Genesis 5: The Genealogy of Man

Genesis 5:1 reminds the reader that Adam was made in the image of God.

This is the genealogy of men in the day in which God made Adam; in the image of God he made him: male and female he made them, and blessed them; and he called his name Adam, in the day in which he made them. (Genesis 5:1 Brenton LXX)

The entire chapter of Genesis 5 lays out one leg of the house of Adam through a line of sons, or sowers of seed, starting with Seth and continuing through to Noah.

A Son After His Own Form and Image

Notice the detail given in verse 2 concerning Seth. It says that he was begotten after his father’s own form and image.

And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and begot [a son] after his own form, and after his own image, and he called his name Seth. (Genesis 5:2 Brenton LXX)

I think there are two things that are noteworthy with this detail:

• The fact that Adam is identified as being made in the image of God, and Seth is identified as being begotten in the image of Adam. This may be suggesting a Father-Son relationship between God and Adam.
• The fact that Seth is identified as being begotten after the image and form of Adam, whereas Cain is not identified as such in the previous chapter. This may be suggesting not all sons are made in the image and likeness of their fathers.

I believe this may have been the reasoning for those who supposed how Jesus could be called the “Son” of God at the time of his water baptism in Luke 3, while being the son of Joseph.

At the time of Jesus’ water baptism, we read in Luke:

21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, 22 And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. (Luke 3:21-22 KJV)

The lineage of Jesus through Joseph given in the verses that follow this passage goes all the way back to God, suggesting Adam was a sort of “son” of God.

And given that this list goes through Nathan, and not Solomon, it could be that the people rejected the notion that Solomon qualified as a Son of God, having strayed from YHVH’s ways at the end of his days.

Solomon’s departure from the ways of his earthly physical father, David and his heavenly spiritual father, YHVH, ultimately demonstrated that Solomon was not begotten in the image and form of his fathers.

And it came to pass in the time of the old age of Solomon, that his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. and to Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians. And Solomon did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he went not after the Lord, as David his father. And the strange women turned away his heart after their gods. Then Solomon built a high place to Chamos the idol of Moab, and to their king the idol of the children of Ammon, And thus he acted towards all his strange wives, who burnt incense and sacrificed to their idols.

And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because he turned away his heart from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared twice to him, and charged him concerning this matter, by no means to go after other gods, but to take heed to do what the Lord God commanded him; neither was his heart perfect with the Lord, according to the heart of David his father. (1 Kings 11:4-10 Brenton)

A Noticeable Pattern

Each of the generations in Genesis 5 are laid out similarly following this model, creating a noticeable pattern:

And [father’s name] lived [number of years], and begat [son’s name], And [father’s name] lived after his begetting [son’s name] [number of years]; and he begat sons and daughters. And all the days of [father’s name] were [number of years], and he died.

We see this same layout for Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Malaleel, and Jared. But then there’s a disruption to the pattern when we get to the 7th generation, that being of Enoch.

Enoch Was Well-Pleasing to God

Genesis 5:21-24 says:

And Enoch lived an hundred and sixty and five years, and begat Mathusala. And Enoch was well-pleasing to God after his begetting Mathusala, two hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty and five years. And Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and was not found, because God translated him. (Genesis 5:21-24 Brenton LXX)

Notice the departures from the pattern. The added detail of Enoch being well-pleasing to God is stated twice, and the fact that he died is omitted and replaced with was not found, because God translated him.

Enoch is not mentioned anywhere else in the Old Testament, but he is mentioned in the apocryphal book, The Wisdom of Sirach, in a list of famous men, who are identified as our fathers that begat us.

And then Enoch is mentioned twice in the New Testament. Once by the author of Hebrews in chapter 11, and the other in the letter of Jude:

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:5-6 KJV)

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 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. (Jude 1:14-15 KJV)

Notice in Jude’s letter, Enoch is identified as being the seventh from Adam, and we can clearly see that he is the seventh generation of man from Adam.

Furthermore, Jude quotes him as having prophesied something, but where is this prophecy found?

The Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch, or sometimes called Enoch, the Prophet or 1 Enoch, is comprised of several books that were preserved in the Ethiopian Bible. The citation in Jude is from the first chapter of The Book of the Watchers in that book.

After bringing this Book of Enoch to light in the western culture during the turn of the 20th century, a remarkable discovery surfaced within Biblical archeology, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls or DSS for short.

There were many copies of fragments from the Book of Enoch dating back to before Jesus was born contained in this found buried treasure, giving credibility to the authenticity of it being an ancient text.

Furthermore, after reading through the text, I believe the authors of the New Testament must have been familiar with its contents given the similarities in their writings.

Why this book was omitted from the Biblical canon, I don’t fully understand. But it seems to hold the key to unlocking a host of unsolved mysteries throughout not just the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well.

I personally believe the Book of Enoch is a valuable asset to consider in conjunction with the Bible.

The Prophecy of Sevens

In chapters 92-93 of The Book of Dream Visions in The Book of Enoch, the author writes, the Holy and Great One has appointed days for all things and then proceeds to lay out what is commonly referred to as the Prophecy of Weeks.

In it the author lays out a series of what I believe to be ten sevens of physical generations of man. The opening statement begins by saying:

And Enoch began to recount from the books and said: “I was born the seventh in the first week, while judgement and righteousness still endured. (1 Enoch 93:3 RH Charles)

Some understand these generations to be a fixed number of years, such as a generation of 70 years. However, given this opening key, I believe this is particularly speaking of physical generations of men being born in a particular sequence, in a particular genealogical line.

For example, Enoch is identified here as being born the seventh in the first week. Jude identifies him as being the seventh from Adam, which we can see is the case from this genealogy in Genesis 5:

1-Adam, 2-Seth, 3-Enos, 4-Cainan, 5-Malaleel, 6-Jared, 7-Enoch

While I feel pretty comfortable with identifying who some of the notable men are from the dream vision (aka prophecy), using the Bible as my source, I don’t know who all of them are.

For the sake of further demonstration of my thought that this prophecy applies to generations of men, fathers begetting sons, as opposed to just a series of a fixed number of years as others have postulated, I lay out the next four weeks in my blog post The Book of Enoch’s Prophecy of Weeks.

I address this prophecy because it demonstrates how God spoke through the prophets long before things came to pass concerning future events. He used the natural means of human generations as a timeline for these events to occur, which naturally, only He would know.

The remainder of Genesis 5 concludes with Noah, the son of Lamech, and his three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We’ll see later that Noah, too, was well-pleasing to God.