Chapter 5
Vers. 1, 2. '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 stands by itself. It is one of names and dates; a chapter of genealogy, a page of early chronology. It does fill a larger space than we should have expected; yet of its importance we are not competent judges. The Holy Spirit has written it, and placed it in His volume, for all ages to read. It must therefore contain important truth, both for the world and for the Church, though we may not quite see or appreciate it. It has served mighty ends in ages past, for it has furnished history with the main stem of its chronological tree; and it may yet serve no less great ends in the ages to come; for in the world's last days men will be more thrown back upon its first days than they are willing to believe. We should have preferred a record of the sayings and doings of the patriarchs to such lists of names and years; and we may not be able to enter fully into God's reasons for giving us such barren verses, as we are apt to think them. But what we know not now we shall know hereafter. Bible history is written on the principle of abridgment and selection. God Himself is the abridger and selecter. He has written the story of His own world in His own way, and according to His own plan, keeping such things as these in view—(1) what would most glorify Himself; (2) what would most benefit the Church upon the whole; (3) what would mark distinctly the stages leading on to the Incarnation of His Son; (4) what would prove the true humanity of Messiah as the seed of the woman, and so the embodiment of the grace and truth wrapt up in the first promise to man. The first verse carries us back to the earlier chapters, and repeats the statement already given as to man's creation in the divine image. It is plain from it that God desires us to look at and ponder such things as these—(1) man's creation by God;
(2) his creation in the likeness of God; (3) his creation, male and female; (4) his being 'blessed' by God, and that he enters this world as a blessed being, not under the curse at all; (5) his receiving the name of Adam, or man, from God Himself, as if God specially claimed the right of nomenclature to Himself. How much importance must God attach to these things when He thus repeats them at so brief an interval! He does not repeat in vain. Every word of God is 'pure,' and it is full of meaning, even though we may not now see it all. It is not a mere grain or atom; it is a seed,—a root.
Vers. 3–5. 'And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, 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 is the sum of Adam's life! He lived, he begat a son, he died! How brief and bare! Yet such is the outline of man's life as seen by the eye of God, and from that point of view which God occupies. Our memoirs of a man of threescore and ten fill volumes; God's memoirs of a man of nine hundred and thirty occupy but three verses. What desires have we to get some glimpse into Adam's life, to know something of his words and deeds! But not one is left on record!
In the third verse, we are told of Adam's age when he begat Seth,— one hundred and thirty years,—showing us how deliberately God proceeds in carrying out His promises. He does not 'make haste,' yet they are all sure. The woman's seed shall come forth in due time. Delay may occur, obstacles may intervene, Abel may be cut down, Seth may be long of coming; yet the promise shall not fail.
But this son is in Adam's own likeness and image. Adam was made in God's image, Seth in Adam's; but Adam was no longer what he once was. It is the image of a fallen man, wrinkled and distorted with sin. 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh.' The thorn cannot produce
the grape, nor the briar the fig; neither can a bitter fountain send forth sweet waters.
After Seth's birth, Adam lived 800 years, begetting sons and daughters; thus living on with all the patriarchs of the early age, till the 308th year of Enoch, and the 57th before his translation; almost to the very days of Noah; 930 years in all. Such was the long age of Adam,—an age which, though gradually diminished till it came to the threescore years and ten, is yet to be revived in millennial days, when, as it is written, 'the days of my people shall be as the days of a tree' (Isa. 65:22).
Then he died! He by whom death came in at last fell under it. He returned to dust. His sin found him out, after a long pursuit of 930 years, and laid him low. The first Adam dies! The tallest, goodliest palm-tree of the primeval paradise is laid low. The first Adam dies; neither in life nor in death transmitting to us aught of blessing. He dies as our forerunner; he who led the way to the tomb. The first Adam dies, and we die in him; but the second Adam dies, and we live in him! The first Adam's grave proclaims only death; the second Adam's grave announces life,—'I am the resurrection and the life.' We look into the grave of the one, and we see only darkness, corruption, and death; we look into the grave of the other, and we find there only light, incorruption, and life. We look into the grave of the one, and we find that he is still there, his dust still mingling with its fellow-dust about it; we look into the grave of the other, and find that He is not there, He is risen,—risen as our forerunner into the heavenly paradise, the home of the risen and redeemed. We look into the grave of the first Adam, and see in him the first-fruits of them that have died, the millions that have gone down to that prisonhouse whose gates he opened; we look into the tomb of the second Adam, and we see in Him the first-fruits of them that are to rise; the first-fruits of that bright multitude, that glorified band, who are to come forth from that cell, triumphing over death, and rising to the immortal life; not through the tree which grew in the earthly paradise, but through Him whom that tree prefigured—through Him
who was dead and is alive, and who liveth for evermore, and who has the keys of hell and death.
Vers. 6–8. 'And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos. 7. And Seth lived, after he begat Enos, eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters. 8. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.'
The first link in the great chain of incarnation was Adam. The second link seemed at first to be Cain. At least so Eve thought; but it was soon seen that he was the first link of another chain,—the serpent's seed, whose last link is, not Christ, but Antichrist. Then it might seem as if the second link were to be Abel; but suddenly it was snapped asunder, and the promise looked as if ready to fail. But when thus the Lord had tried Adam's faith, as He did Abraham's, He stepped in and produced another link, which was neither to fail nor to be broken. Seth stands before us as the second great link of the wondrous chain. In him the promise was to be made sure. He was truly 'Seth'—the substituted one, brought in to supply a brother's place and to perform a brother's part, both to the smitten family and to the Church of God, whose hope seemed to be cut off. He was not, like Abel, suffered to be the victim of Cain's envy, but rose up to manhood, primeval manhood,—the manhood of an entire century. In his 105th year he begat Enos, thus making sure another link, and raising up another witness, besides being himself a noble witness for God. Thereafter he lived 807 years, and begat sons and daughters, of whom, however, we know nothing. They might be followers of their father, or they might be like their uncle Cain; we know not. God names but one, leaving the rest unheard of till the great day that shall give up all names. Seth lived altogether 912 years,—a shorter life by 18 than Adam, yet surviving him 112 years; nay, surviving Enoch, and perhaps witnessing his translation.
Then he died! He too, like Adam, paid the penalty, and gave up the forfeited life. It was not the debt of nature, as men idly speak, that he
paid; it was the penalty of the righteous law. He died. The dust returned to dust, and the spirit to the God that gave it. He through whom the Prince of life was to come, died; and for now well-nigh 5000 years he has been resting in the tomb. He, and Adam, and Abel have had a long sleeping time. Ours will be shorter; for the Lord is at hand; and, instead of 5000 years, it may be less than five. When Seth went down into the tomb, it had received few tenants; but now they are beyond number; and it is just when earth is overfilled, overcrowded with occupants, as if it could hold no more, that the gates of the grave burst open, and the ransomed ones arise.
Vers. 9–11. 'And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan. 10. And Enos lived, after he begat Cainan, eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters. 11. And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.'
Three verses contain the biography of Seth. God counts this enough, and passes on. Enos comes next, and other three verses sum up his life. He is the third link of the wondrous chain through which the promise descends. He is a sinful man, like the rest; nay, as his name signifies, a weak, poor, mortal man; yet still one of the blessed succession through whom the Sinless One was to come; God showing thereby that He still reserves to Himself to bring the clean thing out of the unclean. Enos lives ninety years, and begets Cainan. thus fastening another link of the glorious chain. Afterwards he lives 815 years, begetting children; in all, 905; thus passing into Noah's days, and approaching towards the flood. Then dust returns to dust. He is seen to be not 'the Living One,' but an heir of mortality, a true child of him through whom death came into the world. How true is God to His threatenings! Not a jot of one of them shall fail. The oft-repeated phrase in this chapter, 'and he died,' is the testimony to God's truthfulness in His sentence upon Adam, and the proclamation of Satan's falsehood, when he said, 'Ye shall not surely die.' 'And he died' is the solemn toll of the patriarchal funeral bell. How it makes us long for the 'trump of God,' when all this shall be reversed, and it shall be said of each, 'he liveth,' to die no more! What a contrast
between this chapter and the 15th of First Corinthians! In the one, it is death swallowing up life; in the other, it is life swallowing up death; nay, it is death swallowed up of victory. Genesis is truly the book of DEATH.
Vers. 12–20. 'And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel. 13. And Cainan lived, after he begat Mahalaleel, eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters. 14. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died. 15. And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared. 16. And Mahalaleel lived, after he begat Jared, eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters. 17. And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died. 18. And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch. 19. And Jared lived, after he begat Enoch, eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. 20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.'
The fourth link of the mighty chain is Cainan. His seems to have been an earlier manhood than the others, for at 70 he begat Mahalaleel. Thereafter he lived 840 years; in all, 910. Then he returned to dust, and went to the grave of his fathers. The sentence still remained in force. Death still prevailed, even over those through whom the Prince of life was to come.
The fifth link is Mahalaleel. His is yet an earlier ripened manhood. At 65 he begets Jared, thereafter living 830 years; in all, 895; then, like his fathers, he died. The patriarchal bell has tolled again; yet he had lived far on into Noah's days; a witness, doubtless, against the increasing ungodliness of the world, and a protester against the intermixture of the heavenly and the earthly, the sons of God and the daughters of men.
The sixth link is Jared. He ripens not so soon, yet the result of his late maturity is a wondrous birth. At the age of 162 he begets Enoch.
Perhaps his faith was tried, like Abraham's; it was so long before this son of the promise came; yet, when he came, what an Isaac was he! What a child of gladness! And how must his father have rejoiced in such a son,—rejoiced even when bidding him farewell, as he went up to a home above, through the first opening that had been made in these heavens to admit ascending man. Yet, after a long life,—962,— the second longest on record, 'he died.' Again the bell tolls, and again God's truth is proved against the lie of the devil. The sentence takes its due course, and he, the father of one who was not to taste of death, himself must die.
Vers. 21–24. 'And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah. 22. And Enoch walked with God, after he begat 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's manhood is an early one, as if the early ripe are the early taken. He begets Methuselah when 65. This singularly holy man has sons and daughters, as if to show us that there is no special sanctity in the unmarried state. 'Forbidding to marry' was unknown in Enoch's days. He 'walked with God' as a husband and a father. He 'walked with God' as one loved and loving; as one who knew Jehovah, and who had got so intimate with Him, that he is described as 'the man that walked with God.' It was faith, as the apostle tells us (Heb. 11:5, 6), that began this walk, and it was faith that maintained it. It was this that first brought him nigh, and that afterwards kept him nigh. It was thus that his close, confidential, happy intercourse with God was commenced and carried on. For 300 years he thus walked with God, as husband and father, before his family, setting an example to his children; an example to the age.
He pleased God. God delighted in him. He was among the patriarchs what Daniel was among the prophets, and what John was among the disciples. He was the greatly-beloved one. And God had made no
secret of His delight in him. He had, in some way not told, given clear indications of this, for 'before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God' (Heb. 11:5).
God took him. At the age of 365 he went up to be with his God, not tasting that death which was laying low all around him. He did not wither down like the rest of those primeval trees. He was at once transplanted from the desert below to the paradise above. He had lived and worshipped within sight of the paradise below, and he is caught up at once into the better paradise. And there he has been for nearly 5000 years already. Not merely in soul, like other saints, but in body; glorified and incorruptible, like the children of the resurrection, or like those who shall be alive when the Lord returns. Such was God's love to Enoch; such was His desire to take him out of a world of sin, to snatch him away from the evil to come; such His desire to reward and bless him with the nearer vision of his glory; such His desire to have him near Himself, as if He could not bear his absence any longer, nor wait the appointed period of death; but carried him off in His fatherly arms, to be with Him in His glory.
Thus God showed that, while death was the law, still He could make exceptions; and these exceptions indicated the nature and extent of the deliverance which God was preparing for man. It would not rest till it had glorified even man's body, and given him a home above, an inheritance in the heavens, something better and more glorious than the earthly Eden. Hitherto man had looked up from earth to heaven; he was taught that ere long he should look down from heaven to earth. The link between him and his native earth was not to be broken, but to be established on a new footing, according to the distinction afterwards brought more fully out, between the earthly and the heavenly, the 'things terrestrial' and the 'things celestial.'
Other patriarchs are taken away by death from the evil to come, and 'hidden in the grave,' while wrath is passing over earth; but he is lifted up, and hidden in Jehovah's own pavilion. Even Noah, who also 'walked with God,' is but carried through the storm, sheltered in
the ark, where he hears its violence beating on every side; but Enoch is caught up out of it,—transfigured and translated,—type of those who shall be caught up out of the fiery judgments of the last days, and brought into the royal chambers, there to consummate their espousals with the Lamb; and thence to issue forth, 'when the Lord comes WITH ten thousand of His saints to execute vengeance' on an ungodly world. For it is remarkable that Enoch's prediction, as preserved for us by Jude, is not of the Lord's coming for His saints, but of His coming with them. Enoch speaks in the name of those who have been caught up by him already, and who come along with Him to 'judge angels,' to 'judge the world,' to share the awful honour of accomplishing the Father's purpose of righteous recompense upon a world that has disowned His Son, and set at nought His grace (Ps. 149:9).
Yet in Enoch's removal there is nothing said to indicate that it was striking or terrible to the world. No token was given,—no trumpet summoned the world to witness his ascent. 'He was not;' 'he was not found.' This is all we learn. He disappeared from among the children of men. He walked with God for three centuries; and in the midst of this calm walk he passed upward, as by an invisible ladder, into the presence of his God! How blessed, how congenial, this termination of a lifetime's walk with God! How natural the transition from the fellowship below to the nearer communion above! As in the case of Elijah, they might seek him, but 'he was not found.' Without a sickbed, or a death-bed; without the pains or weaknesses of decaying age, in the full maturity of primeval manhood, he went up to the inheritance above. Such shall be the blessed lot of the waiting saints when the Lord returns. Let us watch with girded loins. Let our life be Enoch's walk with God.
Vers. 25–27. 'And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech. 26. And Methuselah lived, after he begat Lamech, seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters. 27. And all the days of
Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.'
The eighth link of the chain is Methuselah. His manhood ripens slowly, and he lives long. It was not till he was 187 that he begat Lamech. Sprung of a parent that had passed into the skies, and himself the longest liver upon earth, he is certainly no common man. Yet, though Enoch is his father, and though he resists death till the age of 969, still he yields at last. The last enemy conquers. The man of a thousand years dies. He seems given us as the type of the race in millennial times, when their 'days shall be as the days of a tree' (Isa. 65:22), as his father is the type of the glorified Church. The two classes are separate, yet closely connected together; the one, as it were, the offspring of the other,—the earthly the offspring of the heavenly.
Vers. 28–32. '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 (or 'for' or 'from') our work and toil of our hands, because of (or 'from') the ground which the Lord hath cursed. 30. And Lamech lived, after he begat Noah, five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters. 31. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. 32. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.'
The ninth link is Lamech. He begets Noah at the age of 182, but lives a shorter life than most of the others,—only 777. Then he died. The sentence took its course on him. Dust returned to dust. It would seem that the original curse upon the ground began to be felt heavier. The population increased, and the means of subsistence grew more difficult to men, who knew but little about the tillage of the ground, and who probably shrank from such tillage of an accursed soil, laying out their labour the more on pastoral employments. Besides, probably, they had been, age after age,
expecting the Deliverer, and He had not come. Hope deferred had made their heart sick, and their toil sorer. Enoch's prophecy, too, of the coming Deliverer would rouse up their sinking hope, and make them sanguine that the day of rest from their labour was at hand. Hence Lamech, in full expectation that such was the case, called his son Noah,—anticipating rest in his day, if not from him, as the expected seed of the woman. He did not read the signs of the times aright. He did not see that evil, and not good, was at the door. He was disappointed. Yet still we see in him the man of faith, looking for rest, and realizing it as coming in some way or other from the woman's seed. How much man felt his need of rest and comfort! How deeply did he sympathize with the groans of a travailing creation! How earnestly did he long for deliverance from the heavy curse! That deliverance came not in his day, yet he did not wait and hope in vain. And though the Lord should not come in our day, yet if we look for Him, we shall not lose our reward.
Just five years before the flood Lamech dies. He must have been a fellow-preacher of righteousness along with his son,—a fellowwitness during the 120 years of testimony,—a fellow-builder of the ark; father and son fighting the battles of the Lord together, and encouraging each other in their toil and suffering,—and then the aged saint is taken away from the evil to come, after having seen the ark all ready, and heard the assurances given by God to his son, that all should be well with him, though the looked-for rest was not to come in his day.
The tenth link is Noah. Of him we learn nothing at present, save that he was 500 years old ere he begat his three sons. What befell him and them we shall learn subsequently. This last verse of the chapter seems a sort of introduction to what follows in the next.
Such are the ten antediluvian links in the great chain, whose last link is the Son of God. Such are the ten early witnesses for God. They lived, and testified, and died. A single chapter contains ten biographies. Such is God's estimate of man, and man's importance!
How unlike man's estimate of himself! How unlike are the biographies contained in this chapter to those volumes of biography over which are spread the story of a single life! Is not this manworship, hero-worship? And was it not to prevent this that God has hid from us the details of primitive history,—everything that would magnify man and man's doings? Just as He has taken pains to prevent the grosser idolatries of sun-worship and star-worship, by exhibiting these orbs in the first chapter as His own handiwork; so in this fifth chapter He has sought to anticipate and prevent the more refined idolatry not only of past ages, when man openly and grossly deified man, but of these last days, when man is worshipping man in the most subtle of all ways, and multiplying the stories of man's wisdom, or prowess, or goodness, so as to hide God from our eyes, and give to man an independent position and importance, from which God has been so careful to exclude him. We might say, too, that this chapter is God's protest against that special development of hero-worship, which is to be exhibited in the last Antichrist, when God shall be set aside, and man be set up as all.
The importance attached to these recorded names is just this, that they belong to the line of the woman's seed. It was this that made them worthy of memory. The chain to which some precious jewel is attached, is chiefly noticeable because of the gem that it suspends. The steps which led up to the temple were mainly important because of the temple to which they led. So it was the connection of these ten worthies of the world's first age with the great Coming One, that gave them their importance. Standing where we now do, far down the ages, and looking back on the men of early days, we are like one tracing some great river back to its distant source amid the lonely hills. The varied beauties of its banks, however great, yet derive their chief attraction and interest from the mighty city reared upon its margin, at some turn of its far downward course, and from the mighty ones which that city has given birth to. It is Bethlehem that gives all its interest to the river whose beginnings this chapter traces; or rather, it is He who was there born of a woman,—Jesus the son of Abraham, the son of Adam. Save in their bearing upon Him, how
unmeaning do these names appear! It is not in sacrifices alone, or promises, or types, that we are to look for Jesus, but even in such bare genealogies as those before us. It is He who gives fulness and interest to them all. It is from Him that they derive all that brightness which, to the natural eye, is quite invisible. And from them we rejoice to learn, that Jesus of Bethlehem is as truly the Son of Adam as He is the Son of God.
These all died. They died. And death has been passing upon all men since, godly or ungodly. We are carried to the same house to which the patriarchs, one after the other, descended. We are laid side by side with Adam, and Seth, and Lamech, and Noah. But our hope burns brighter now. We shall not have so long to sleep as they have had. They were laid to sleep just when the night was falling, and they have had to sleep through the whole hours of darkness. But the morn is near. The day will soon break. We shall not have long to sleep. It may be that some of us shall scarcely have laid down our wearied heads and limbs, till the voice of the archangel shall awake us. Then it shall not be written of us, 'he died;' but of each of us, as we awake, it shall be said, 'he rose again.'