The Book of Generations
Genealogy is
important to show
the godly lines and
ungodly lines.
Genesis 5
1
This is the written account of Adam’s line. When God
created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 He
created them male and female and blessed them. And
when they were created, he called them “man.”
3
When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his
own likeness, in his own image; and he named him
Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and
had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived
930 years, and then he died.
Genesis 5
6
When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the
father of Enosh. 7 And after he became the father of
Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and
daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then
he died.
9
When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the
father of Kenan. 10 And after he became the father of
Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and
daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and
then he died.
12
When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the
father of Mahalalel. 13 And after he became the father
of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons
and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived 910 years,
and then he died.
15
When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the
father of Jared. 16 And after he became the father of
Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons
and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived 895
years, and then he died.
9
When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the
father of Kenan. 10 And after he became the father of
Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and
daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and
then he died.
12
When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the
father of Mahalalel. 13 And after he became the father
of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons
and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived 910 years,
and then he died.
15
When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the
father of Jared. 16 And after he became the father of
Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons
and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived 895
years, and then he died.
18
When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the
father of Enoch. 19 And after he became the father of
Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and
daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and
then he died.
21
When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the
father of Methuselah. 22 And after he became the
father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300
years and had other sons and daughters.
23
Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. 24 Enoch walked
with God; then he was no more, because God took him
away.
25
When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became
the father of Lamech. 26 And after he became the
father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had
other sons and daughters. 27 Altogether, Methuselah
lived 969 years, and then he died.
28
When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29
He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in
the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the
ground the LORD has cursed.”
30
After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and
had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech
lived 777 years, and then he died.
32
After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father
of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
What is the purpose of genealogy in the Bible?
1. It shows the development of the human race from
Adam to Noah and bridges the historical gap in time
between these two major individuals .
Why is this important?
Isaiah 46:9-10
9
Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am
God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none
like me. 10 I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My
purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
Isaiah 48:3-5
3
I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth
announced them and I made them known; then
suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.
4 For I knew how stubborn you were; the sinews of your
neck were iron, your forehead was bronze.
5 Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they
happened I announced them to you so that you could
not say, ‘My idols did them; my wooden image and
metal god ordained them.’
What is the purpose of genealogy in the Bible?
2.
It demonstrates the authenticity of God's word when
He said that people would die as a result of sin. Note
the recurrence of the phrase "and he died" (vv. 5, 8,
11, 14, 17, 20, 27, 31).
“And he died…and he died…and he died…:” Because of sin we
will all die.
Are you ready to die? "It is appointed unto men
once to die and then the judgment” (Heb.9:27).
Our physical bodies will die, but our spirits (who
we are) will be judged.
We have an opportunity to choose, either to
have faith in God’s promises or to deny Him.
The result of that decision determines where
we will spend eternity.
3. The Holy Spirit focuses our attention here on the
difference that faith in the Promises of God will make in
the quality of our life .
We learn from these men of faith that their life was not
without purpose. Their faith in the Promises of God
made life worth living even under the most difficult
circumstances.
Faith in the promises of God empowered them to walk
with God for hundreds of years without recorded moral
failure!
This same power is made available to us today through
faith in the promises of God (2 Peter 1:2-4).
2 Peter 1:2-4
2 Grace
and peace be yours in abundance through the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3His
divine power has given us everything we need for
life and godliness through our knowledge of him who
called us by his own glory and goodness.
4
Through these he has given us his very great and
precious promises, so that through them you may
participate in the divine nature and escape the
corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Notice that these men lived for hundreds of years.
It is important for us to understand some of the reasons
God allowed such long lifetimes until the time of the
flood when God began to be reduced life-spans to 120
years (Gen. 6:3).
By 1000 BC life-spans were generally reduced to 70 – 80
years (Psalm 90:10) “The length of our days is seventy
years or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is
but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly
away.”
There are several reasons why a long life was God’s
design in the beginning.
1. Long life was one of the chief means of preserving a
knowledge of God, of the great truths of God, as
well as the influence of genuine holiness.
With such a long overlap of many generations the
knowledge of history and spiritual truth could be
preserved with the greatest accuracy and purity
both orally and in writing.
This accuracy (inerrancy) is what distinguishes the
Bible from every other piece of ancient literature.
2. All the patriarchs (except Noah) were born before
Adam died, so that from him they might receive a
full account of the creation, paradise, the fall, the
promise, and those divine precepts which
concerned Godly worship and living a life according
to God’s promises.
3. We observe how great was the care of Almighty God
to preserve for mankind the knowledge of His Will,
the purity of His Worship, the certainty of judgment,
and the promise of redemption.
4. It allowed for the rapid increase of the population
5. It allowed for the preservation of knowledge so that
advancement in civilization could progress very
rapidly
We will look at
these generations
in later chapters of
Genesis
Cain’s Family
The purpose of genealogy in the Bible also contrasts
the progress of the godly line of Seth culminating in
Enoch (7th from Adam), who walked with God and
experienced translation (Gen. 5:6-24), with the
development of the ungodly line of Cain.
Cain's branch of the human race culminated in Lamech
(7th from Adam, not the same Lamech as Methuselah’s
son). Lamech was a murdering, proud, abusive man
with more than one wife. (Gen. 4:16-24).
Enoch 7th from Adam
Lamech 7th from Adam
Walks with God
Rebels against God
Saved from death
Murders another man
Prophecies of coming
Mocks at the idea of being
Judgment
Judged
His Children live by Faith
His Children focus on
in the spiritual Promises pleasures of materialistic
of God
prosperity
(Gen. 5:29; Jude 14-15)
(Gen. 4:19-22)
Some of His descendants
All His descendants
saved from the Judgment destroyed in the Judgment
of the Flood
of the Flood
There are amazing benefits of walking with God.
King David knew what those benefits were when he
wrote Psalms 103
“1Praise
the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being,
praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefits— 3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life
from the pit and crowns you with love and
compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good
things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Enoch and His Son, Methuselah
Apparently it was revealed by God to Enoch to
name his son Methuselah as prophetical of the
coming judgment. God must have revealed to
Enoch about the coming Flood and told him what
to name his son.
There are many Scriptures that reveal God often
tells parents what to name their child.
The name Methuselah means, "his death shall
bring.“
Enoch and His Son, Methuselah
Methuselah's father, Enoch, was given a
prophecy of the coming Great Flood, and was
apparently told that as long as his son was alive,
the judgment of the flood would be withheld;
but as soon as he died, the flood would be
brought or sent forth.
Thus people would have known that when
Methuselah died the flood of God’s judgment
would fall upon all the earth!
It can be calculated that Methuselah did indeed
die in the year of the Flood.
It is interesting that Methuselah's life, in effect,
was a symbol of God's mercy in forestalling the
coming judgment of the flood. Therefore, it is
fitting that his lifetime is the oldest in the Bible,
speaking of the extensiveness of God's mercy.
Methuselah’s name was a fair warning to a careless
world long before the judgment of God came.
How great is God’s mercy when we consider that the
man whose death would signal the beginning of God’s
judgment would live longer than any other person in
history!
Enoch
Enoch was a “holy man of God who spake as he
was moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21)
God had revealed things to him concerning the
judgment to come: Enoch was also given
prophecies of the 2nd coming of Christ!
Enoch
Jude 1:14 “And Enoch also, the seventh from
Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the
Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
Jude 1:15 To execute judgment upon all, and to
convince all that are ungodly among them of all
their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
committed, and of all their hard speeches which
ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Genesis 5:22 “And Enoch walked with God after he
begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons
and daughters.”
Notice he begins to walk with God after the birth of
his son.
The miracle of child birth should cause all of us to walk
with God. But his walk with God went hand in hand
with raising a family and having children.
All these men of faith in Genesis 5 raised families. They
understood how important and precious children were
in light of God’s promise of a deliverer to be born of
woman.
(Gen. 3:15).
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will crush
your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Gen 5:23 “And all the days of Enoch were three
hundred sixty and five years. Gen 5:24 “And Enoch
walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
Enoch is the only person in the history of the
world who never died and never will die! And if
it happened once there is always the possibility
it could happen again! - He becomes a type of
the Bible Believer who is alive at the Rapture of
the church.
(John 11:25-26). 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the
resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will
live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and
believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
We are told that Enoch "had this testimony, that he
pleased God" (Heb.11:5).
Pleasing God is the best place to
begin if you want to follow in the
footsteps of Enoch.
In comparison with the longevity of the other
fathers, Enoch was taken away young, before
he had reached half the ordinary age.
This teaches us that long life, viewed as a time for
repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God.
Long life is not the greatest blessing, nor is a short life
the greatest curse in life.
The apostle Paul wrote: “to depart this world and be
with Christ is the greatest experience any person
could ever have!” (Phil. 1:23)
When the burdens of life caused by sin become too
great and no longer serve the purpose of developing
godly character in us, God may shorten our time on
earth.
Our time is in God’s hands. We are to walk in His
promises.
Lamech and His Son, Noah
We know life had been very hard for the Patriarchs.
This is evident by the fact that when Lamech names
his son Noah he says, “This same shall comfort us
concerning our work and the toil of our hands,
because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.”
(Gen. 5:28-29).
Lamech and His Son, Noah
Lamech was warned of the flood by the name of his
father, Methuselah, and the prediction of his grandfather,
Enoch.
Gen 5:28 “And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two
years, and begat a son. Gen 5:29 And he called his name
Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our
work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which
the LORD hath cursed.”
However, the main fulfillment in this prophesy in Noah’s
name is when the curse on the earth was removed after
the Flood (Gen. 8:21).
We also have documentation of a
Hidden Prophesy in the meaning of the
Hebrew names.
The Bible is not simply 66 books penned
by 40 authors over thousands of years.
The Bible is an integrated whole, which
bears evidence of supernatural
engineering in every detail.
An Example
A remarkable example of this can be glimpsed in
Genesis Chapter 5, where we have the genealogy of
Adam through Noah.
In our Bible, we read the Hebrew names. What do
these names mean in English? We have already seen
that Methuselah and Noah’s name both had
prophetic significance.
But even more amazing is the fact that when the
meaning of all the names of this chapter are put
together they reveal a prophesy of the Gospel.
The meaning of proper names can be a difficult
pursuit since a direct translation is often not readily
available, and views concerning the meanings of
original roots are not free of controversy.
But a study of the original roots, however, can yield
some fascinating insights.
Hebrew Name
English Meaning
Adam
Man
Seth
Appointed
Enosh
Mortal; weak, sickly
Kenan
“will be redeemed by” “possessed by”
Mahalalel
The blessed God
Jared
“descend” or “shall come down”
Enoch
Teaching
Methuselah
His death shall bring
Lamech
The despairing
Noah
Rest or comfort
When we put these names together, we see
something very remarkable
Man [is] appointed [to be] mortal [and]
redeemed or possessed; (by) the Blessed
God [who] shall come down teaching [that]
His death shall bring [the] despairing rest.
Here's the Gospel Message hidden within a
genealogy in Genesis!
These are remarkable evidences of God’s design
The Book of Generations
Genealogy is
important to show
God’s amazing love
and desire to
redeem us from
our sins.