Though death reigns over Adam’s descendants in a fallen world, God faithfully preserves the chosen line, displays fellowship with Himself, and advances His redemptive purpose toward Noah.
The Line of Adam Continues Under Death, Yet God Preserves the Promised Seed
Though death reigns over Adam’s descendants in a fallen world, God faithfully preserves the chosen line, displays fellowship with Himself, and advances His redemptive purpose toward Noah.
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Though death reigns over Adam’s descendants in a fallen world, God faithfully preserves the chosen line, displays fellowship with Himself, and advances His redemptive purpose toward Noah.
Genesis 5 demonstrates that the judgment of death announced after the fall now governs the human race, yet death does not cancel God’s preserving and redemptive purposes. The chapter begins by intentionally recalling creation in the image of God, reminding the reader that even fallen humanity remains tied to the divine creational purpose. Adam fathers Seth in his own likeness and image, showing both continuity with Genesis 1 and the transmission of fallen humanity through ordinary generation.
The repeated phrase 'and he died' functions as a theological drumbeat, proving the certainty of divine judgment and the universality of mortality. Yet the genealogy is not only about death. It is also about preservation. God continues the Sethite line, sustaining the seed trajectory in history. Enoch interrupts the rhythm of death by walking with God and then being taken, revealing that fellowship with God remains possible and that death does not exhaust the totality of God’s dealings with man.
Lamech’s naming of Noah signals hope that God will bring relief in a world burdened by the curse. Thus Genesis 5 bridges the creation-fall framework with the coming flood narrative by showing that even under death’s reign, God preserves a people and advances His promise.
Genesis 5 serves as the formal genealogy of Adam’s line through Seth and stands in deliberate contrast to the Cainite genealogy of Genesis 4. After the violence, pride, and corruption associated with Cain’s descendants, this chapter returns the reader to the preserved line through which the redemptive promise will continue. It belongs to the primeval history of Genesis 1–11 and is crucial for showing both continuity and consequence in the post-fall world.
The repeated refrain of death demonstrates that the sentence pronounced in Genesis 2 and realized through Genesis 3 now governs human history. Yet the genealogy is not a barren list of names. It is theological history. It shows that humanity remains fruitful, that the image language from Genesis 1 is still relevant after the fall, and that God continues to preserve a line culminating here in Noah, through whom the story of preservation and judgment will advance.
The chapter therefore holds together mortality, continuity, and covenantal preservation in a fallen world.
The chapter opens by recalling God’s creation of mankind in His likeness as male and female, grounding the genealogy in the theology of creation.
Adam fathers Seth in his likeness and image, then dies.
The genealogy continues through Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared, each marked by begetting, continued years, and death.
Enoch stands out as one who walked with God and was taken by God rather than receiving the standard death formula.
Methuselah is born, lives many years, and dies.
Lamech names Noah with an expectation of relief from the cursed ground, and the chapter closes by identifying Noah and his sons, preparing for the flood narrative.
- 5:1-2: The chapter opens by recalling God’s creation of mankind in His likeness as male and female, grounding the genealogy in the theology of creation.
- 5:3-5: Adam fathers Seth in his likeness and image, then dies.
- 5:6-20: The genealogy continues through Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared, each marked by begetting, continued years, and death.
- 5:21-24: Enoch stands out as one who walked with God and was taken by God rather than receiving the standard death formula.
- 5:25-27: Methuselah is born, lives many years, and dies.
- 5:28-32: Lamech names Noah with an expectation of relief from the cursed ground, and the chapter closes by identifying Noah and his sons, preparing for the flood narrative.
Sense book/account of the generations
Definition book/account of the generations
Why it matters This formula marks the chapter as a formal theological genealogy, signaling that the line being traced matters for the unfolding purposes of God.
Sense likeness
Definition likeness
Why it matters The chapter deliberately recalls humanity’s creation in God’s likeness and then speaks of Seth in Adam’s likeness, underscoring both continuity and fall-affected transmission.
Pastoral Entry
Ṣelem means image or likeness — a representation that corresponds to and reflects an original. Its most theologically concentrated appearances are in Genesis 1:26-27 and 9:6, where it describes the human being as created in God's image (bəṣelem ʾĕlōhîm). The word is also used for idols, for the shadow-image of human transience in the Psalms, and for the carved images of pagan gods.
Understanding what Genesis means by ṣelem requires attention to the ancient Near Eastern background: in the cultures surrounding Israel, a ṣelem was the representative statue of a king or god placed in a territory to signal sovereignty and presence. The king's image in a province declared whose reign extended there. When Genesis declares that God made humanity in his ṣelem, it is claiming that human beings — all of them, not only kings — are God's representative presence in the creation.
They are placed in the world to display who rules it. This reading does not require that the image is a quality humans possess (reason, morality, relationality) but that it is a role or function they occupy: to reflect God's character and represent his reign in the created order. The fall in Genesis 3 does not erase the image (Gen. 9. 6 still cites it as the ground of prohibiting murder), but it distorts the function.
The New Testament's account of Christ as the image of God (Col. 1. 15, Heb. 1. 3) and of believers being transformed into the same image (2 Cor. 3. 18) is the restoration of what the fall disrupted.
Sense image
Definition image
Why it matters The image language grounds human dignity and theological identity even within a genealogy marked by universal death.
Pastoral Entry
יָלַד (yalad) is the Hebrew verb for bearing and begetting — the verb of birth that is indexed in the local Hebrew artifact at about 500 OT occurrences, from the first birth (Gen 4:1) to the eschatological birth of the nation in a day (Isa 66:8). Its theological weight is concentrated at two points: the messianic birth announcements of Isaiah (a son is yalad, 7:14, 9:6) and the divine begetting of Psalm 2:7 ('today I have yalad you'). Both directions — the divine Father begetting the Son, and the human birth of the messianic child — converge in the NT's incarnation.
Psalm 2:7 is the most theologically loaded yalad text in the OT: 'I will tell of the decree: YHWH said to me, "You are my son; today I have yalad you (yĕlidtîkha)."' The divine begetting is royal — this is the enthronement of the Davidic king, and the 'today' is the day of his royal installation. YHWH declares the king to be his son by a specific act of yalad-declaration. The relationship is not merely adoptive in a human sense but is a unique divine bestowal of sonship through the covenant oath.
Isaiah 7:14 introduces the virginal birth-sign: 'Behold, the almah (young woman) will conceive and yalad (bear) a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (God with us).' The yalad here is the ordinary birth-verb, but the context — a miraculous sign given by YHWH to the house of David — marks this yalad as extraordinary. Matthew 1:22-23 quotes this as fulfilled in the birth of Jesus from Mary, with the LXX's parthenos (virgin) making explicit what the Hebrew almah implies in context.
Isaiah 9:6 gives yalad its most comprehensive royal statement: 'For to us a child is yalad (yulad lanu), to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.' The yulad here is the passive of yalad — 'he is born' — emphasizing the gift-character of the birth. The child born is also the 'Mighty God' (El Gibbor) and 'Everlasting Father' (Avi Ad). The yalad of this child opens into divine identity.
For the preacher, יָלַד (yalad) traces the line from ordinary human birth to the divine begetting of the Son to the eschatological birth of a new people — all through the same verb.
Sense beget, bear
Definition beget, bear
Why it matters The repeated begetting language highlights continuity of human life, generational transmission, and preservation of the chosen line under God’s providence.
Pastoral Entry
מוּת (mut) is the Hebrew verb and its noun form מָוֶת (mavet) the word for death — one of the most frequent theological realities in the OT, indexed in the local Hebrew artifact at about 839 occurrences. Mut enters the story at the point of the first prohibition: 'In the day that you eat of it you shall surely mut' (Gen 2:17 — mot tamut, the emphatic infinitive absolute construction: dying you shall die). Death is not a natural feature of the created order but the consequence of disobedience, which makes its pervasiveness in the OT both an indictment and a problem to be solved. The OT does not settle for death as the final word.
Genesis 2:17 introduces the emphatic form mot tamut (dying you shall die) as the warning attached to the forbidden tree. The doubling of the root (infinitive absolute + finite verb) is the Hebrew way of expressing absolute certainty and intensity — 'you will certainly die.' When the serpent says 'you will not certainly die' (lo mot temutun, Gen 3:4), he uses the same construction to deny it. The tension between the divine mot tamut and the serpent's lo mot temutun is the first theological conflict in Scripture — a conflict about whether death is YHWH's word or can be circumvented.
Psalm 116:15 gives mut its most counterintuitive use: 'Precious in the sight of YHWH is the mut of his hasidim (faithful ones).' The death of YHWH's people is not beneath his notice or outside his concern — it is yakar (precious, costly, weighty) to him. This verse does not sentimentalize death but insists that YHWH values his people's deaths: no mut of a covenant person goes unnoticed or unmeasured.
Isaiah 25:8 announces the eschatological defeat of mavet: 'He will swallow up mavet (death) forever.' The same power of death (swallowing) is turned against death itself — YHWH swallows the swallower. Hosea 13:14 takes this further: 'O mavet, where are your plagues? O sheol, where is your sting?' — the taunt song over defeated death. Paul quotes this text in 1 Corinthians 15:55, applying it to the resurrection of Christ as the event that enacts the defeat.
For the preacher, מוּת (mut) is the word that names the enemy that Christ has defeated, that defines the stakes of every human life, and that makes the resurrection the most important announcement in the world.
Sense die
Definition die
Why it matters The repeated verb is the governing rhythm of the chapter, showing that death now reigns universally over Adam’s descendants.
Pastoral Entry
הָלַךְ (halak) is the Hebrew verb of walking — and in its most theologically charged uses, walking is not locomotion but a life. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 511 occurrences, spanning the range from physical movement (Gen 12:1, 'go from your country') to the great summary of the covenant life (Mic 6:8, 'to walk humbly with your God').
Micah 6:8 gives halak its most compact covenantal use: 'He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does YHWH require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk (halok) humbly with your God?' The three requirements of Micah 6:8 — doing, loving, and walking — move from public ethics (justice) to inward disposition (loving kindness) to relational posture (walking humbly with your God). The halak here is the whole life oriented toward YHWH: not just worship attendance or covenant ceremony but the continual halak of a humble person beside a holy God.
Genesis 17:1 gives halak its covenantal-command form: 'I am God Almighty; walk (hithalekh) before me, and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you.' The command to walk (in the Hithpael, hithalekh, which emphasizes the continuous habitual walking) before YHWH is paired with being blameless (tamim, whole, undivided) and is the condition under which YHWH reaffirms the covenant with Abraham. To halak before YHWH is not to perform a single act but to arrange one's whole life in YHWH's presence: to live consciously before his face.
Genesis 5:22 and 6:9 give halak its Enoch-and-Noah form: 'Enoch walked (vayithalekh) with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years...' and 'Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked (hithalekh) with God.' The Hithpael hithalekh here is the same form as Genesis 17:1's covenantal command: walking with God as the defining characteristic of a life. Enoch and Noah are set before Israel as the paradigm of what covenantal walking looks like — and Enoch's translation ('he was not, for God took him,' Gen 5:24) is the eschatological promise within the halak: the one who walks with God walks with him ultimately into life beyond death.
Psalm 1:1 gives halak its diagnostic form: 'Blessed is the man who does not walk (halak) in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.' Psalm 1 opens the entire Psalter with the halak-question: which way are you walking? The contrast between the man who halaks in the counsel of the wicked and the man who meditates on YHWH's Torah day and night (v. 2) is the diagnostic of the covenant life. Where one's halak goes reveals one's heart.
Isaiah 2:5 gives halak its prophetic-invitation form: 'O house of Jacob, come, let us walk (venelkhah) in the light of YHWH.' The invitation to walk in the light of YHWH is Isaiah's summation of the covenant life in a world that has gone dark. The plural cohortative (let us walk together) makes the halak communal: the covenant people walks together in YHWH's light.
For the preacher, הָלַךְ (halak) gives the congregation the covenant life in motion. The faith is not a position but a walk — continuous, directional, with YHWH. And Micah 6:8 is the sermon that YHWH himself preaches on the halak: the question is not what rituals you perform but how you walk.
Sense walk
Definition walk
Why it matters Enoch’s walking with God highlights covenantal fellowship, spiritual communion, and a life distinguished within a dying genealogy.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
לָקַח is the Hebrew verb for taking — but what a range it covers. Nearly a thousand times in the Old Testament, this single verb does the work of seizing and receiving, fetching and accepting, marrying and purchasing, carrying away and drawing close. It is one of those load-bearing words in biblical Hebrew that refuses to settle into a single English meaning because it is not primarily a word about technique. It is a word about agency, intention, and the direction of reaching.
At its most ordinary, לָקַח is simply the motion of a hand that picks something up. Abram takes Lot with him when he leaves Haran. Rebekah takes the veil to cover her face. A priest takes the atonement blood and sprinkles it at the altar. The word belongs to the texture of everyday life — it governs the mechanics of trade, travel, offering, and household. In this register, לָקַח is unremarkable. It simply moves things from where they were to where they are needed.
But the verb does not stay ordinary. It is also the word for the taking that shapes a life, a nation, or a destiny. God takes Abraham out of Ur — calling, summoning, removing, redirecting. God takes Israel from the house of slaves, not because they earned extraction but because He reached into Egypt and drew them out. Moses takes the tablets. Samuel takes the horn of oil. Elijah is taken by the whirlwind. In these moments, לָקַח names the decisive divine action that changes everything: the claiming, the appointing, the lifting out.
The verb also governs danger and ruin. In the darkest register, לָקַח is the word for forbidden taking — Achan's seizure of devoted things, the hand that reaches toward what God has withheld, the foreign woman who takes the foolish young man in Proverbs 7 and leads him to his death. The same verb that names God's sovereign receiving of a life into covenant can name the grasping impulse that undoes what God built.
Pastorally, this breadth matters. לָקַח does not carry theological weight by itself — context, subject, object, and intent are everything. The pastor's task is to ask who is taking, what is being taken, and in what direction. When God is the subject, the taking is almost always covenantal, redemptive, or commissioning. When the human heart reaches out in unchecked desire, the same word marks the beginning of devastation. The word forces the congregation to reckon with the fact that reaching — toward God, toward what He gives, toward what He forbids — is the fundamental moral gesture of human life.
Sense take
Definition take
Why it matters When God takes Enoch, the normal death formula is interrupted, pointing to divine prerogative over life and fellowship beyond ordinary mortality.
Pastoral Entry
נָחַם is one of the most emotionally and theologically complex verbs in the Hebrew Bible. In its Piel stem it means to comfort or console — it is the verb of genuine pastoral presence with someone in sorrow. In the Niphal stem it means to be sorry, to relent, to change one's mind — and it is used of both humans and, remarkably, of God. This double register — comfort and relenting — is not accidental; they are two faces of the same inner reality: a deep responsiveness to suffering and wrongdoing that moves toward change.
The most theologically charged uses of nāḥam applied to God are the 'relenting' passages: 'And the Lord relented of the evil that he had said he would do to his people' (Exod 32:14). These passages create an apparent tension with God's immutability, which the OT itself acknowledges (1 Sam 15:29: 'The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret').
The tension is not contradiction but depth: God's relenting is the expression of his faithfulness, not its revision. When the people repent, God's faithfulness to them produces what looks from the outside like a changed plan — but what is actually the consistent operation of his covenant commitment. The comfort register of nāḥam reaches its greatest expression in Isaiah 40-55, where the word 'comfort' (naḥamû) opens the entire section: 'Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.'
This is the programmatic nāḥam of the new covenant section of Isaiah — the divine pastoral presence that meets Israel in exile and promises restoration.
Sense comfort, relieve
Definition comfort, relieve
Why it matters Lamech’s naming of Noah expresses longing for relief from toil and the cursed ground, revealing hope within a fallen world.
Sense toil, painful labor
Definition toil, painful labor
Why it matters The word links Noah’s naming directly back to the curse on the ground in Genesis 3, showing that the fall remains the explanatory backdrop of human labor.
Sense ground
Definition ground
Why it matters The cursed ground remains a theological sign of the fall, and Noah is introduced in relation to hoped-for relief from its burden.
Sense Enoch
Definition Enoch
Why it matters Enoch stands as the exceptional figure in the genealogy, emphasizing intimate fellowship with God in contrast to the chapter’s otherwise relentless pattern of death.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense Noah
Definition Noah
Why it matters Noah’s introduction near the end of the chapter signals the next major stage in God’s preserving work and the hope of relief from the curse.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Lexicon data: MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML (CC0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (CC BY 4.0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon (CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible Data (CC BY 4.0) · Full details
| v.1 | H1254בָּרָאQal · Infinitive constructH6213עָשָׂהQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.24 | H3947לָקַחQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.5 | H2425חָיַיQal · Perfect · Indicative |
Aspect in Hebrew is grammatical form, not tense. Perfect = completed action; Imperfect = incomplete/ongoing. Stem modifies action type (Qal=simple, Niphal=passive, Piel=intensive).
Morphology: OSHB WLC (Open Scriptures, CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible TEHMC (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0)
Theological Focus
- Death
- Image of God
- Genealogy
- Divine Preservation
- Seed-Line Continuity
- Human Mortality
- Walking with God
- Hope Under Curse
- Anthropology
- Hamartiology
- Theology Proper
- Christology Preparation
- Providence
- Covenant Theology
- Biblical Theology
Theme Weights
Covenant Significance
Genesis 5 is covenantally significant because it preserves the line through which God’s redemptive purpose continues after the fall and after the violence of Cain’s line. The genealogy is not merely biological, but theological, distinguishing the preserved line of Seth and preparing for Noah, who becomes central to the next major covenantal stage in Genesis. The chapter shows that despite universal mortality, God remains committed to His purposes in history and does not allow the promised line to disappear.
Canonical Connections
Genesis 5 is covenantally significant because it preserves the line through which God’s redemptive purpose continues after the fall and after the violence of Cain’s line. The genealogy is not merely biological, but theological, distinguishing the preserved line of Seth and preparing for Noah, who becomes central to the next major covenantal stage in Genesis. The chapter shows that despite universal mortality, God remains committed to His purposes in history and does not allow the promised line to disappear.
Genesis 3:17-19
Genesis 6:8-9
Psalm 90:3-12
Ecclesiastes 7:2
Isaiah 25:8
Genesis 4:25-26
Genesis 6:1-10
Genesis 11:10-32
Luke 3:36-38
Cross References
Canon-Wide Connections
Cross-reference data: OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Genesis 5 shows the long shadow of Adam’s sin over the human race. Again and again the refrain comes, 'and he died,' making plain that death now reigns in history. Yet even here the chapter does not leave the reader without hope. God preserves the line of promise, grants fellowship to Enoch, and directs expectation toward Noah. In the fullness of Scripture, this prepares us to see why Christ is necessary.
The human race under Adam cannot escape death by its own strength, but Jesus Christ, the promised seed, enters the human line, bears sin’s curse, and overcomes death through His resurrection. Genesis 5 therefore deepens the need for the gospel by showing the universality of death and the necessity of divine redemption.
Primary Emphasis
Genesis 5 contributes to Christology by tracing the preserved human line that ultimately leads toward the promised Deliverer. The chapter’s emphasis on death reigning through Adam’s descendants creates a backdrop later essential for understanding Christ as the one who overcomes death. Enoch’s exceptional translation also anticipates the reality that fellowship with God transcends ordinary death, while Noah’s introduction begins to move the narrative toward a preservation figure who foreshadows salvation through judgment.
In the larger canonical sense, Genesis 5 helps establish the lineal and theological path toward Christ, the greater seed who breaks death’s dominion.
Chapter Contribution
Genesis 5 demonstrates that the judgment of death announced after the fall now governs the human race, yet death does not cancel God’s preserving and redemptive purposes. The chapter begins by intentionally recalling creation in the image of God, reminding the reader that even fallen humanity remains tied to the divine creational purpose. Adam fathers Seth in his own likeness and image, showing both continuity with Genesis 1 and the transmission of fallen humanity through ordinary generation.
The repeated phrase 'and he died' functions as a theological drumbeat, proving the certainty of divine judgment and the universality of mortality. Yet the genealogy is not only about death. It is also about preservation. God continues the Sethite line, sustaining the seed trajectory in history. Enoch interrupts the rhythm of death by walking with God and then being taken, revealing that fellowship with God remains possible and that death does not exhaust the totality of God’s dealings with man.
Lamech’s naming of Noah signals hope that God will bring relief in a world burdened by the curse. Thus Genesis 5 bridges the creation-fall framework with the coming flood narrative by showing that even under death’s reign, God preserves a people and advances His promise.
God’s people look forward to relief and restoration from the effects of sin.
God preserves humanity through successive generations despite the fall.
Death is universal and inevitable as a consequence of sin.
Faithful living distinguishes individuals even within a fallen world.
God has authority over life and death, demonstrated in taking Enoch.
A life lived in close relationship with God is central to true human purpose.
God sustains life and ensures the continuation of His purposes through human lineage.
God’s action with Enoch points to life that is not bound by death.
Even in a fallen world, God provides hope through His unfolding plan.
God preserves humanity through successive generations despite mortality.
Human beings are both created and generationally continued through offspring.
Death remains a consistent reality across all generations.
Walking with God reflects a life of alignment, obedience, and faith.
Death is the universal result of sin, affecting all generations.
The effects of sin extend across all generations.
Human labor and toil are affected by the curse placed on the ground.
Humanity is created in God’s likeness, reflecting His design and purpose.
Human life is measured, finite, and accountable to God.
- Genesis 5 warns through its repeated death formula that the wages of sin are not theoretical, but historical, universal, and unavoidable apart from God’s redemptive intervention.
- Treating the genealogy as spiritually unimportant data rather than theological history loaded with meaning about death, preservation, and promise.
- Ignoring the deliberate connection to the image of God in the opening verses and thus missing the chapter’s anthropology.
- Reading the repeated deaths as routine narrative filler instead of a sustained demonstration that Genesis 3 judgment is now active in history.
- Treating Enoch as merely unusual without recognizing the theological significance of walking with God amid a dying world.
- Missing the importance of Noah’s naming, which expresses hope for relief from the curse and prepares the reader for the coming narrative.
- Assuming genealogies are only about chronology when they often function to preserve theological continuity and redemptive trajectory.
- Do you live as though death is a distant abstraction, or do you reckon honestly with the brevity and accountability of life?
- How does this chapter deepen your understanding that sin’s consequences reach every generation?
- What would it look like for you, in a dying world, to be known as one who walks with God?
- Are you thinking generationally about faithfulness, or only about your own immediate life and concerns?
- How does the expectation of relief from the curse prepare your heart to long for the greater rest and redemption found in Christ?
- Preach Genesis 5 to show that death is not natural in the moral sense, but the judicial consequence of sin entering the world.
- Use the genealogy to help believers think biblically about generations, inheritance, legacy, and the preservation of faithfulness.
- Show that the image of God still matters after the fall, grounding human dignity even in a chapter dominated by death.
- Highlight Enoch as a model of persevering fellowship with God in a corrupt and mortal age.
- Use Lamech’s hope in Noah to teach that even under curse conditions, God’s people may look for divine relief and redemption.
- Help the church read genealogies devotionally and theologically, not merely as background material to skip.
Genesis 5 shows the long shadow of Adam’s sin over the human race. Again and again the refrain comes, 'and he died,' making plain that death now reigns in history. Yet even here the chapter does not leave the reader without hope. God preserves the line of promise, grants fellowship to Enoch, and directs expectation toward Noah. In the fullness of Scripture, this prepares us to see why Christ is necessary.
The human race under Adam cannot escape death by its own strength, but Jesus Christ, the promised seed, enters the human line, bears sin’s curse, and overcomes death through His resurrection. Genesis 5 therefore deepens the need for the gospel by showing the universality of death and the necessity of divine redemption.
Genesis 5 shows the long shadow of Adam’s sin over the human race. Again and again the refrain comes, 'and he died,' making plain that death now reigns in history. Yet even here the chapter does not leave the reader without hope. God preserves the line of promise, grants fellowship to Enoch, and directs expectation toward Noah. In the fullness of Scripture, this prepares us to see why Christ is necessary.
The human race under Adam cannot escape death by its own strength, but Jesus Christ, the promised seed, enters the human line, bears sin’s curse, and overcomes death through His resurrection. Genesis 5 therefore deepens the need for the gospel by showing the universality of death and the necessity of divine redemption.
Genesis 5 shows the long shadow of Adam’s sin over the human race. Again and again the refrain comes, 'and he died,' making plain that death now reigns in history. Yet even here the chapter does not leave the reader without hope. God preserves the line of promise, grants fellowship to Enoch, and directs expectation toward Noah. In the fullness of Scripture, this prepares us to see why Christ is necessary.
The human race under Adam cannot escape death by its own strength, but Jesus Christ, the promised seed, enters the human line, bears sin’s curse, and overcomes death through His resurrection. Genesis 5 therefore deepens the need for the gospel by showing the universality of death and the necessity of divine redemption.
Genesis 5 shows the long shadow of Adam’s sin over the human race. Again and again the refrain comes, 'and he died,' making plain that death now reigns in history. Yet even here the chapter does not leave the reader without hope. God preserves the line of promise, grants fellowship to Enoch, and directs expectation toward Noah. In the fullness of Scripture, this prepares us to see why Christ is necessary.
The human race under Adam cannot escape death by its own strength, but Jesus Christ, the promised seed, enters the human line, bears sin’s curse, and overcomes death through His resurrection. Genesis 5 therefore deepens the need for the gospel by showing the universality of death and the necessity of divine redemption.
Genesis 5 shows the long shadow of Adam’s sin over the human race. Again and again the refrain comes, 'and he died,' making plain that death now reigns in history. Yet even here the chapter does not leave the reader without hope. God preserves the line of promise, grants fellowship to Enoch, and directs expectation toward Noah. In the fullness of Scripture, this prepares us to see why Christ is necessary.
The human race under Adam cannot escape death by its own strength, but Jesus Christ, the promised seed, enters the human line, bears sin’s curse, and overcomes death through His resurrection. Genesis 5 therefore deepens the need for the gospel by showing the universality of death and the necessity of divine redemption.
High
- The chapter teaches by genealogy and repetition rather than by direct command
- Its implied moral force urges sober living, generational faithfulness, and walking with God under the reality of death
C.F. Keil & F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–91) — public domain
The Biblical World
Chapter At A Glance
Genesis 5 is covenantally significant because it preserves the line through which God’s redemptive purpose continues after the fall and after the violence of Cain’s line. The genealogy is not merely biological, but theological, distinguishing the preserved line of Seth and preparing for Noah, who becomes central to the next major covenantal stage in Genesis. The chapter shows that despite universal mortality, God remains committed to His purposes in history and does not allow the promised line to disappear.
Genesis 5 shows the long shadow of Adam’s sin over the human race. Again and again the refrain comes, 'and he died,' making plain that death now reigns in history. Yet even here the chapter does not leave the reader without hope. God preserves the line of promise, grants fellowship to Enoch, and directs expectation toward Noah. In the fullness of Scripture, this prepares us to see why Christ is necessary.
The human race under Adam cannot escape death by its own strength, but Jesus Christ, the promised seed, enters the human line, bears sin’s curse, and overcomes death through His resurrection. Genesis 5 therefore deepens the need for the gospel by showing the universality of death and the necessity of divine redemption.
Focus Points
- Death
- Image of God
- Genealogy
- Divine Preservation
- Seed-Line Continuity
- Human Mortality
- Walking with God
- Hope Under Curse
- Anthropology
- Hamartiology
- Theology Proper
- Christology Preparation
- Providence
- Covenant Theology
- Biblical Theology
Cross References
Passages
Chapter opening: Genesis 5:1-5
The origin of the human race and the general character of its development having been thus described, all that remained of importance to universal or sacred history, in connection with the progress of our race in the primeval age, was to record the order of the families (Gen 5) and the ultimate result of the course which they pursued (Gen 6:1-8). - First of all, we have the genealogical table of Adam with the names of the first ten patriarchs, who were at the head of that seed of the woman by which the promise was preserved, viz.
, the posterity of the first pair through Seth, from Adam to the flood. We have also an account of the ages of these patriarchs before and after the birth of those sons in whom the line was continued; so that the genealogy, which indicates the line of development, furnishes at the same time a chronology of the primeval age. In the genealogy of the Cainites no ages are given, since this family, as being accursed by God, had no future history.
On the other hand, the family of Sethites, which acknowledged God, began from the time of Enos to call upon the name of the Lord, and was therefore preserved and sustained by God, in order that under the training of mercy and judgment the human race might eventually attain to the great purpose of its creation. The genealogies of the primeval age, to quote the apt words of M.
Baumgarten , are “memorials, which bear testimony quite as much to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling His promise, as to the faith and patience of the fathers themselves. ” This testimony is first placed in its true light by the numbers of the years. The historian gives not merely the age of each patriarch at the time of the birth of the first-born, by whom the line of succession was continued, but the number of years that he lived after that, and then the entire length of his life.
Now if we add together the ages at the birth of the several first-born sons, and the hundred years between the birth of Shem and the flood, we find that the duration of the first period in the world’s history was 1656 years. We obtain a different result, however, from the numbers given by the lxx and the Samaritan version, which differ in almost every instance from the Hebrew text, both in Gen 5 and Gen 11 (from Shem to Terah), as will appear from the table on the following page.
The principal deviations from the Hebrew in the case of the other two texts are these: in Gen 5 the Samaritan places the birth of the first-born of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech 100 years earlier, whilst the Septuagint places the birth of the first-born of all the other fathers (except Noah) 100 years later than the Hebrew; in Gen 11 the latter course is adopted in both texts in the case of all the fathers except Shem and Terah. In consequence of this, the interval from Adam to the flood is shortened in the Samaritan text by 349 years as compared with the Hebrew, and in the Septuagint is lengthened by 586 ( Cod.
Alex. 606). The interval from the flood to Abram is lengthened in both texts; in the Sam. by 650 years, in the Sept. by 880 ( Cod. Alex. 780). In the latter, Cainan is interpolated between Arphaxad and Salah, which adds 130 years, and the age of the first-born of Nahor is placed 150 years later than in the Hebrew, whereas in the former the difference is only 50 years.
With regard to the other differences, the reason for reducing the lives of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech in the Samaritan text after the birth of their sons, was evidently to bring their deaths within the time before the flood. The age of Methuselah, as given in the Cod. Alex. of the lxx, is evidently to be accounted for on the same ground, since, according to the numbers of the Vatican text, Methuselah must have lived 14 years after the flood.
In the other divergences of these two texts from the Hebrew, no definite purpose can be detected; at the same time they are sufficient to show a twofold tendency, viz. , to lengthen the interval from the flood to Abram, and to reduce the ages of the fathers at the birth of their first-born to greater uniformity, and to take care that the age of Adam at the birth of Seth should not be exceeded by that of any other of the patriarchs, especially in the time before the flood.
To effect this, the Sept. adds 100 years to the ages of all the fathers, before and after the flood, whose sons were born before their 100th years; the Sam. , on the other hand, simply does this in the case of the fathers who lived after the flood, whilst it deducts 100 years from the ages of all the fathers before the flood who begot their first-born at a later period of their life than Adam and Seth.
The age of Noah alone is left unaltered, because there were other data connected with the flood which prevented any arbitrary alteration of the text. That the principal divergences of both texts from the Hebrew are intentional changes, based upon chronological theories or cycles, is sufficiently evident from their internal character, viz. , from the improbability of the statement, that whereas the average duration of life after the flood was about half the length that it was before, the time of life at which the fathers begot their first-born after the flood was as late, and, according to the Samaritan text, generally later than it had been before.
No such intention is discernible in the numbers of the Hebrew text; consequently every attack upon the historical character of its numerical statements has entirely failed, and no tenable argument can be adduced against their correctness. The objection, that such longevity as that recorded in our chapter is inconceivable according to the existing condition of human nature, loses all its force if we consider “that all the memorials of the old world contain evidence of gigantic power; that the climate, the weather, and other natural conditions, were different from those after the flood; that life was much more simple and uniform; and that the after-effects of the condition of man in paradise would not be immediately exhausted” ( Delitzsch ) .
This longevity, moreover, necessarily contributed greatly to the increase of the human race; and the circumstance that the children were not born till a comparatively advanced period of life, - that is, until the corporeal and mental development of the parent was perfectly complete, - necessarily favoured the generation of a powerful race. From both these circumstances, however, the development of the race was sure to be characterized by peculiar energy in evil as well as in good; so that whilst in the godly portion of the race, not only were the traditions of the fathers transmitted faithfully and without adulteration from father to son, but family characteristics, piety, discipline, and morals took deep root, whilst in the ungodly portion time was given for sin to develop itself with mighty power in its innumerable forms.
Gen 5:1-2 The heading in Gen 5:1 runs thus: “This is the book ( sepher ) of the generations ( tholedoth ) of Adam. ” On tholedoth , see Gen 2:4. Sepher is a writing complete in itself, whether it consist of one sheet or several, as for instance the “bill of divorcement” in Deu 24:1, Deu 24:3. The addition of the clause, “ in the day that God created man ,” etc.
, is analogous to Gen 2:4; the creation being mentioned again as the starting point, because all the development and history of humanity was rooted there.
The origin of the human race and the general character of its development having been thus described, all that remained of importance to universal or sacred history, in connection with the progress of our race in the primeval age, was to record the order of the families (Gen 5) and the ultimate result of the course which they pursued (Gen 6:1-8). - First of all, we have the genealogical table of Adam with the names of the first ten patriarchs, who were at the head of that seed of the woman by which the promise was preserved, viz.
, the posterity of the first pair through Seth, from Adam to the flood. We have also an account of the ages of these patriarchs before and after the birth of those sons in whom the line was continued; so that the genealogy, which indicates the line of development, furnishes at the same time a chronology of the primeval age. In the genealogy of the Cainites no ages are given, since this family, as being accursed by God, had no future history.
On the other hand, the family of Sethites, which acknowledged God, began from the time of Enos to call upon the name of the Lord, and was therefore preserved and sustained by God, in order that under the training of mercy and judgment the human race might eventually attain to the great purpose of its creation. The genealogies of the primeval age, to quote the apt words of M.
Baumgarten , are “memorials, which bear testimony quite as much to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling His promise, as to the faith and patience of the fathers themselves. ” This testimony is first placed in its true light by the numbers of the years. The historian gives not merely the age of each patriarch at the time of the birth of the first-born, by whom the line of succession was continued, but the number of years that he lived after that, and then the entire length of his life.
Now if we add together the ages at the birth of the several first-born sons, and the hundred years between the birth of Shem and the flood, we find that the duration of the first period in the world’s history was 1656 years. We obtain a different result, however, from the numbers given by the lxx and the Samaritan version, which differ in almost every instance from the Hebrew text, both in Gen 5 and Gen 11 (from Shem to Terah), as will appear from the table on the following page.
The principal deviations from the Hebrew in the case of the other two texts are these: in Gen 5 the Samaritan places the birth of the first-born of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech 100 years earlier, whilst the Septuagint places the birth of the first-born of all the other fathers (except Noah) 100 years later than the Hebrew; in Gen 11 the latter course is adopted in both texts in the case of all the fathers except Shem and Terah. In consequence of this, the interval from Adam to the flood is shortened in the Samaritan text by 349 years as compared with the Hebrew, and in the Septuagint is lengthened by 586 ( Cod.
Alex. 606). The interval from the flood to Abram is lengthened in both texts; in the Sam. by 650 years, in the Sept. by 880 ( Cod. Alex. 780). In the latter, Cainan is interpolated between Arphaxad and Salah, which adds 130 years, and the age of the first-born of Nahor is placed 150 years later than in the Hebrew, whereas in the former the difference is only 50 years.
With regard to the other differences, the reason for reducing the lives of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech in the Samaritan text after the birth of their sons, was evidently to bring their deaths within the time before the flood. The age of Methuselah, as given in the Cod. Alex. of the lxx, is evidently to be accounted for on the same ground, since, according to the numbers of the Vatican text, Methuselah must have lived 14 years after the flood.
In the other divergences of these two texts from the Hebrew, no definite purpose can be detected; at the same time they are sufficient to show a twofold tendency, viz. , to lengthen the interval from the flood to Abram, and to reduce the ages of the fathers at the birth of their first-born to greater uniformity, and to take care that the age of Adam at the birth of Seth should not be exceeded by that of any other of the patriarchs, especially in the time before the flood.
To effect this, the Sept. adds 100 years to the ages of all the fathers, before and after the flood, whose sons were born before their 100th years; the Sam. , on the other hand, simply does this in the case of the fathers who lived after the flood, whilst it deducts 100 years from the ages of all the fathers before the flood who begot their first-born at a later period of their life than Adam and Seth.
The age of Noah alone is left unaltered, because there were other data connected with the flood which prevented any arbitrary alteration of the text. That the principal divergences of both texts from the Hebrew are intentional changes, based upon chronological theories or cycles, is sufficiently evident from their internal character, viz. , from the improbability of the statement, that whereas the average duration of life after the flood was about half the length that it was before, the time of life at which the fathers begot their first-born after the flood was as late, and, according to the Samaritan text, generally later than it had been before.
No such intention is discernible in the numbers of the Hebrew text; consequently every attack upon the historical character of its numerical statements has entirely failed, and no tenable argument can be adduced against their correctness. The objection, that such longevity as that recorded in our chapter is inconceivable according to the existing condition of human nature, loses all its force if we consider “that all the memorials of the old world contain evidence of gigantic power; that the climate, the weather, and other natural conditions, were different from those after the flood; that life was much more simple and uniform; and that the after-effects of the condition of man in paradise would not be immediately exhausted” ( Delitzsch ) .
This longevity, moreover, necessarily contributed greatly to the increase of the human race; and the circumstance that the children were not born till a comparatively advanced period of life, - that is, until the corporeal and mental development of the parent was perfectly complete, - necessarily favoured the generation of a powerful race. From both these circumstances, however, the development of the race was sure to be characterized by peculiar energy in evil as well as in good; so that whilst in the godly portion of the race, not only were the traditions of the fathers transmitted faithfully and without adulteration from father to son, but family characteristics, piety, discipline, and morals took deep root, whilst in the ungodly portion time was given for sin to develop itself with mighty power in its innumerable forms.
Gen 5:1-2 The heading in Gen 5:1 runs thus: “This is the book ( sepher ) of the generations ( tholedoth ) of Adam. ” On tholedoth , see Gen 2:4. Sepher is a writing complete in itself, whether it consist of one sheet or several, as for instance the “bill of divorcement” in Deu 24:1, Deu 24:3. The addition of the clause, “ in the day that God created man ,” etc.
, is analogous to Gen 2:4; the creation being mentioned again as the starting point, because all the development and history of humanity was rooted there.
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .
Gen 5:3-32 As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he beget “ in his own likeness, after his image; ” that is to say, he transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form given to it by his own self-determination, modified and corrupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat (other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion ויּמת “ and he died .
” This apparently superfluous announcement is “intended to indicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam downwards as an unchangeable law (vid. , Rom 5:14). But against this background of universal death, the power of life was still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sustained, by which the author of death should be overcome.
” In the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. , Enoch (Gen 5:21.) , life had not only a different issue, but also a different form. Instead of the expression “and he lived,” which introduces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, “ he walked with God ( Elohim ) ; ” and instead of the expression “ and he died, ” the announcement, “ and he was not, for God ( Elohim ) took him .
” The phrase “walked with God,” which is only applied to Enoch and Noah (Gen 6:9), denotes the most confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued His visible intercourse with men (vid. , Gen 3:8). It must be distinguished from “walking before God” (Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40, etc.)
, and “walking after God” (Deu 13:4), both which phrases are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law according to the directions of the divine commands. The only other passage in which this expression “walk with God” occurs is Mal 2:6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer relation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not do.
The article in האלהים gives prominence to the personality of Elohim , and shows that the expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world. In Enoch, the seventh from Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore, like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death (Heb 11:5); i.
e. , he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment, and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption, but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23, it is not in glorification, but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but reaches ἀφθαρσία, or the glorified state of perfection, through being “changed” or “clothed upon” (2Co 5:4).
This does not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14. For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin, and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah, and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without chaining their glorification to death and resurrection.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death. Enoch’s translation stands about half way between Adam and the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive.
His son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God, was “an example of repentance to all generations,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 44:16); and the apocryphal legend in the book of Enoch Gen 1:9 represents him as prophesying of the coming of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jud 1:14-15).
In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen. That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (Gen 5:28, Gen 5:29), when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch’s translation, the name of Noah , saying, “ This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed .
” Noah , נוח from נוּח to rest and הניח to bring rest, is explained by נחם to comfort, in the sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate, and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would come.
This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his son was born; he therefore gave expression to it in his name. But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was exterminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was secured; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were not removed; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of the eventual removal of the curse (Gen 9:8-17).
The genealogical table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years old (Gen 5:32; see Gen 11:10), without any allusion to the remaining years of his life-an indication of a later hand. “The mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new beginning (vid.
, Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:1). ” - M. Baumgarten .