Genesis 6:3 | 17 came the fa ther of Ja red , Ma ha la lel lived 830 years and had oth er sons and daughters . 17 Altogether , Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years , and then he died .
18 When Ja red had lived 162 years , he
be came the fa ther of Enoch . z 19 Af ter he be came the fa ther of Enoch , Ja red lived 800 years and had oth er sons and daughters . 20 Altogether , Jared lived a total of 962 years , and then he died .
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years , he became the father of Methuselah . 22 After he be came the fa ther of Me thu se lah , Enoch walked faith ful ly with God a 300 years and had oth er sons and daugh ters . 23 Alto geth er , Enoch lived a to tal of 365 years .
24 Enoch walked faith ful ly with God ; b then
he was no more , be cause God took him away . c
25 When Me thu se lah had lived 187
years , he be came the fa ther of La mech .
26 Af ter he be came the fa ther of La mech ,
Me thu se lah lived 782 years and had oth er sons and daugh ters . 27 Al to geth er , Me thuse lah lived a to tal of 969 years , and then he died .
5:18 z Jude 1:14 5:22 a ver 24 ; Ge 6:9 ; 17:1 ; 48:15 ; Mic 6:8 ; Mal 2:6 5:24 b ver 22 c 2Ki 2:1 , 11 ;
Heb 11:5
5:29 d Ge 3:17 ; Ro 8:20 6:1 e Ge 1:28 6:3 f Isa 57:16 g Ps 78:39
28 When La mech had lived 182 years ,
he had a son . 29 He named him Noah a and said , “ He will com fort us in the la bor and pain ful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed . d ” 30 After Noah was born , La mech lived 595 years and had oth er sons and daugh ters . 31 Altogeth er , La mech lived a to tal of 777 years , and then he died .
32 Af ter Noah was 500 years old , he became the fa ther of Shem , Ham and Japheth .
Wickedness in the World
6
When hu man be ings be gan to in crease in num ber on the earth e and daughters were born to them , 2 the sons of God saw that the daugh ters of hu mans were beau ti ful , and they mar ried any of them they chose . 3 Then the Lord said , “ My Spirit will not con tend with b humans forever , f for they are mor tal c ; g their days will be a hun dred and twen ty years .”
a 29 Noah sounds like the Hebrew for comfort . b 3 Or My spirit will not remain in c 3 Or corrupt
5:24 Enoch . . . was no more , because God took him away . The idea of humans being taken to heaven is known in the ancient world outside of the Bible , but not in the way that would develop in Christian theology . First is the example of Utuabzu , the seventh of the renowned sages ( just as Enoch is the seventh from Adam , vv . 3 – 18 ). Second are characters such as Etana and Adapa , who both ascend to heaven under different circumstances . Notable is the fact that their ascensions are passing experiences rather than changes in status and therefore are not in the same category as Enoch .
As a further observation , we should note that Genesis does not indicate where Enoch was taken , so we should not necessarily assume ascension to heaven . Utnapishtim ( the survivor of the flood in the Gilgamesh Epic ) was a favorite of the gods and was also “ taken ” so that he did not experience death . But he was taken neither to heaven nor to the netherworld , but to a faraway , inaccessible place “ at the mouth of the rivers ” ( Gilgamesh Epic , 11.205 – 6 ). None of these offer transparent explanation of Enoch ’ s experience , but they show a variety of possibilities to be considered that otherwise would not be recognized . As a result of his piety (“ walking with God ”), Enoch was “ taken ” as an alternative to dying , the stated fate of all others in the genealogy . 6:2 sons of God . Royal titles of the ancient Near East regularly suggested the divine descent of kings , even outside Egypt ’ s context of deified kings . This idea of divine descent was a rhetorical expression of the divine election and legitimization of the king and is typical in royal inscriptions . Throughout the Biblical period it was part of the royal prerogative to claim divine heritage . Thus the title “ son of God ” can be identified as a royal motif both in the Bible and outside of it . Gilgamesh is portrayed as twothirds god and one-third man ( Gilgamesh Epic , 1.48 ) and “ flesh of the gods ” ( Gilgamesh Epic , 9.49 ). Nevertheless , though it is common for kings to be portrayed as having divine parentage , there is no precedent for ancient kings as a group being referred to as “ sons of god .” This keeps open the possibility that this title could refer to royal elites , though a reference to members of the heavenly council ( cf . Job 1:6 ) certainly cannot be ruled out . married any of them they chose . There are no examples from Akkadian or Northwest Semitic mythological texts of divine beings marrying or cohabiting with human women , so it would be difficult to make the claim , as some do , that this account is a vestige of ancient mythology . There are examples of kings claiming mixed ancestry of gods and humans ( see “ sons of God ” above in this note ), but that is a different concept . If the “ sons of God ” are viewed as kings , the question remains as to what offense they are committing here . Polygamy has always been a weak candidate since the OT does not condemn it . Promiscuity is likewise an unlikely explanation since the Hebrew text describes the situation using the standard idiom for marriage (“ taking wives ”). An alternate understanding may be found in a practice noted in the Gilgamesh Epic as the prime example of Gilgamesh ’ s tyranny , namely , his exercising the right of the first night with a new bride : “ He will couple with the wife-to-be , he first of all , the bridegroom after ” ( Gilgamesh Epic , Old Bab ylonian version , v . 159 – 60 ). This practice accommodates the marriage terminology , and in Gilgamesh it is clearly both oppressive and offensive behavior . The remaining problem is that this practice is infrequently attested in ancient literature . Nonetheless , in the Gilgamesh Epic it is clear . 6:3 a hundred and twenty years . A Sumerian folktale speaks of 120 years as an ideal human lifespan . Speculation suggests that this number derives not from observation but from abstraction within the Sumerian mathematical system . ( It is clearly not a fixed boundary , as a woman who died in 1997 lived for 122 years ). The idea that deity governs lifespan is reflected in Mesopotamia in the Gilgamesh Epic as the hero continues his quest for immortality . In the Egyptian “ Book of the Dead ” the god Thoth reports to the creator-god Atum : “ You shall not witness wrongdoing , you shall not suffer it ! Shorten their years , cut short their months , because they have done hidden damage to all that you have made .” This is the same Atum who in the beginning floated in Nun , the