Genesis 5

Genesis 5

My guess is most people quickly skip over this chapter. There are a lot of names here that are difficult to pronounce, we do not know anything about them, and read genealogies is a lot like reading the phone book! There are a couple of things, however, that we can see when looking at this list of names.

The first thing to note is a familiar phrase that runs through the book of Genesis. It is translated differently in some translations, but it sounds like “these are the generations of…” followed typically by a main character. These work as bridges and bookends. We can tell by looking at the first and last names, typically, from where we have come, to where we are going. Here in this chapter it starts with Adam and goes to Noah, whose story follows. When we saw this in chapter two, it was the generations of the heavens and the earth. There was no one but God to start with and it ended with Adam and Eve. These signposts throughout the book of Genesis help us to understand the author’s “hero” without ignoring that the world continues through the activity of other people.

The other thing that is very special about this list of names is an unusual phrase. The phrase echoes with every line. The phrase is “and he had other sons and daughters.” Now let’s face it, both are needed to continue the human race, so the fact that more people are being born is implied. But to find daughters mentioned in a genealogical list is amazing. In all of Scripture, this phrase will only happen twice. This is the first time, and chapter 11 is the second time. Both have an important statement to make. God was filling the earth by the blessing of daughters. In the Ancient Near East, one did not typically include females on these lists. A reader would have been taken aback by this inclusion and giving females a prominent standing with men. Again we are forced to remember, Moses was not writing a history book according to modern (or even ancient) standards. He is writing a theology about God. The inclusion of daughters is not about the daughters, but about God giving daughters.

Here in this chapter we find Methuselah at the age of 969. No thank you.