CPCC Bible Study: Genesis 5

Chapter 5 - overview and comment

      The next of the original Toledoth sections begins here, and is called "Adam", even though most of his 'action' has already passed, because that is how the section begins "the generations of Adam".
      Remember in the introduction we said that one of the main themes of Genesis was genealogy? Welcome to the first big chunk of it listing the ancient Patriarchs and their amazing lifespans. And also, two of the second tier of most famous individuals from Genesis, of which we know very little detail we might add, are in Chapter Five, we'll meet them in a moment.
      By most accounts, the time period from the Creation to the Flood was more than 1500 years, and covers only a dozen or so generations. Which brings up a couple of interesting points.
      One of the common questions asked is if the 900 years that the patriarchs lived the same as 900 years for us, which would mean that somebody born during the reign of King Henry the First of England, (1068 - 1135. King from 1100 to 1135) could still be alive today. And the answer is, there is no reason to doubt it.
      A more modern sort of question is: "where's the women?" The only women mentioned by name since Eve have been a couple of the wives of the characters that have been driving the drama. Namely Adah and Zillah, the wives of Lamech in chapter 4. Women are only mentioned in passing, as we see in verse four of chapter 5. And we do not know if the men listed, like Lamech, had more than one wife. We also do not know if the women lived "900 years". All we've got is what is in the text, which, in most cases, is a name only, nothing else is known about the person, including we have to make the assumption on that name that the individual was male, because it is otherwise unspecified. We see this again in chapter 6, and later in Genesis as well.
      Something else that we do not know is when Eve died. As we mentioned in the study, one of these most famous women of all time, and her name is only used twice in the OT, and twice more in the NT (see 2 Corinthians 11 : 3 and 1 Timothy 2 : 13), and there is precious little else about her there.
      A note about the Book of Jubilees, also called "Little Genesis". This is another work from the "400 years of silence" between the Testaments that is most assuredly made up of collected ancient stories and myths that may well go back to the time of the Patriarchs. More about this book, known from a copy in the Dead Sea Scrolls, is at the link below.

Verses 1 through 17 - Genealogy
      The chapter opens with a quick synopsis of the action so far, beginning at The Beginning, then moving through the "founding fathers as so....
      .... insert patriarch name here... "begat sons and daughters"...
      .... "way ya mot" (and he died).

Verses 18 - 20
      ... Jared (five generations from Adam) ... "yalad" (begot) Chanok (Enoch)
      There are three other Enochs in the OT. One was the son of Cain. The other two were sons of Midian (Genesis 25), and Reuben (Genesis 46). The pseudographical Books of Enoch were not written by any of them, although the bulk of first Book of Enoch that we do have is reasonably believed to have been penned about 300 BC and is complied of older material.
      ... "and he died."

Verse 21
      Enoch lived sixty five years and 'begat' "Methushelach"
      Remember where we said two of the 'second tier' people were in this chapter, here they are.

Verse 22 and 23
      "way" (and) "yit hallek" ('with' walked / went / go) Enoch with 'Elohim...
      The meaning is not explained. We have no idea what the relationship was. It is obvious that Enoch was a believer because of what happens in a moment. But there is no mention of recurring sacrifice, songs of praise, that Enoch spent time evangelizing, all it says is that he "walked with" God. Remember, this is before the Law, there is no Sabbath or prescribed temple ritual, he had to have had the same sort of relationship with the Almighty that we see later in the book with Melchizedek, and most famously with Abram early in his section. Many ministers and others have gone off onto long tangents about what is meant by the statement, and a lot of it may be true, but it is all speculation.
      There's a bit of symbolism in the number of years he lived, but that is possibly more coincidence than not given the oddities of the ancient Jewish Calendar. See link below.

Verse 24
      The beginning of this verse is an exact restatement of verse 22.
      - and he "ayin" (was naught / no one / nothing), "ki" (for / when) "laqach" ('to take' / took) 'him' 'Elohim.

      The phrase "that he should not see death" is NOT in Genesis. That statement comes from the "Roll Call Of Faith" in Hebrews 11. See verse 5.

Verses 25 and 27
      And lived Methuselah ... years ... begat Lamech.
      .... 969 years...

Verses 28 - 29
      Lamech begets....
scene note: offstage voice reads meaning of name from verse 29 ... "Noach"
"This same shall comfort vs concerning our worke and sorowe of our hands, as touching the earth, which the Lord hath cursed." (Geneva Bible, 1560)
cue Noah enter, stage right

Verses 30 - 32
      Lamech dies.
"And Noah was fiue hundreth yeere olde. And Noah begate Shem, Ham and Iapheth." (1560)

End Chapter Five

Selected resources for this chapter:

The Interlinear: Hebrew - English https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/5.htm

The 1560 / 1599 Geneva Bible https://textusreceptusbibles.com/Geneva/1/1

The 1611 King James https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Genesis-Chapter-1/

The Book of Jubilees https://www.ccel.org/ccel/c/charles/otpseudepig/files/jubilee/index.htm

A Brief Introduction to the Jewish Calendar https://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/jewish

Genesis Study Index Page

NOTE: The Bible Study Lesson presented above is posted as a reference document to begin a conversation of the topic. And that's it. Please accept it at such.

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