Genesis 5

Good morning, dear friends!

I'm not sure where exactly we'll go with this chapter about Adam's line of progeny. Chapters 6 through 9 concern Noah and the flood, which will take us a while, so I don't feel the need to arbitrarily assign a full week to this genealogy. However, I'm so glad I looked at Jon Courson's commentary on this chapter, because it was illuminating. This genealogy skips right past Cain and Abel and focuses on the continuing, righteous line of Adam. Right at the beginning, we see something curious, as we get a summary of the creation of man. Verse 2 says of this act of creation, He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man." Courson points out that Adam and Eve had become one, and that's how God saw them - He called them, not him, "man." That's why no one is to divide a husband and wife. What God has joined let no one divide!

We're told in verse 3 that Adam had Seth (meaning "appointed") at the age of 130. He had more sons and daughters, lived 800 years longer, then died at 930 years of age. Remember that many believe that, prior to the flood, the earth was surrounded by a water canopy that blocked the harmful rays of the sun. So we see here that man lived for many more years. However, each of the men mentioned in this chapter, except for Enoch, have this punctuation point at the end of their time: "...and then he died." God had warned Adam and Eve in the Garden, that on the day that they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die. Now, they apparently lived longer than that day, but spiritually, they died. Courson points out, however, that in God's time, according to 2 Peter 3:8, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day. So, looks like Adam died on the "day" he ate the fruit! :)

Adam was 235 before he became a grandfather through Seth - and you thought you had to wait a long time! Seth was the father of Enosh, or Enos in the KJV version [I point that out to my daughters, because Enos is their paternal grandmother's middle name]. It means "subject to death." And don't we all believe somehow that we AREN'T subject to death??? It seems to take us all by surprise!

I heard a sermon online the other day in which the speaker talked of eternity. He used the illustration of a rope that wrapped around the earth a few times then went way out into space on into eternity. The beginning of that rope had about a 5 inch segment that was painted red. He said that the red part was our life on earth - and the rest of the rope represented our eternal life. His point was that we spend so much time worrying about our life here on earth instead of planning for eternity! So true! We need to get perspective, folks! Because no matter how long our life here, it will certainly end with the line, "...and then he died." We don't want to miss the bigger picture of what God wants to accomplish through us for eternity because we are grasping at this temporal life we're living now - this measly five inches of red!

Hold onto the meanings of these names as we finish this chapter tomorrow. We'll tie them all together at the end. Off to work!