Translation Note: I have been using ESV up until this point, but I intend to switch to using LSB. I recently got ahold of an LSB for personal study and find it to be an excellent translation.
Introduction
This chapter is the genealogy of the line of Seth. It explains the timeline between the story of Cain and Abel and the time of the flood, as well as giving a little bit of insight into the line that would eventually lead to Jesus Christ (and everyone else living). The text is mostly a lot of numbers and is not particularly easy to read. It can be very easy to gloss over and pay no attention to.
That said, there are a few minor insights and questions I think we can raise from the text, as well as a discussion about the age of the world that is worth having.
One caveat is that some Christians who do not like the conclusions of the straightforward reading of the text want to dismiss discussion of it at the outset on the authority of 1 Tim 1:4 that we should not "pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation". This is a completely inappropriate use of that verse. What specifically Paul was referring to is under dispute (see here for one theory). We cannot take Paul to mean that considerations of how best to understand the word of God might be out of bounds, as he says very clearly and unambiguously that "all scripture is "God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16).
Thus, the study and consideration of these genealogies are perfectly appropriate for the student of scripture and we should in no way shy away from trying our best to learn what we can from what is written here.
The Line of Seth
25 Then Adam knew his wife again; and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for she said, “God has set for me another seed in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.” 26 And to Seth, to him also, a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of Yahweh.
Seth is Adam's son, "in place of Abel". It is not clear whether he is the third son, or whether there had already been other sons and daughters in between Abel and Seth. When Enosh is born, there is a line which is not entirely clear about how "men began to call upon the name of Yahweh". The most straightforward understanding is that at this time the family was converted to the true worship of the Lord, in a line that continued down to Noah.
There are alternative readings that people have proffered. Some think that the word "then" refers rather to the entire story above, instead of specifically to the birth of Enosh. Matthew Henry states it this way:
The worshippers of God began to stir up themselves to do more in religion than they had done; perhaps not more than had been done at first, but more than had been done of late, since the defection of Cain. Now men began to worship God, not only in their closets and families, but in public and solemn assemblies. Or now there was so great a reformation in religion that it was, as it were, a new beginning of it. Then may refer, not to the birth of [Enosh], but to the whole foregoing story: then, when men saw in Cain and Lamech the sad effects of sin by the workings of natural conscience,-when they saw God's judgments upon sin and sinners,-then they were so much the more lively and resolute in religion. The worse others are the better we should be, and the more zealous.
Either way, we see that true worship of God has been instituted in small measure.
Toledot
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.
If our theory about the toledot is correct, this chunk is the last part written by Adam himself. He finished his explanation of what had happened to Cain and his children and passed on the records to his children. The next toledot that we encounter is in chapter 6, and is "signed" by Noah. Since Noah didn't come around until 126 years after Adam died, we'd have to assume that someone was keeping track of the genealogies in between the two. (It's possible that Adam kept the record until his death, then it got passed to Noah who continued it where Adam had left off, as everyone involved would have still been alive at that time.)
Which brings us to our first major topic of discussion. How old is the earth? If we agree, as I argued in Genesis 1, that the creation of Adam was 6 days after the creation of existence itself, then we are now up against a pretty firm timeline from the creation to the Flood.
Because #science claims that some form of humans have been around for millions of years, and modern humans have been around for 300,000 years (according to Google), Christians who are particularly sensitive to the accusation of being "anti-science" have tried very hard to make Scripture somehow "fit" the narrative of secular science.
Usually these Christians don't go as far as to say that Adam was 300,000 years ago. Often they sort of split the difference, claiming that while science has certainly demonstrated that it's been too long a time to take the Bible on its own terms, there's still plenty of wiggle room, so we can move Adam back to say 30,000 years ago.
Frankly, I think this is problematic. The reality is that we would like to believe that our dating techniques are highly accurate and not really open to debate because the secularists themselves do not often debate them. There are several problems with this approach:
The techniques are debated among secularists. The biggest issue is the one I raised in my Genesis 1 commentary, that there is no "correct" amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere at all times. It varies geographically.
It is very likely that since the ratio of carbon-14 varies geographically, it also varies over time. If that is the case, then we are left 100% blind in terms of detailed carbon dating. We can do no better than a wild guess with this technique.
It is simply not true that the dating is in any way foolproof.
This raises the other issue. As Christians, we should consider the Bible as the firm guide to the rest of our knowledge. If we find something in the world that seems to conflict with the Bible's straightforward teaching, the first impulse should be to doubt the evidence we are seeing in the world around us. The evidence we glean from the world around us is frankly pretty thin. Scientists, especially in the modern era, jump to conclusions quite often based on surprisingly thin evidence. We can generally trust "data", but "interpretations" we hear from the secularist world are definitely open to question.
Then the most reasonable approach, as I regard it, would be to take the Bible at face value. If it says the world is 6k years old (give or take), then we should probably assume that is correct. If someone does a math problem and comes up with 4 billion years, we should probably check their work a few hundred times before we think to question the Bible. Is it possible we got it wrong? Yes of course, there have been wrong interpretations of the Bible many times before. But to immediately jump to that creates a habit of assuming the untruth of Scripture that has worked its way pretty thoroughly into mainstream evangelicalism.
This is not even talking about the liberal church who explicitly throw out Scripture, but rather the "bible-believing" church. They aren't just dumping Scripture out the window, but they are leaving open a door to re-interpret anything that doesn't fit their presuppositions. Thus, especially in a world where we are saturated with non-biblical worldviews, we are going to see a lot of things in Scripture that don't immediately fit with the way we see the world. If our first impulse is to find another way to read the passage, then we are not letting ourselves be transformed, but rather being conformed to the image of this world (Rom 12:2).
This is true even in theological and exegetical controversies that have nothing to do with secular science. Once again, it is certainly possible that what appears to be the "straightforward" interpretation of a passage is not the correct one (because our biases have altered our sense of what is "straightforward"), but we should be careful to try, as best we can, to let the Bible speak for itself.
Named Them Man
There is an observation that I read first from Douglas Wilson, that the translation of verse 2 in Hebrew more literally reads: "He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Adam in the day when they were created." This means that the woman is identified with her husband in a way that prefigures our identification with Christ, as well as providing the basis for a woman taking her husband's last name. The family is ruled by the husband, and the name of the husband is the name of the family.
Father or Grandfather?
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. 4 Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
Adam had a son, Seth, that replaces Abel as the seed of the woman. While there will be some debate about the word "father" in later verses, in this case at least it is clear that we are talking about a father/son relationship as we understand it, since Adam was the one that named Seth. Other than that detail, the form of the paragraph is repeated for the rest of the chapter.
6 And Seth lived 105 years and became the father of Enosh. 7 Then Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters. 8 So all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.
The debate described above often turns on the phrase "became the father of". The argument is essentially that the word "father" in Hebrew can also mean "ancestor" in a more general sense (think of the phrase "in the days of our fathers"). Thus, perhaps (the argument goes), Seth was 105 when he sired whomever was the ancestor of Enosh. But this doesn't fit grammatically in two different ways.
First, let's say for the sake of argument that it actually means "grandfather" in this instance. Well, Seth doesn't become the "grandfather" of Enosh until Enosh is born. The fact that he became the father of say "Billy Bob", doesn't make him the ancestor of Enosh until Enosh exists. If we are saying "well he would eventually become the ancestor of Enosh", then that was true even before Billy Bob was born and nothing about that situation changed when Billy Bob was born.
Second, the structure is identical to the structure of Adam, other than the naming (which does recur later). There is simply no reason to start altering the meanings of words contextually. The fact that it includes "he had other sons and daughters", would imply that Enosh was a son or a daughter. If it actually meant "he had other descendents", then that would be already true by the fact that he had Billy Bob and Enosh was also his descendent.
We do violence to the text with these interpretations. While I'm not going to go so far as to say that interpretation is completely untenable, there is absolutely not the slightest shred of evidence from the text that this should be how we interpret it. The only reason to begin jumping through these hoops is because we think we have external evidence that the Bible's chronologies is irreconcilable with modern science.
One argument against the idea of gaps, from the text itself is that, when you do the math, both Methuselah and Lamech die at the same time, in the year of the Flood, which is exactly when they would have to have died since they are not on the ark. This is further evidence that the ages and dates are meant to be taken literally and without gaps.
Side Note: The Phantom Cainan
There is one wrinkle in the case that I have been presenting above and that is the phantom "Cainan" in Luke's genealogy of Christ. If you look at that genealogy it appears to match Genesis with one exception. In its re-stating of the genealogy recorded in Genesis 11, there is an additional generation included, a Cainan.
The argument goes that this demonstrates that the Genesis genealogies might ALL have phantom generations between them and that NONE of them can be taken to mean what they appear to say in terms of chronologies.
This is almost certainly a copyist error. All extant Hebrew versions of Genesis 11 do not have Cainan included, but the existing versions of the Septuagint do. The most likely scenario is that an early version of Luke had the error included and that it was later inscribed into the Greek Genesis 11 by a copyist with a sensitive conscience. In recent years, a 2nd Century copy of Luke (our oldest copy) has been found and does not include the phantom Cainan.
This is the sort of giant leap that we are inclined to make when we are bringing our presuppositions to the text. Once again, there is no reason within Genesis 5 to interpret it in anything other than the most straightforward way. Even with the inclusion of the phantom Cainan, the point above about becoming the "grandfather of" would still apply and the chronology would be unaffected. But because of the desperation of embarrassed Christians, they take a tiny fragment of evidence (that is not even very reliable based on our newest discoveries of the oldest manuscript of Luke) and use it to throw out the entire chronology that God saw fit to write down for our instruction.
Later Generations
9 And Enosh lived 90 years and became the father of Kenan. 10 Then Enosh lived 815 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 11 So all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died.
12 And Kenan lived 70 years and became the father of Mahalalel. 13 Then Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 14 So all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.
15 And Mahalalel lived 65 years and became the father of Jared. 16 Then Mahalalel lived 830 years after he became the father of Jared, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 17 So all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.
18 And Jared lived 162 years and became the father of Enoch. 19 Then Jared lived 800 years after he became the father of Enoch, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 20 So all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.
21 And Enoch lived 65 years and became the father of Methuselah. 22 Then Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 23 So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
25 And Methuselah lived 187 years and became the father of Lamech. 26 Then Methuselah lived 782 years after he became the father of Lamech, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 27 So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.
28 And Lamech lived 182 years and became the father of a son. 29 Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the pain of our hands arising from the ground which Yahweh has cursed.” 30 Then Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 31 So all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.
As for the chronology, we can say that the world was 1056 years old when Noah was born. James Jordan likes to use the year indicator AM (Anno Mundi; year of the world) when counting from the creation forward. Much of the rest of the details of this passage are not obviously relevant but a few things that we might take note of.
The names of the people
The ages of the people
Enoch
Names of the Line of Seth
Including Noah, there were ten generations from the creation to the Flood generation: Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. We know the name "Adam" means "man" or "mankind" and we see that Lamech names Noah for a very specific reason (Noah means rest, see v29). I am no Hebrew expert, but this does give us a bit of artistic license to wonder whether other names' meanings are relevant in between the two.
Chuck Missler (who I am not terribly familiar with, but take with a grain of salt because of some of his odd pre-mil views) believes that the names are an elaborate prophecy. According to his article here you can translate the names of Adam's descendants in the following way:
Adam - "Mankind"
Seth - "Appointed"
Enosh - "Mortal"
Kenan - "Sorrow"
Mahalalel - "Blessed God"
Jared - "Shall come down"
Enoch - "Teaching"
Methuselah - "His death shall bring"
Lamech - "despairing"
Noah - "comfort/rest"
Thus, it can be written out: "Mankind is appointed to mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching that his death shall bring the despairing comfort and rest."
I can't verify the translation, but the link above explains the thought process. If it is true, it is a tantalizing and fascinating thing to consider how explicitly God wrote out the gospel from the earliest years of humanity.
Further Naming Considerations
There are three other interesting things about the names of the descendants. The first is Seth, "appointed". After the death of Abel, and the exile of Cain, it seems quite possible that Adam was looking for the "seed of the woman" who would crush the head of the serpent. It seems possible, maybe even likely, that he named Seth "appointed" because God gave him some sort of prophetic knowledge that this was the line that the Messiah would come through.
The second interesting thing to note is the name "Methuselah". It means (according to Missler) "his death shall bring". It is noteworthy that the year of Methuselah's death is the same as the year of the flood, and since Methuselah's father is known to have walked with the Lord (v 22), it seems quite possible that God gave him some kind of vision of the coming judgment. Certainly it implies that a change came over him at the birth of his son that caused him to walk with God.
Noah's Name
The third interesting thing is Noah, which Lamech explains was given because he is supposed to bring them comfort and rest from their toil and the curse of the ground. Here we have an explicit mention of some kind of foreknowledge that Lamech had apparently received from God (if it's just a guess, that seems pretty weird to include). If that is the case, then in what sense was this fulfilled. In the ultimate sense, Noah is the ancestor of the Messiah, who gives the true comfort and eschatological rest to mankind. Is there a sense in which he literally fulfilled this?
Well Noah doesn't do a whole lot in the narrative, stuff mostly happens to him. But what he does do is build the ark. If that's what's in view here, then we could ask ourselves, did those who passed through the ark find some semblance of relief from the curse?
The answer may surprisingly be "yes". In the documentary "Is Genesis History", they note that, for whatever reason, some of the very dangerous extinct creatures appear to have died in the flood and not recurred. It's also possible that the land is somehow more fertile after the flood.
Thematically this fits surprisingly well also. Noah's ark is used as an image of baptism in 1 Peter 3:20-21. As God is perpetuating an image of baptism (which truly is the sign and signifiers of our eschatological relief from the curse), it would not be at all surprising to find that the land was to some extent made more fertile and capable of supporting human life after the judgment of the flood. Whether this is about the commonality of certain plants, the restriction of certain types of difficult to deal with animals, or a change in the soil composition is a research goal for future scientists who are persuaded of the Biblical view of these time periods.
The Ages of the People
One obvious thing to note is that most of these guys were living to be well over 500 years old. That's - unusual - to say the least. It appears that in the next chapter that God restricts the ages of mankind to 120 years (Gen 6:3) which is somewhat odd because Abraham lives much longer than 120 years (Gen 25:7). And he is not the only one. In Genesis chapter 11 we see that many of Abraham's ancestors lived well over 120 years, and Moses did as well. So how do we square this circle?
There are two possible resolutions, I will state the most likely one first. 120 years seems like a good cap on human age to us because it appears to be the limit of human lifespans in the modern era. As far as I know, the oldest recorded lifespan was 122 years (but obviously could be slightly incorrect). So it has prima facie evidence that this is what God was talking about when he said "his days shall be 120 years". However, it is more likely that this was the time given until the flood. Noah finds favor with God and spends the next 120 years trying to convince his fellow people to repent (2 Pet 2:5). The context of the quote is when the Nephilim come to be, which is understood to be the proximate cause of the Flood.
The second possible resolution is that 120 years is a cap on the wicked, but not the righteous. Because the phrasing of the 120 years indicates that he is striving with man in his flesh, it might be a reference to the unconverted heart. It may have been intended as a limit on evildoing, not on the believing hearts. I find this relatively less convincing because there is not much indication that the line of Seth was particularly faithful up until Abraham, though a detailed discussion will have to wait for a later time.
Enoch
We know next to nothing about Enoch from Scripture. We know that he was an exceptionally godly individual and such that like Elijah, he was taken to heaven rather than die. This is made more clear in Hebrews 11:5-6.
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
The wording of Enoch's story in Genesis implies that this spiritual awakening happened alongside the birth of his son Methuselah. Methuselah, whose name, as pointed out above, means "his death shall bring", might very well have been named because Enoch received a prophetic word about the coming flood. This is backed up by Jude's commentary about Enoch:
Jude 1:14-16 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.
He became a preacher of the coming judgment certainly. A side note is that while the book of Enoch quotes this line, it is not at all certain that Jude was quoting from the uninspired book of Enoch. It could very well be that both he and the book of Enoch relied on some further source material that is not now known to us. Thus, we should not at all view Jude's quotation of this remark as any sort of endorsement of anything else in the book of Enoch. Even if he is quoting the book of Enoch, he is appropriating it, rather than endorsing it.
Noah and His Sons
32 And Noah was 500 years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Lastly, we have the record that at 500 years of age, Noah became the father of his three children (not necessarily all at once). Though Shem is listed first, Japheth is the likely oldest son. In Genesis 10, it has been translated both that Shem was Japheth's elder brother, or that he was brother of Japheth the elder. Genesis 11 says that Shem had his son at 100, which was 2 years after the flood, thus he must have been born when Noah was 503. Since Ham is the youngest son as recorded in Genesis 9:24, that leaves Japheth as the eldest.
Next we will be discussing the flood and the judgment that came upon mankind. We will also look into the origin and nature of the Nephilim, as well as their continuing relevance in later Old Testament stories.