Genesis 5
The First Rapture
From Adam to Noah
1 This is the record of the family line of Adam. When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God.
The Hebrew word for “record” is סֵ֫פֶר (sopher), meaning a scroll. This סֵ֫פֶר (sopher) implies that there were reading and writing instruments before the flood.
The Hebrew word for “family lines” is תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת (toldoth). There are eleven תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת (toldoth) in Scripture. Each of these generations were written by eyewitnesses and passed down to Moses. Moses edited all of the תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת (toldoth), producing the Book of Genesis. The purpose of this second תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת (toldoth) was to record and pass down the true history of mankind to future generations.
God created man in the likeness of God. God is a triune omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent being consisting of three distinct personalities that make up one composite unit. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct personalities, but one God.
Man is also made up of a trinity of body, soul and spirit. He can reason, walk upright, communicate in a spoken and written language, and worship God. None of the animal or plant life can accomplish any of these attributes.
2 He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind.”
God created Adam and Eve as the first male and female. Both sexes possess different attributes of God. For example, the man possesses strength, sovereignty, and wisdom. The woman possesses love, compassion, beauty, and tenderness. Adam and Eve were blessed through the Edenic Covenant.
3 When Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.
In chapter four, the Holy Spirit first gave the fallen genealogical line of Cain. Now, he will give the chosen genealogical line of the messianic seed of Seth.
When Adam was 130 years old, he gave birth to Seth. Seth was not born in the image of God, but in the image of Adam. Seth will inherit the sin nature of his father. The Hebrew for Seth means “foundation”. Genealogically, Seth was the foundation of the Messiah to come.
4 The length of time Adam lived after he became the father of Seth was 800 years; during this time he had other sons and daughters.
Adam lived 800 years after Seth was born, so he had plenty of sons and daughters. This verse silences the critic who asks, “Where did Cain get his wife?”
Close marriages are genetically dangerous today because of the accumulation of harmful mutations in the human genetic system over many generations. However, incest was not prohibited until the days of Moses (Leviticus 20:11-20). In the first few generations, including those after the Flood, marriages of near relatives were necessary in order for mankind to obey God’s command to “multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28; 9:1).
5 The entire lifetime of Adam was 930 years, and then he died.
The result of Adam’s one sin was that not only did he die, but so did every human who came after him (with the exception of Enoch and Elijah).
6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.
Seth was the seed-son, so only his genealogy is mentioned. It is Seth's line which will produce the Messiah. All of Adam and Eve’s sons were not listed in the genealogies, but they all had children as well.
7 Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters.
Enosh means “frailty” or “weakness”.
8 The entire lifetime of Seth was 912 years, and then he died.
These long lives of the antediluvians have been questioned by skeptics. However, a “kings list” was excavated near Babel, which recorded that there were ten kings who had lived to very long ages before the Flood. Although these ages were at first deciphered as thousands of years, improved translations have brought them more in line with those in the Biblical record.
9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.
Kenan is similar to Cain and means “smith”.
10 Enosh lived 815 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he had other sons and daughters.
The Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans also recorded a tradition that the ancient men lived to great ages.
11 The entire lifetime of Enosh was 905 years, and then he died.
One thing in common is that because of Adam’s sin, all of these men died.
12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.
Mahalel means “praise of God”.
13 Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters.
Only those males in the messianic line were mentioned. All of the sons and daughters born to these men also helped to multiply the population of the earth very rapidly.
14 The entire lifetime of Kenan was 910 years, and then he died.
Men who live almost 1000 years can develop tremendously in architecture, engineering, medicine, etc. The antediluvians could have been as advanced as modern man today.
15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared.
Jared means “descent”.
16 Mahalalel lived 830 years after he became the father of Jared, and he had other sons and daughters.
Jared was the seed-son, but he had many other brothers and sisters who continued to populate the world.
17 The entire lifetime of Mahalalel was 895 years, and then he died.
Mahalel was the first seed-son who died before 900 years.
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch.
Enoch means “dedication” or “consecration”. This name is contained in both the Cain and Seth genealogies.
19 Jared lived 800 years after he became the father of Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters.
Enoch had many other brothers and sisters who personally knew him.
20 The entire lifetime of Jared was 962 years, and then he died.
Jared had outlived all of his descendants.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.
Methuselah means “when he dies, it will come”. Methuselah died naturally on the day of the Flood.
22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God for 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
“Walking with God” most likely meant that Enoch became a believer after his son Methuselah was born.
23 The entire lifetime of Enoch was 365 years.
Enoch’s genealogy was the shortest of the antedeluvians. Methuselah, his son, had the longest life span.
24 Enoch walked with God, and then he disappeared because God took him away.
The Hebrew word for “walked” is הָלַך (halak), meaning to walk with one in fellowship and communion like that of a loyal servant. This is the same Hebrew verb used when Adam “walked” in the Garden of Eden with God.
Jude 14-15 recorded that Enoch was a preacher of righteousness and a prophet. Enoch lived in the seventh generation, so he was a contemporary of Lamech. Lamech was from the line of Cain. He killed a man and boasted of being protected 70 x 7 times. It was during this seventh generation that blasphemous songs and poetry were written that defied God and glorified sin.
In one of the ancient documents from Sumaria called The Sumarian King List, the seventh king in the line was said to be intimate with the gods and a master in the occult. This could have been a secularized interpretation of the godly Enoch. If so, then the actual Biblical account was perverted and written from a godless point of view. Another possibility is that it could have been written about Lamech.
The Hebrew word for “disappeared” is אַ֫יִן (ayin), meaning that there was nothing. Enoch was walking with God, and then there was nothing, because he just disappeared. Enoch was the first live person who was raptured into heaven.
The Hebrew word for “he took him away” is לָקַח (lachach). It means to take away, to seize by force, to obtain, to fetch, to carry away, or to capture. Enoch disappeared, because he was snatched away by force.
Hebrews 11:15 states that Enoch “was translated that he should not see death”. Elijah had a similar experience 2500 years later (II Kings 2:11). Enoch prophesied midway between Adam and Abraham, when God was dealing directly with the antediluvians. Elijah prophesied midway between Abraham and Christ, when God was dealing directly with Israel.
There are at least three apocryphal books that have been attributed to Enoch, but none of them are inspired. They may have preserved some of Enoch’s prophecies, but except for the one Jude passage, this is unknown. The problem is that these apocryphal books actually date from shortly before the time of Christ and they are certainly not part of the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God.
25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech.
It is possible that Lamech and his grandfather Enoch could have been named after their older relatives from the line of Cain, possibly in the hope of leading the line of Cain back to God.
26 Methuselah lived 782 years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters.
All of Methuselah’s sons and daughters would die in the flood.
27 The entire lifetime of Methuselah was 969 years, and then he died.
As long as Methuselah was living, the Flood could not come. As long as he was alive, man was given the opportunity to repent and come to God (II Pet. 3:8–9). He was about 850 years old when Noah began building the ark. Therefore, the antediluvians had 119 years to turn to God.
Methuselah’s 969 year makes him the oldest man in the Bible. God is “long-suffering”, so he gave the antediluvians plenty of time to repent.
28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son.
Lamech means “warrior” or “conqueror.”
29 He named him Noah, saying, “This one will bring us comfort from our labor and from the painful toil of our hands because of the ground that the Lord has cursed.”
Noah means “comfort” or “rest”. Apparently, Lamech thought that Noah might be the Messiah who would bring comfort to the human race. He saw Noah as someone special, but he misinterpreted Noah’s role, just as Eve had misinterpreted Cain's role.
30 Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters.
These were Noah’s brothers and sisters. Many or all of them would die in the Flood.
31 The entire lifetime of Lamech was 777 years, and then he died.
Methuselah outlived his son Lamech by five years.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Shem means “name”. Ham means “hot”. Japheth means “beauty.” Racists advanced the notion that their names corresponded to the three different skin colors, but there is no Biblical evidence for this. The three sons of Noah were not triplets, because Japheth was later called “the elder” (Genesis 10:21) and Ham the “younger son” (Genesis 9:24). Noah was five hundred years old before any of these sons were even born.
Notice that there are no gaps in the genealogy. Old earth creationists attempt to insert gaps into the genealogy in order to make it fit their aging model, but the text does not allow for this type of biased exegesis. Exact years are given in each and every genealogy so that there can be no mistake about the literal age of these men.
If taken literally, then these geneological years were normal years. They were not months, as some people have tried to make them in order to fit their own personal dating model. If months were indicated rather than years, then some of these people would have given birth to children while they themselves were children.
Notice that not one of the seed-sons died in the Flood. Each one died before the Flood, with one dying in the year of the Flood.
The Sumarian King List from Sumer in Mesopotamia, dating from about the year 2000 B.C., listed a total of ten kings who lived before the flood. The document also mentioned that the Flood came during the reign of the tenth king.
The Berussos King List also confirmed a list of ten kings before the Flood. Berussos was a Babylonian priest of the third century B.C.
In conclusion, the human viewpoint of the satanic world system teaches that the Bible is false, because there were no wives for Cain and Abel.
The divine viewpoint of the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God teaches that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters.
Human viewpoint teaches that the long life spans before the flood were fictitious.
Divine viewpoint teaches that the environmental conditions of the earth were different before the flood and could sustain life longer.
Human viewpoint teaches that Noah was a mythological character.
Divine viewpoint teaches that Noah was an actual historical figure and he was a seed-son of Jesus.
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1. SAQ. What is the theme of Genesis 5?
2. What happened to Enoch?
3. What happened to Methuselah?
4. What does Methuselah mean?
5. What does Noah mean?
6. How old was Methuselah?
7. How did the antedeluvians live to such an old age?
8. From whom did Cain get his wife?
9. Explain the Hebrew meaning of halak.
10. List the four ancient nations who possessed a primary document list of pre-flood kings.
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