Genesis 5:3 Kommentar

This chapter is the only authentic history extant of the first age of the world from the creation to the flood, containing (according to the verity of the Hebrew text) 1656 years, as may easily be computed by the ages of the patriarchs, before they begat that son through whom the line went down to Noah. This is one of those which the apostle calls "endless genealogies" (Ti1 1:4), for Christ, who was the end of the Old Testament law, was also the end of the Old Testament genealogies; towards him they looked, and in him they centered. The genealogy here recorded in inserted briefly in the pedigree of our Saviour (Luk 3:36-38), and is of great use to show that Christ was the "seed of the woman" that was promised. We have here an account, I. Concerning Adam (Gen 5:1-5). II. Seth (Gen 5:6-8). III. Enos (Gen 5:9-11). Cainan (Gen 5:12-14). V. Mahalaleel (Gen 5:15-17). VI. Jared (Gen 5:18-20). VII. Enoch (Gen 5:21-24). VIII. Methuselah (Gen 5:25-27). IX. Lamech and his son Noah (Gen 5:28-32). All scripture, being given by inspiration of God, is profitable, though not all alike profitable.

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 5 This chapter contains a list or catalogue of the posterity of Adam in the line of Seth, down to Noah; it begins with a short account of the creation of Adam, and of his life and death, Gen 5:1 next of five of the antediluvian patriarchs, their age and death, namely Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Gen 5:6 then a particular relation of Enoch, his character and translation, Gen 5:21 then follows an account of Methuselah, the oldest man, and Lamech's oracle concerning his son Noah, Gen 5:12 and the chapter is closed with the life and death of Lamech, and the birth of the three sons of Noah, Gen 5:30.

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years,.... The Septuagint version, through mistaken, gives the number two hundred and thirty years: and begat a son; not that he had no other children during this time than Cain and Abel; this is only observed to show how old he was when Seth was born, the son here meant; who was begotten in his own likeness, after his image; not in the likeness, and after the image of God, in which Adam was created; for having sinned, he lost that image, at least it was greatly defaced, and he came short of that glory of God, and could not convey it to his posterity; who are, and ever have been conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; are polluted and unclean, foolish and disobedient; averse to all that is good, and prone to all that is evil: the sinfulness of nature is conveyed by natural generation, but not holiness and grace; that is not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of God, and produced of his own will, by his mighty power impressing the image of his Son in regeneration on his people; which by beholding his glory they are more and more changed into by the Spirit of God. The Jewish writers understand this in a good sense, of Seth being like to Adam in goodness, when Cain was not: so the Targum of Jonathan,"and he begat Seth, who was like to his image and similitude; for before Eve had brought forth Cain, who was not like unto him---but afterwards she brought forth him who was like unto him, and called his name Seth.''So they say (z) Cain was not of the seed, nor of the image of Adam, nor his works like Abel his brother; but Seth was of the seed and image of Adam, and his works were like the works of his brother Abel; according to that, "he begat (a son) in his own likeness". And they assert (a), that Adam delivered all his wisdom to Seth his son, who was born after his image and likeness; and particularly Maimonides (b) observes, that all the sons of Adam before Seth were rather beasts than men, and had not the true human form, not the form and image of men; but Seth, after Adam had taught and instructed him, was in human perfection, as it is said of him, "and he begat in his likeness": but the text speaks not of the education of Seth, and of what he was through that, but of his birth, and what he was in consequence of it; and we are told by good authority, that "that which is born of the flesh is flesh", carnal and corrupt, and such are all the sons of Adam by natural generation; see Job 14:4. (z) Pirke Eliezer, c. 22. (a) Shalshalet Hakabala, apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 212. (b) More Nevochim, par. 1. c. 7.

Christ is the invisible image of the invisible God, just as according to the Scripture narrative we say that the image of Adam was his son Seth. It is written thus: "And Adam begot Seth after his own image and after his own kind." This image preserves the unity of nature and substance common to a father and a son. For "whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise." In this very fact—that the Son does all things just as the Father does—the Father's image is reproduced in the Son, whose birth from the Father is as it were an act of his will proceeding from the mind.

(Verse 3.) Adam lived for two hundred and thirty years, and he begot in his own image and likeness, and he called his name Seth. It should be known that until the Flood, where it is said that somebody is said to have begotten two hundred and something years in our codices, in the Hebrew it has one hundred years and the rest that follow.

Adam lived for one hundred and thirty years, and he begot a son in his own likeness and image, and he named him Seth. Adam indeed was created in the likeness and image of God, because he was made immortal in both soul and body. However, after he corrupted the image and likeness of God in himself by sinning, he begot a son in his own likeness and image, that is, mortal, corruptible, capable of reason, bound by the guilt of his transgression, and to be freed only by the grace of his Creator.

It should be noted that where our Codices, translated from the Hebrew source, say Adam lived for one hundred and thirty years and begot Seth, the ancient translation has, instead of one hundred and thirty, two hundred and thirty; where our Codices continue, "And the days of Adam after he begot Seth were eight hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters," that one has seven hundred instead of eight hundred. And where it concludes, "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died," it places the same total, and such a distinction of numbers is preserved in all generations up to the flood between the two editions, so that before the birth of a son each one in the Septuagint is said to have had one hundred years more, and after the birth one hundred years less than in the Hebrew truth. But in the conclusion, both editions place an equal number; except only in the sixth generation; where in both Codices, Jared is found to have begotten Enoch at one hundred and sixty-two years, and after his birth to have lived eight hundred years: and in the ninth, where, according to the Hebrew truth, Lamech begot Noah when he was one hundred and eighty years old, and after he was born, he is found to have survived for five hundred and ninety-five years. However, in the Septuagint, the years before Noah was born are found to be one hundred and eighty-eight, and after he was born, five hundred sixty-five; thus it happens that Lamech is found to have lived twenty-four years longer in Hebrew than in the Septuagint Codices: by which difference of interpretations, it is made that the lifetime of Methuselah seems to extend fourteen years beyond the flood, and so the years before the flood according to the Hebrews are one thousand five hundred and fifty-six; according to the Septuagint, which the chronographers follow, two thousand two hundred and forty-two: although the most learned Augustine professes that even in the Septuagint translation, Methuselah is found in fewer but more accurate Codices to have died six years before the flood: who, when he most diligently investigated the cause of the aforementioned discord in interpretations, and did not wish to derogate from the faith of the Septuagint translators, whom the apostles and evangelists are proven to have followed in many places; and he himself believed they used more a prophetic gift than the office of interpretation in translating the Scriptures; he concluded in this way, saying: "Therefore it is more credible for someone to say that when these first began to be copied from the library of Ptolemy; at that time, something like this could have happened in one Codex, but first copied from there, from which it spread more widely, where indeed the error of the scribe could have happened. However, it is not absurd to suspect this in that question about the life of Methuselah." And after some: "I would not doubt at all that it is rightly done, he says, when something different is found in both Codices, since both cannot be according to the faith of the transactions, that the truth be believed rather to the language from which it is translated into another by interpreters." Therefore, according to Hebrew truth, Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and begot Seth. Seth lived one hundred and five years and begot Enos. Enos lived ninety years and begot Cainan. Cainan lived eighty years and begot Mahalalel. Mahalalel lived sixty-five years and begot Jared. Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years and begot Enoch.

A recapitulation of the account of the creation of man, Gen 5:1, Gen 5:2; and of the birth of Seth, Gen 5:3. Genealogy of the ten antediluvian patriarchs, vv. 3-31. Enoch's extraordinary piety, Gen 5:22; his translation to heaven without seeing death, Gen 5:24. The birth of Noah, and the reason of his name, Gen 5:29; his age at the birth of Japheth, Gen 5:32.

And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, etc. - The Scripture chronology especially in the ages of some of the antediluvian and postdiluvian patriarchs, has exceedingly puzzled chronologists, critics, and divines. The printed Hebrew text, the Samaritan, the Septuagint, and Josephus, are all different, and have their respective vouchers and defenders. The following tables of the genealogies of the patriarchs before and after the flood, according to the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Septuagint, will at once exhibit the discordances. For much satisfactory information on this subject I must refer to A New Analysis of Chronology, by the Rev. William Hales, D.D., 3 vols. 4th., London, 1809. And begat a son in his own likeness, after his image - Words nearly the same with those Gen 1:26 : Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. What this image and likeness of God were, we have already seen, and we may rest assured that the same image and likeness are not meant here. The body of Adam was created provisionally immortal, i.e. while he continued obedient he could not die; but his obedience was voluntary, and his state a probationary one. The soul of Adam was created in the moral image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. He had now sinned, and consequently had lost his moral resemblance to his Maker; he had also become mortal through his breach of the law. His image and likeness were therefore widely different at this time from what they were before; and his begetting children in this image and likeness plainly implies that they were imperfect like himself, mortal like himself, sinful and corrupt like himself. For it is impossible that he, being impure, fallen from the Divine image, could beget a pure and holy offspring, unless we could suppose it possible that a bitter fountain could send forth sweet waters, or that a cause could produce effects totally dissimilar from itself. What is said here of Seth might have been said of all the other children of Adam, as they were all begotten after his fall; but the sacred writer has thought proper to mark it only in this instance.

GENEALOGY OF THE PATRIARCHS. (Gen. 5:1-32) book of the generations--(See Gen 11:4). Adam--used here either as the name of the first man, or of the human race generally.

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 Co1 15:20, Co1 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" (Co2 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 (Jde 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.