5:1–5 The chapter begins with the main structuring device in Genesis, the toledot formula (cf. comment on 2:4–7). Here it introduces the “family history,” or the “account of the offspring,” of Adam and specifically the line of Seth. The focus of chapter 4 was the line of Cain and its advancements of technology, civilization, and the arts, in contrast to which the line of Seth received only a very brief mention in connection with true worship (4:26). Now the focus shifts to the elect line, though there is no mention of any similar cultural achievements on its part. It is often assumed that this chapter was borrowed from an earlier source;90 this is plausible, since genealogies by their very nature tend to have an independent existence, preserving remembrance of the family line. However, a more interesting question asks why Moses chose to incorporate this genealogy here and what function it serves within the wider narrative. (Note esp. the tight connections to 1:26–28 and 4:25–26, connecting this section with the prologue, 1:1–2:3, and the first toledot, 2:4–4:26.) The genealogy is not a random insertion at this point in the story; rather it serves to underline the historical nature of the narratives surrounding it. These events did not take place “in a galaxy far, far away” or in some timeless heavenly realm of the gods but in real time and space that are connected directly through these genealogies down to the world of Moses’ first readers.

The passage begins with a reprise of 1:26–28, focusing specifically on humanity’s relationship to God and omitting all the aspects of the original that had to do with its lordship over creation. Humans were made in the likeness of God—both male and female—and named by him. What is more, they existed under his blessing in the beginning (5:1–2). This reprise both introduces and forms a contrast with what follows. Just as humans were made in the image of God and named by him, so too Adam had a son in his own likeness, whom he named Seth (v. 3). In a fallen world conception and safe delivery cannot be taken for granted; both are a blessing from God (cf. Ps. 127:3–5) in light of the judgment on the woman in Genesis 3:16. If Seth is in Adam’s likeness, and Adam is in God’s likeness, then this implies that all subsequent humans are also in the likeness of God, even after the fall.91 God’s creation of and naming of mankind form a pattern that the line of Seth will imitate. The story of Cain and Abel does not need to be repeated here; Cain is not included in the line of promise because of his sin, and Abel has been replaced by Seth (4:25).

An unusual feature of the genealogy in Genesis 5 is the cataloging of the ages of the primeval figures, both when each fathers his first child and when each dies. The figures for both these events are high throughout the genealogy—Adam, for example, fathers his first child at 130 years old and then lives to be 930 (Gen. 5:3–5). Ancient people were as familiar with normal lifespans as modern people are (cf. Ps. 90:10), yet their memory was that people lived to far greater ages in the period prior to the flood. In the providence of God this would, of course, have permitted far more rapid population growth (note the repeated refrain “And he had other sons and daughters”; Gen. 5:4, 7, 10, etc.), enabling much of the earth to be occupied within only a few generations. It also suggests that the full effects of the curse had not yet taken hold; it is not until the time of the flood that normal human life expectancy is reduced to less than 120 years (cf. 6:3). Yet the curse is still in effect upon humanity, as may be seen by the repeated refrain “And he died” (5:5, 8, 11).

In most cases nothing is recorded in the genealogy about the lives of these early humans beyond their birth, having and naming children, living out their days, and death. The message of Psalm 90—the one biblical psalm by Moses—is that humans are like the grass that springs up in the morning and is swept away by the evening, because we pass our days under the wrath of God; our time is soon gone and we return to the dust from which we were taken (Ps. 90:3–10). Genesis 5 communicates the same message in the form of a genealogy; even the longest human life is largely empty and devoid of substance. Although we may fill the earth with children made in our own image, sooner or later we will die and return to the ground from which we were taken. This is true not merely of the line of Cain, the non-elect line; it is the fate also of the elect line of promise. Calling on the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26) does not exempt the family from the trials and challenges of living in a world in which (almost) every life ends in death. Yet we should not miss the significance of the fact that each of these otherwise unknown people has his own part to play in passing on the line of promise.

5:6–24 This repeated cycle of birth, fathering a son, living a long (but essentially empty) life, and then dying makes the story of Enoch distinct. Just as Lamech is the seventh from Adam in the line of Cain (Gen. 4:19–24), so Enoch is the seventh from Adam in the line of Seth. But whereas Lamech is noted for the height of his iniquity, introducing polygamy and celebrating gratuitous violence with his poetry, Enoch is marked out because he “walked with God” (5:24). Although he fathers his first child at age 65 (a relatively normal age in the genealogy; cf. v. 15), Enoch lives to be a mere 365 years old, by far the youngest of the preflood patriarchs, less than half the lifetime of his grandson (also named Lamech), who at 777 years is the shortest-lived of the antediluvian patriarchs. This clearly challenges the idea that a long life is an unmitigated blessing from God: in this case the patriarch who walks most closely with God lives the shortest life before God takes him (5:24).92

It is sometimes suggested that the idea of individual resurrection is a late concept in the Hebrew Bible, appearing first in books such as Daniel (e.g., 12:2–3). This may be true if one is looking for explicit references to bodily resurrection; however, the whole fabric of the Hebrew Bible rests on the reality of life after death (or more precisely in Enoch’s case, “life after life”). Jesus, of course, points this out to the Sadducees when he reminds them of the simple formula “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” which, he argues, presupposes the reality of the resurrection, since the Lord is the God not of the dead but the living (Matt. 22:32). He could just as easily have pointed to the experience of Enoch. If life in this world is all there is, then the one who walks with God should live here longer than others. What is more, if there is nothing beyond this life, what could it mean for God to “take Enoch” (Gen. 5:24) or for the later patriarchs to be “gathered to [their] people” (e.g., Gen. 49:29)? If Abraham had no expectation of a resurrection, why did it matter for him to be buried in a plot of the Promised Land that he owned (cf. Genesis 23)? As the writer to the Hebrews correctly discerns, everything in Genesis rests on the substratum of a hope of life beyond this life, a hope that finds its firstfruits, as it were, in the experience of Enoch.

When we are told that Enoch walked (Hb. hithallek) with God, we are immediately reminded of God’s walking around in the garden, which he apparently did regularly with Adam and Eve, which uses exactly the same form of the verb (cf. comment on 3:8–13). Similar terminology is later used to describe the Lord’s presence in the midst of his people in the wilderness by means of the tabernacle (Deut. 23:14). This is the language of keeping company with and sharing intimate fellowship with someone, not merely marching together along the same road (cf. 1 Sam. 25:15). The same virtue will be ascribed to Noah in Genesis 6:9: in contrast to the wicked and perverse generation surrounding him, Noah walks with God. However, whereas for Enoch the outcome of his walking with God is to be caught up to live with God “early,” as it were, thus avoiding many of the trials and pains that accompany life in a fallen and cursed world, for Noah the fruit of his walking with God is that the Lord preserves him through those trials and pains as he endures and survives the flood. God has more than one way of dealing with his faithful servants.

5:25–32 The last three generations in the ten-generation sequence from Adam to Noah include the longest-lived patriarch of all, Methuselah, whose son, Lamech—not to be confused with the Lamech in the line of Cain93—is the shortest lived of the patriarchs to live out a full life and die. Methuselah lives 969 years, while his son lives a mere 777 years. Yet, like most of the other antediluvian patriarchs, neither of them does anything more significant than having children to carry on the line of promise.

This reality is emphasized by the explanation of the name given to Lamech’s son, Noah. Thus far there has been no explanation given for any name since the time of Cain and Seth (cf. Gen. 4:1, 25). This should caution us against the attempts of some popular commentators to draw imaginative significance out of the sequence of names in Seth’s line; to do so is at best to interpret the passage in a direction entirely unintended by the original author, while at worst some of the proposed etymologies are extremely tortured in such an interpretation. The passage itself largely uses these names as markers of the passage of the generations, while the line of promise keeps alive hope that God would in due time send the appointed seed.

This hope is expressed concretely by Noah’s father, Lamech, who names him “relief” (Hb. noakh; 5:29),94 saying, “This one will bring us relief [yenakhamenu] from the agonizing labor of our hands, caused by the ground the Lord has cursed” (v. 29 CSB).95 The reference to the “agonizing labor of our hands” and the curse on the ground clearly alludes to God’s judgment upon Adam in 3:17, so the hope of Noah providing relief must be a reference to the promise of Genesis 3:15. Surely, now that Adam had died,96 it is time for God to provide relief to his people through the promised seed of the woman? But, though Noah will carry humanity safely through the judgment of the flood, it is not yet time for the people to enter their rest. That seed will take many more generations to arrive.

Noah is marked out in one other way from the other generations in the genealogy. Each of the other patriarchs has a single named son who carries on the line of promise and multiple other sons and daughters who disappear from the picture. Are we to assume that they virtually all assimilate to the line of Cain, so that the elect line remains just that—a line, with almost no branches? That may be the case, if Noah’s generation is in any way representative: Noah walks alone with God, surrounded by a wicked and rebellious generation (cf. 6:9–12). Yet unlike his ancestors Noah has three named sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—through whom there will be a new beginning for humanity. He has to wait a long time for those sons, even by antediluvian standards: Noah’s first son is born when he is six hundred, which explains why there are no grandchildren on the ark and hints at a lengthy period of barrenness for Noah and his wife, a theme that will become prominent later in Genesis.

It will not take long before the line of promise returns to being a single thread, however, passed down through the line of Seth to Terah, then to Abraham and to Isaac. It will not branch into a segmented genealogy again until the time of Jacob, whose twelve sons will together form the nation of Israel. But the remaining offspring of Shem, Ham, and Japheth will have important roles to play in establishing the various nations of Israel’s world (cf. Genesis 10).