frankly accept all the recreative and refining ministries devised by the art or wit of man, accept them as the gifts of God, and so find an added sweetness in them. Like Enoch, they walk with God through all the difficult and tangled paths of life, are sustained by Him in the hours of their weakness, guarded by Him in their times of peril, and find their fellowship with Him grow more intimate, more ennobling, more consolatory, year by year. The end of these respective lines of action is set forth in the several fates of Lamech and Enoch. In Enoch we see the spiritual man rising into the heaven which his life has prepared him to inherit and enjoy; while in Lamech and his children we see the servants of sense sink into the doom for which their course and habits of life had fitted them,—their thoughts growing more evil, their deeds more corrupt, until the flood arose and swept them away. Each goes to his own place. Cox.

In proportion as any one draws near to God, and thinks of Him, and prays to Him constantly and earnestly, so does he become familiar with the life beyond the grave, and find it possible and natural to fix his faith there. For with God continually in our thoughts,—God in Christ I mean, for a Christian knows God no otherwise than as approached through His Son,—with God constantly thought of, prayed to, praised, thanked, and served, it is impossible that death should any longer be so great a barrier, or the state beyond it so dark and cheerless. For to God there is no difference of time or state; he is after our death as before it, before it as after it, in all respects the same. And death, which to Him is absolutely nothing, becomes to us also less and less in proportion as we are more entirely His. So it is said that Enoch walked with God, and then it is added, “and he was not, for God took him.” He walked with God on earth, and he walked with God in heaven, and the two became blended into one, and the barrier between them melted away into nothing. This is a true type, showing that the sense of death is destroyed by our consciousness of God. He who walks with God faithfully here, all that is said of him will be, “he was not, for God took him;” he will be missed here by us, but to himself it is in a manner all but one life, the latter part the more perfect and the happier, yet both were passed with God. T. Arnold.

Very delightful it is to discover in the description of Enoch’s character the fact that in its main features the experience of the truly religious soul has been the same in all the ages of human history. The altar may vary, the ritual may change, the priesthood may pass from Melchizedek to Aaron, and from Aaron to Christ; the tabernacle may take the place of the patriarchal tent, and the Temple may supersede the tabernacle, only in its turn to be superseded by the spiritual system of the Gospel; yet, amid all these mutations, those deep experiences of men’s souls which constitute the true springs of their religious life have been the same, and to-day no more appropriate description of a good and saintly man could be given than this, “He walked with God.” W. M. T.—To walk with God, is to set God always before us, and to act as those that are always under his eye. It is to live a life of communion with God, both in ordinances and providences; it is to make God’s word our rule, and his glory our end, in all our actions; it is to make it our constant care and endeavor in everything to please God, and in nothing to offend him; it is to comply with his will, to concur with his designs, and to be workers together with him; it is to be followers of him as dear children. H.

Adam died only fifty-seven years before Enoch’s translation, and Enoch probably enjoyed the society of that remarkable man for more than three centuries. From Adam’s own lips he could learn the story of the creation, he could become acquainted with the primeval bliss of Eden, he could ascertain that law of paradise under which our first parents sinned and fell, he could look with familiar gaze into the dark problem of the origin of evil. By a more minute acquaintance with the events of that mysterious period, he could attain a clearer insight than we into the operations of Providence, and the wisdom of those counsels which were developed in the ruin of the human race. He had moreover the book of nature ever open to him, and those works through which he communed with their divine author were peculiarly rich in illustration of the divine character. In his own sanctified and inspired consciousness he had another and better source of sacred knowledge, and favored as he was by the teachings of that Great Spirit whose society he cultivated, he was no doubt as highly venerated for the extent of his attainments as for the depth of his devotion. Whatever may be thought of the oriental traditions, which ascribe to him the invention of letters and learning, the literal import of his name implies that he was initiated into rare mysteries, and one of his predictions as it is preserved to us by an inspired apostle, discloses a reach of vision which from that remote period, the very beginning of the world’s history, could look down through all the lapse of ages to the very last event which is the subject of prophecy, the final judgment of the ungodly. Homer.

Of Enoch we know that he not only walked with God as a friend with his friend, but as a prophet he stood forth boldly against the transgression of his age. Van O.—At the time appointed by the Father for the accomplishment of Enoch’s prophecy, when the Lord shall come to judgment with ten thousand of his saints (Jude 14), that which was foreshown by the translation of Enoch, and fulfilled in the ascension of the natural body of Christ, shall be brought to pass likewise in His mystical body, the Church, and the members thereof. They shall “not be found” in the ruins of a burning world, because God shall have “translated” them to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for them. This is but the completion of that great work begun in them by the Spirit of God in this life. Blessed and holy is he, who hath part in this first “translation” from sin to righteousness, the sure pledge and earnest of the second from dust to glory. Bp. Horne.

The miracle of Enoch’s translation was another Divine intimation, pointing to the existence of an invisible world. “He was not, for God took him.” “He was translated that he should not see death.” J. H.—In the case of Enoch alone, we read, not that “he died,” but that “he was not, for God took him.” This implies two things: that he was exempted from natural death, and that he entered upon a higher and better existence as the consequence of having walked, not with the world, but with God. C. G. B.—Is it even supposable that Moses thought this was annihilation—taking a godly man out of existence? Extinguishing his being because he walked with God! If the Lord had made this problem a special study—how best to teach and impress the doctrine of a future blessed life for the righteous who walk with God on earth, we cannot see how he could have improved upon the method he actually adopted, viz. to take the godly Enoch from earth to heaven without dying. H. C.—If there is no future life, in which virtue receives its appropriate reward, what a reflection is here upon the God of the Hebrews! A man, illustrious beyond all his contemporaries for piety, is cut off in the midst of his days and rewarded with annihilation! The record conveys almost as plain a revelation of a future life as the declaration of the Lord of life himself, “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth.” E. C. W.

The “taking away” of Enoch is one of the strongest proofs of the belief in a future state, prevailing among the Hebrews; without this belief the history of Enoch is a perfect mystery, a hieroglyph without a clew, a commencement without an end. Kalisch.—Enoch does not die, but lives, and not only lives, but is advanced to a new stage of life, in which all the power and pain of sin are at an end forever. This crowns and signalizes the power of grace, and represents in brief the grand finale of a life of faith. This renewed man is received up into glory without going through the intermediate steps of death and resurrection. This translation took place in the presence of a sufficient number of witnesses, and furnished a manifest proof of the presence and reality of the invisible powers. Thus were life and immortality as fully brought to light as was necessary or possible at that early stage of the world’s history. Thus was it demonstrated that the grace of God was triumphant in accomplishing the final and full salvation of all who returned to God. M.

God “translated him” either in soul or body, or both, to a place and state of happiness:—A most convincing argument and proof of a life after this; and sufficient, one would have thought, to have silenced the Sadducees, who received this book. God gave the world this instance, perhaps to convince them, how he would have dealt with Adam, and all his posterity, had they continued in obedience to his command. Bp. Wilson.—The occurrence was an impressive revelation of the existence, the omniscience, and the holiness of God, which were constantly becoming more and more forgotten; of the eternal separation between those who serve God and those who serve Him not; of the life and immortality especially to be expected after departure from this world. Van O.

29. These words bear testimony to an ardent heart longing for the better inheritance, which even to Lamech appeared to be substantially involved in the promise of the Seed of the woman. This longing was called forth by the curse which burdened the ground, and which, amidst his bitter toils and troubles, seemed to him all the heavier and greater as his experience of the ravages of sin increased. His only comfort under the hardships he endured was to look to the bruiser of the serpent. For this reason he gave to his son the name of Noah—that is, rest,—a name which in sound resembles the Hebrew verb to comfort. From this son he expected consolation and rest. Lamech died five years prior to the deluge, and was the first of the patriarchs who, by a natural death, departed this life before his father. His father Methuselah died just before the flood. The righteous perish, and merciful men are taken away from the evil to come, and enter into peace (Isa. 57: 1). C. G. B.

All the patriarchs here, except Noah, were born before Adam died; so that from him they might receive a full and satisfactory account of the creation, paradise, the fall, the promise, and those divine precepts which concerned religious worship and a religious life. So great was the care of Almighty God to preserve in his church the knowledge of his will, and the purity of his worship. H.