A Cool Fact About Adam's Family Tree
Genesis 5:1-32
Adam’s Descendants to Noah
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. 5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. 7 Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.
9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered Kenan. 10 Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died.
12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered Mahalalel. 13 Kenan lived after he fathered Mahalalel 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.
15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared. 16 Mahalalel lived after he fathered Jared 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Thus all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. 19 Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. 22 Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech.
26 Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son 29 and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” 30 Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
With the birth of Seth to Adam and Eve, things look promising. But, a few chapters later, we read of the intense evil of man and of God’s plan to destroy wicked humanity with The Flood. Why? What happened?
Leon Kass has a fascinating paragraph about the genealogy in Genesis 5, of all things(!):
“To discover the worm in the family tree, we must read with a magnifying glass—and with a timeline and a calculator. Because the text reports the lives of these antediluvians [people who lived before the flood] in sequence—chronicling each man’s birth, the number of years he lived before and after begetting his first son, his life span, and his death—the complacent reader does not notice that there is more than a half century (between the year 874, in which Lamech is born, and the year 930, in which Adam dies) during which all nine generations of human beings, from Adam to Lamech, are alive at the same time, with all their myriad descendants. Then, suddenly, in the year 930, Adam drops dead. Next, in 987 (readers can do the calculations for themselves), Enoch “was not, for God took him.” And in 1042, Seth also dies. Readers of the Garden of Eden story need no longer remain in suspense: the prophecyof human mortality (“you shall surely die”; 2:17) is, at long last, fatally—and fatefully—fulfilled. Indeed, this may well be the purpose of reciting the entire genealogy in all its numerological detail: to prepare the...reader to learn...how human beings—especially the men—react to the discovery of their unavoidable finitude. For with the death of Adam, and after nearly a millennium of “immortal” human existence, natural death has entered the human world.”
Did you catch that? If you read the genealogy carefully, you notice that all of a sudden death finally comes upon mankind. The unavoidable reality of death has been delayed for a while, but when it comes, it comes quickly, and the fear of death and the desperation it brings may be the reason humanity turns so wicked in the next chapter, setting up The Flood.
I also find it fascinating that there is a 50 year period in which all 9 generations are alive at the same time!!
P.S. Nullius in verba. That’s Latin for “on the word of no one” or, in colloquial English, “Take no one’s word for it.”
I hope you won’t take my words for things, but will test things I say for yourself. I do the same thing with what I read and hear. So, I earlier this summer when I was writing the commentary for our Genesis book, I made the following chart:
Some translation:
Column 1 is the year of the man’s birth;
Column 2 is the year he fathers his first son;
Column 3 is his age at death;
Column 4 is the year of his death, starting from 0 with Adam.
The following is an excited text I sent to two friends of mine after I worked all this out.
(Be glad you aren’t my friend and don’t have to put up with excited texts like this from me.)
“Adam died in 930.
Lamech (the 9th generation) was born in 874.
That means there is a 56 year period in which all the first 9 generations are alive AT THE SAME TIME.
And then death comes quick.
Noah is the 10th generation.
His father was Lamech.
Noah’s grandfather—Lamech’s father—was Methuselah.
Lamech died BEFORE his father.
BUT METHUSELAH DIED IN 1656, THE SAME YEAR AS THE FLOOD!!”
P.P.S. Anyway, that whole thing was interesting to me, even if ya’ll think I’m crazy. Happy Friday, everyone!