Genesis 5:28

writing, even a letter, such as the bill of divorce. Here It means the account or register of the generations of Adam or his descendants to the five hundredth year of the life of Noah. In the likeness of God made he him - This account is again introduced to keep man in remembrance of the heights of glory whence he bad fallen; and to prove to him that the miseries and death consequent on his present state were produced by his transgression, and did not flow from his original state. For, as he was created in the image of God, he was created free from natural and moral evil. As the deaths of the patriarchs are now to be mentioned, it was necessary to introduce them by this observation, in order to justify the ways of God to man. Verse 3 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. Verse 22 And Enoch walked with God - three hundred years - There are several things worthy of our most particular notice in this account: 1. The name of this patriarch; Enoch, from חנך chanack, which signifies to instruct, to initiate, to dedicate. From his subsequent conduct we are authorized to believe he was early instructed in the things of God, initiated into the worship of his Maker, and dedicated to his service. By these means, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, which will ever attend pious parental instructions, his mind got that sacred bias which led him to act a part so distinguished through the course of a long life. 2. His religious conduct. He walked with God; יתהלך yithhallech, he set himself to walk, he was fixedly purposed and determined to live to God. Those who are acquainted with the original will at once see that it has this force. A verb in the conjugation called hithpael signifies a reciprocal act, that which a man does upon himself: here we may consider Enoch receiving a pious education, and the Divine influence through it; in consequence of which he determines to be a worker with God, and therefore takes up the resolution to walk with his Maker, that he might not receive the grace of God in vain. 3. The circumstances in which he was placed. He was a patriarch; the king, the priest, and the prophet of a numerous family, to whom he was to administer justice, among whom he was to perform all the rites and ceremonies of religion, and teach, both by precept and example, the way of truth and righteousness. Add to this, he was a married man, he had a numerous family of his own, independently of the collateral branches over which he was obliged, as patriarch, to preside; he walked three hundred years with God, and begat sons and daughters; therefore marriage is no hindrance even to the perfection of piety; much less inconsistent with it, as some have injudiciously taught. 4. The astonishing height of piety to which he had arrived; being cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, and having perfected holiness in the fear of God, we find not only his soul but his body purified, so that, without being obliged to visit the empire of death, he was capable of immediate translation to the paradise of God. There are few cases of this kind on record; but probably there might be more, many more, were the followers of God more faithful to the grace they receive. 5. Enoch attained this state of religious and spiritual excellence in a time when, comparatively speaking, there were few helps, and no written revelation. Here then we cannot but see and admire how mighty the grace of God is, and what wonders it works in the behalf of those who are faithful, who set themselves to walk with God. It is not the want of grace nor of the means of grace that is the cause of the decay of this primitive piety, but the want of faithfulness in those who have the light, and yet will not walk as children of the light. 6. If the grace of God could work such a mighty change in those primitive times, when life and immortality were not brought to light by the Gospel, what may we not expect in these times, in which the Son of God tabernacles among men, in which God gives the Holy Spirit to them who ask him, in which all things are possible to him who believes? No man can prove that Enoch had greater spiritual advantages than any of the other patriarchs, though it seems pretty evident that he made a better use of those that were common to all than any of the rest did; and it would be absurd to say that he had greater spiritual helps and advantages than Christians can now expect, for he lived under a dispensation much less perfect than that of the Law, and yet the law itself was only the shadow of the glorious substance of Gospel blessings and Gospel privileges. 7. It is said that Enoch not only walked with God, setting him always before his eyes, beginning, continuing, and ending every work to his glory, but also that he pleased God, and had the testimony that he did please God, Heb 11:5 . Hence we learn that it was then possible to live so as not to offend God, consequently so as not to commit sin against him; and to have the continual evidence or testimony that all that a man did and purposed was pleasing in the sight of Him who searches the heart, and by whom devices are weighed: and if it was possible then, it is surely, through the same grace, possible now; for God, and Christ, and faith, are still the same. Verse 27 The days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years - This is the longest life mentioned in Scripture, and probably the longest ever lived; but we have not authority to say positively that it was the longest. Before the flood, and before artificial refinements were much known and cultivated, the life of man was greatly protracted, and yet of him who lived within thirty-one years of a thousand it is said he died; and the longest life is but as a moment when it is past. Though life is uncertain, precarious, and full of natural evils, yet it is a blessing in all its periods if devoted to the glory of God and the interest of the soul; for while it lasts we may more and more acquaint ourselves with God and be at peace, and thereby good shall come unto us; Job 22:21 . Verse 29 This same shall comfort us - This is an allusion, as some think, to the name a Noah, which they derive from נחם nacham, to comfort; but it is much more likely that it comes from נח nach or נוח nuach, to rest, to settle, etc. And what is more comfortable than rest after toil and labor? These words seem to have been spoken prophetically concerning Noah, who built the ark for the preservation of the human race, and who seems to have been a typical person; for when he offered his sacrifice after the drying up of the waters, it is said that God smelled a savor of Rest, and said he would not curse the ground any more for man's sake, Gen 8:21 ; and from that time the earth seems to have had upon an average the same degree of fertility; and the life of man, in a few generations after, was settled in the mean at threescore years and ten. See Gen 9:3 . Verse 32 Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth - From Gen 10:21 ; 1Chr 1:5 , etc., we learn that Japheth was the eldest son of Noah, but Shem is mentioned first, because it was from him, in a direct line, that the Messiah came. Ham was certainly the youngest of Noah's sons, and from what we read, Gen 9:22 , the worst of them; and how he comes to be mentioned out of his natural order is not easy to be accounted for. When the Scriptures design to mark precedency, though the subject be a younger son or brother, he is always mentioned first; so Jacob is named before Esau, his elder brother, and Ephraim before Manasses. See Gen 28:5 ; Gen 48:20 . Among many important things presented to our view in this chapter, several of which have been already noticed, we may observe that, of all the antediluvian patriarchs, Enoch, who was probably the best man, was the shortest time upon earth; his years were exactly as the days in a solar revolution, viz., three hundred and sixty-five; and like the sun he fulfilled a glorious course, shining more and more unto the perfect day, and was taken, when in his meridian splendor, to shine like the sun in the kingdom of his Father for ever. From computation it appears, 1. That Adam lived to see Lamech, the ninth generation, in the fifty-sixth year of whose life he died; and as he was the first who lived, and the first that sinned, so he was the first who tasted death in a natural way. Abel's was not a natural but a violent death. 2. That Enoch was taken away next after Adam, seven patriarchs remaining witness of his translation. 3. That all the nine first patriarchs were taken away before the flood came, which happened in the six hundredth year of Noah's life. 4. That Methuselah lived till the very year in which the flood came, of which his name is supposed to have been prophetical מתו methu, "he dieth," and שלח shalach, "he sendeth out;" as if God had designed to teach men that as soon as Methuselah died the flood should be sent forth to drown an ungodly world. If this were then so understood, even the name of this patriarch contained in it a gracious warning. Introduction The children of God, among whom the true religion was at first preserved, corrupt it by forming matrimonial connections with irreligious women, Gen 6:1 , Gen 6:2 . God, displeased with these connections and their consequences, limits the continuance of the old world to one hundred and twenty years, Gen 6:3 . The issue of those improper connections termed giants, Gen 6:4 . An affecting description of the depravity of the world, Gen 6:5 , Gen 6:6 . God threatens the destruction of every living creature, Gen 6:7 . Noah and his family find grace in his sight, Gen 6:8

IV. LAMECH AND HIS SON NOAH. A. Lamech. V.28, 29. And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: and he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed. 75. Only incidentally Moses adverts in this account to the name of Noah, which certainly deserves a somewhat careful examination. Lamech was living when Enoch was taken away by God out of this life into the other immortal life. When the great glory of God had become manifest in the extraordinary miracle of the rapture from a lowly estate into life eternal of Enoch who was a man like us, a husband, a man with family, having sons, daughters, household, fields and cattle, the holy fathers were filled and fired with such joy as to conclude that the glad day was near which should witness the fulfilment of the promise. That Enoch was taken up living, to be with the Lord, appeared as a salient display of divine mercy. 76. As Adam and Eve, after the reception of the promise, were so absorbed in their hope that, in their joy to see a man like themselves, they identified Cain with the promised seed, so in my judgment Lamech committed a similar pious error when he gave his son the name Noah, and said: This same shall comfort us, and shall deliver us from the labors and sorrows of this life. Original sin, and the punishment thereof, shall now cease. We shall now be restored to our former innocent state. The curse shall now cease which rests on the earth on account of the sin of Adam; and all the other miseries inflicted on the human race on account of sin, shall also cease. 77. Such considerations as these prompted Lamech to base upon the fact of his grandfather's rapture into paradise unaccompanied by pain, sickness and death, the hope that presently the whole of paradise was to be ushered in. He concludes that Noah was the promised seed by whom the earth was to be restored. This notion that the curse is about to be lifted is expressed in unmistakable terms. Not so; neither the curse of sin nor its penalty can be removed unless original sin itself shall have been removed first. 78. The rabbins, those pestilent corrupters of the Scriptures, surely deserve aversion. This is their interpretation of the passage in question: He shall bring us rest from the toil and labor of our hands by showing us an easier way of cultivating the earth. With a plowshare, by a yoke of oxen, the earth shall be broken up; the present mode of digging it with man's hand shall cease. I wonder that Lyra is satisfied with this interpretation, and follows it. He ought to have been familiar with the unchanging practice of the Jews to pervert Scripture by substituting a material meaning for a spiritual one, in order to gain glory among men. Could anything more derogatory to the holy patriarch be said than that he gave such expression to his joy over the birth of his son Noah on account of an advantage pertaining to the belly? 79. No; it was a much greater concern than this which filled his mind with anxiety. It was the wrath of God, and death, with all the other calamities of this life. His hope was that Noah, as the promised seed, would put an end to these evils. And therefore it was that he thus exulted with joy at the birth of this his son, predicted good things, and called upon others to join him in the same hope. His thoughts did not dwell upon the plow, nor upon oxen, nor upon other trivial things of the kind pertaining to this present life, as the blind Jews rave. He was really filled with the hope that this his son Noah was that seed to come which should restore the former blessed state of paradise, in which there was no curse. As if he had said: Now we feel the curse in the very labors of our hands. We toil and sweat in cultivating the earth, yet it yields us in return nothing but briers and thorns. But there shall arise a new and happy age. The curse on the earth which was inflicted on account of sin shall cease, because sin shall cease. This is the true meaning of the text before us. 80. But the holy father was deceived. The glory of bringing about that renewal belonged, not to the son of a man but to the Son of God. The rabbins are silly. Although the earth is not dug by the hands of men, but by the use of oxen, yet the labor of man's hand has not ceased. Enoch, by his translation, does not disclose the solace of bodily easement, agreeable to the belly, but deliverance from sin and death. Lamech hoped, in addition, for the restoration of the former state. He believed to see the inauguration of this change in his grandfather Enoch, and felt assured that the deliverance, or the renewal of all things, was close at hand. Just so Eve, as we have already observed, when she brought forth her first-born son Cain, said, I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah, one who shall take away all these punishments inflicted on sin, and bring about our restoration. But, like Eve, the good and holy Lamech was deceived in his ardent longing for the restoration of the world. 81. All these anxieties plainly show how those holy patriarchs longed for, hoped for, and sighed for, that great "restitution of all things," Acts 3,21. Although they herein erred, even as Eve erred and was deceived with respect to Cain, this desire for deliverance in itself, was of the Holy Spirit, and proved the truth and constancy of their faith in the promised seed. When Eve named her son Cain, and when Lamech called his son Noah, these names were but birth cries, as the apostle represents them, of the whole creation, groaning and travailing in pain together, and earnestly expecting the resurrection of the dead, deliverance from sin, the restoration of all things, and the manifestation of the sons of God, Rom 8,19-23. The simplest and true meaning, accordingly, is that Lamech, after seeing the reality of the future life demonstrated by the translation of Enoch from the afflictions and toils caused by sin, has a son born to him, whom he calls Noah, which means rest, an expression of the hope that deliverance from the curse of sin and sin itself shall take place through him. This interpretation accords with the analogy of faith, and confirms the hope for a resurrection and a life eternal. 82. Such longing for the future life on the part of the holy men whose shoes we are unworthy to clean, contrasts strangely with the horrible ingratitude of our time. How great the difference between having and wishing! Those patriarchs were men of transcendent holiness, equipped with the highest endowments, the heroes of the world! In them we behold the strongest desire for the seed which is to come; that is their greatest treasure; they thirst, they hunger, they yearn, they pant for Christ! And we, who have Christ among us, who know him as one revealed, offered, glorified, sitting at the right hand of God and making intercession for us — we despise him and hold him in greater contempt than any other creature! O, the wretchedness of it! O, the sin of it! 83. Note the difference between the several ages of the world! The primeval age was the most excellent and holy. It contained the noblest jewels of the whole human race. After the flood there still existed many great and eminent men — patriarchs, and kings, and prophets; and although they were not the equals of the patriarchs before the flood, yet in them also there appeared a bright longing for Christ, as Christ says: "For I say unto you, that many prophets and kings desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not," Lk 10,24. And then there is our own age, the age of the New Testament; to this Christ has been revealed. This age is, as it were, the waste and dregs of the whole world. It holds nothing in greater contempt than Christ, than whom a previous age knew nothing more precious. 84. What is the cause of this grave state of affairs? To be sure, our flesh, the world, and the devil. We altogether loathe what we have, according to the proverb: Omne rarum carum; vilescit quotidianum. "All that's rare, is dear; vile is what is here." And apt is the poetic truism: Minuit praesentia famam. "Sight levels what fancy has exalted." As far as the revelation is concerned, we are far richer than the patriarchs. But their devotion to a comparatively inferior revelation was greater; they were lovers of the bridegroom. We, on the other hand, are that fat, bloated, wanton servant, Deut 32,15; for we have the Word and are overwhelmed by the abundance of it. 85. In the same degree as the first world was excellent and holy, the latter-day world is evil and wicked. In view of the fact, then, that God did not spare the first, primitive world, and destroyed the second world by overturning kingdom after kingdom, and government after government, what shall we expect to be the end of this latter-day world which in security despises the Christ, the desire of nations, as he is called by Haggai, in spite of the fact that he urges himself upon us to the point of weariness!

28 And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: 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. 30 And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: 31 And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. 32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Here we have the first mention of Noah, of whom we shall read much in the following chapters. Observe, I. His name, with the reason of it: Noah signifies rest; his parents gave him that name, with a prospect of his being a more than ordinary blessing to his generation: This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed. Here is, 1. Lamech's complaint of the calamitous state of human life. By the entrance of sin, and the entail of the curse for sin, our condition has become very miserable: our whole life is spent in labour, and our time filled up with continual toil. God having cursed the ground, it is as much as some can do, with the utmost care and pains, to fetch a hard livelihood out of it. He speaks as one fatigued with the business of this life, and grudging that so many thoughts and precious minutes, which otherwise might have been much better employed, are unavoidably spent for the support of the body. 2. His comfortable hopes of some relief by the birth of this son: This same shall comfort us, which denotes not only the desire and expectation which parents generally have concerning their children (that, when they grow up, they will be comforts to them and helpers in their business, though they often prove otherwise), but an apprehension and prospect of something more. Very probably there were some prophecies that went before of him, as a person that should be wonderfully serviceable to his generation, which they so understood as to conclude that he was the promised seed, the Messiah that should come; and then it intimates that a covenant-interest in Christ as ours, and the believing expectation of his coming, furnish us with the best and surest comforts, both in reference to the wrath and curse of God which we have deserved and to the toils and troubles of this present time of which we are often complaining. "Is Christ ours? Is heaven ours? This same shall comfort us. " II. His children, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These Noah begat (the eldest of these) when he was 500 years old. It should seem that Japheth was the eldest ( ch. x. 21 ), but Shem is put first because on him the covenant was entailed, as appears by ch. ix. 26 , where God is called the Lord God of Shem. To him, it is probable, the birth-right was given, and from him, it is certain, both Christ the head, and the church the body, were to descend. Therefore he is called Shem, which signifies a name, because in his posterity the name of God should always remain, till he should come out of his loins whose name is above every name; so that in putting Shem first Christ was, in effect, put first, who in all things must have the pre-eminence.