The Sons of Adam

In Genesis 5 we find a listing of some of the children of Adam:

Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”

This chapter tends to get ignored because it is a genealogy. However, it contains some important that doesn’t usually get covered. Because of that I’d like to spend some time going over its contents.

The first thing I’d like to point out is that this genealogy has some peculiar features. For example, take a look at the entry for Adam:

Genesis 5:3: “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”

This verse tells us that Adam had a son named Seth, had other sons and daughters, and then died. All of the listings in this chapter follow the same template: each person had a son, then had other sons and daughters, and then died. I won’t quote the entire passage here (you can read it for yourself, if you’re interested), but the pattern is repeated time and again.

This brings up a question: was the firstborn child of every single person really a son? Nobody had firstborn daughters? For that matter, is this really a listing of firstborn children, or is there something else going on?

If we look at verse 3 we’re told that Adam had a son named Seth. However, we already know that Seth wasn’t Adam’s firstborn; that distinction goes to Cain. Adam had at least two other male children before Seth was born – and possibly more than that, given the fact that Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old. Adam could have had many children between the birth of Abel and the birth of Seth. This passage, however, only records one of Adam’s children. Cain and Abel don’t get mentioned at all.

This passage, then, is not a listing of firstborn children, and it’s not even a listing of firstborn sons. This is actually the genealogy of Noah. The only person mentioned in each generation is the male ancestor of Noah. All of these people had others sons and daughters (as Genesis 5:4 tells us), but they are ignored because they are not in the male line of Noah.

Another factor I’d like to point out is that the people in this list lived for a very, very long time. There were only 10 generations in the 2000 years that passed between Adam and the Flood. The following table lists who the fathers of each generation were, along with how long they lived:

Adam: 930
Seth: 912
Enos: 905
Cainan: 910
Mahalaleel: 895
Jared: 962
Enoch: 365 (He was “translated” at that time.)
Methuselah: 969
Lamech: 777
Noah: 950 (500 when his children were born, 350 after the flood, so 600 before the flood)

If you discount Enoch (who never died) and Lamech, people lived to be about 929 years old. These are not “figurative” ages, but real ones. These people really did live to be almost a thousand years old. That seems like a staggeringly long time, but remember that mankind was created to live forever. If Adam had not sinned he would have never died at all. Even with the consequences of sin, however, he still lived for more than nine centuries.

As I’m sure you have noticed, people don’t live this long anymore. Despite what evolutionists will tell you, mankind has not improved over the millennia. Instead we’ve decayed. Our genetic code, which was once perfect, is now filled with mutations. We are becoming less fit over time. We aren’t evolving into a higher life form; instead we’re degrading.

Imagine building a mansion in the middle of a forest and then abandoning it for a few centuries. When you returned you wouldn’t find an even bigger mansion that had been upgraded with all of the latest amenities. No, I’m afraid that you would only find ruin and decay. The human race is like that. We are not improving; instead, we’re falling apart. At one time men lived for nine centuries, but now it’s remarkable if someone lives for nine decades. That is just a glimpse at how far we’ve fallen.

Another interesting thing is that people had children at remarkably old ages:

Seth: 105
Enos: 90
Cainan: 70
Mahalaleel: 65
Jared: 162
Enoch: 65
Methuselah: 187
Lamech: 182
Noah: 500

By modern standards it seems astounding to be having children when you’re 90 years old (to say nothing of 187), but given their incredibly long lifespan it’s not as strange as it seems. According to the 2008 CIA World Factbook, the average life expectancy for someone living in the United States is 77.5 – 80 years. This means that before the Flood people lived 12 times longer than we do today. Having a child at 116 would be the equivalent of having a child at the age of 10. People lived so much longer before the Flood that for them, being 100 was practically still being in your childhood. Even Noah, who had his first child at the age of 500, has an “equivalent” age of just 42.

After the Flood, the average lifespan dropped off dramatically. The following table lists how old each person was when they had their first son, along with how many years they lived after the birth of that child:

Noah: 950
Shem: 100 + 500 = 600 (but had his firstborn 2 years after the Flood, so the flood happened when he was 98.)
Arphaxad: 35 + 403 = 438
Salah: 30 + 403 = 433
Eber: 34 + 430 = 464
Peleg: 30 + 209 = 239
Reu: 32 + 207 = 239
Serug: 30 + 200 = 230
Nahor: 29 + 119 = 148
Terah: bore Abraham at the age of 70 but lived to be 205.
Abraham: 175 years, but had Isaac when he was 100.
Isaac: 180 years. Had his twin sons when he was ~40.

Looking at these genealogies reveals some interesting facts. Noah lived a normal lifespan for someone born before the Flood, but his children did not. Even though they were born before the Flood their lives were dramatically shortened. In fact, the lives of everyone were shortened. In just eight generations the average lifespan of man dropped from 929 years down to less than 200 years.

This indicates that there were probably two factors involved with the shortening lifespans: an environmental cause (after all, something shortened Shem’s life by 350 years) and a genetic cause. It’s difficult to say exactly what these causes were, since we don’t have access to any pre-Flood human DNA and we don’t know what the pre-Flood Earth was like. What we do know is that the Flood both destroyed the world and devastated the lifespan of mankind. After the Flood the world was never the same.

If we look at the data closely we will discover an interesting fact. Abraham was born less than three centuries after the Flood:

Flood to Abraham: 292 years
Abraham to Isaac: +100 years = 392
Isaac to Jacob: +40 years = 432 years

Why is this interesting? Well, Noah lived for 350 years after the Flood. Only 292 years elapsed between the Flood and the birth of Abraham, so Noah would have died when Abraham was about 58 years old. Shem lived 502 years after the Flood, so he would have lived long enough to have known Abraham, Issac, and Jacob (as Jacob was born ~432 years after the Flood). Whether these people actually knew each other or not is not known, but they were contemporaries.

It’s amazing to think that when Jacob and Esau were growing up, Shem was still alive. At that point in history you could still talk to someone who had lived in the pre-Flood world. The Flood was not a mere memory; there was still a living eyewitness.

Of course, you can’t talk about Genesis 5 without talking about Enoch:

Genesis 5:21: “And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:
22 And Enoch walked with God after he beget Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:
24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”

Enoch is one of the most famous characters in the Bible. His fame stems from the fact that he is one of only two people who have never died (the other is Elijah). Genesis says very little about Enoch, except that he “walked with God” and that one day he was not found, for God had taken him. Other passages in the Bible, however, have more to say on this topic.

Hebrews 11:5: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

Here we learn a little more about the fate of Enoch. This passage states that Enoch was “translated” (or raptured) because of his faith. Enoch pleased God, and therefore God supernaturally delivered him from death. The passage goes on to say that you must have faith in order to please God. It was his great faith in God that led to his translation.

This is one of the reasons why some believe that Enoch’s translation is a foreshadowing of the Rapture. Christ told us that the time before His return would be as the days of Noah:

Matthew 24:37: “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

We know that the world of Noah’s day ignored Noah’s warnings about the coming judgment and perished in the Flood. God told Noah to build an ark, and Noah had to live through the Flood and through the judgment of the entire world. Enoch, however, was different. The Lord removed Enoch from the world before the Flood took place – not only sparing his life, but also sparing him from having to live through the judgment of the world. Why was Enoch “raptured”? Because he had faith in God and pleased Him.

The same things can be said about the Church. The true Church – those who are born-again believers in Christ – have faith in God and please Him. Before God judges the world for its sins the Lord will “translate” the Church so that they will not see death. We will then be with God. The parallel between Enoch’s translation and the Rapture of the Church is quite remarkable.

Nor is this all that the Bible has to say about Enoch. The last mention of Enoch in the Bible is found here:

Jude 1:14: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

This passage mentions a prophesy from Enoch, who was the seventh generation from Adam. (Yes, the number seven is a special number; it signifies completion.) It turns out that Enoch was a prophet; in fact, as far as anyone knows, Enoch was the very first prophet. In this passage he was prophesying about a coming time of judgment when the Lord would return to Earth with his saints (also known as “The Church”) to judge the wicked. This event has not yet happened, but will occur as a part of the Second Coming. Enoch, then, prophesied about the Second Coming thousands of years before the first coming of Christ! This is, by far, the oldest prophesy about the Second Coming in the Bible.

There is one other area where we can see his prophetic gift. Enoch named his son Methuselah, which literally means “When he dies, it will come”. This name was actually a prophecy. Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, which is longer than anyone else recorded in the Bible. The year he died the Flood came and put an end to the old world – just as Enoch had prophesied.

On a related note, the name “Noah” means “comfort”. It is thought that Lamech named his son Noah because he thought that Noah would be the Messiah and put an end to the world’s evil. This is what he said when naming his son:

Genesis 5:28: “And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:
29 And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.”

Here Lamech refers to the curse that God inflicted upon the world because of Adam’s sin. Lamech was 56 years old when Adam died, so it’s possible that he had heard firsthand of what life was like in the Garden of Eden. He apparently believed that Noah would reverse the curse and put things back to the way they were, but that did not happen. It’s true that a descendant of Lamech will one day reverse the curse, but that descendant is Jesus, not Noah.