Searching for Truth in the First Book of Begats

 

Over the years, I have used a number of different translations of the Bible in my studies, but when I first started out, I relied on the King James Version—a translation that I loved because of the more poetic language used in its presentation of the Bible Story.  The one aspect of that translation I did not care for, though, was its use of the word begat in the many genealogies recorded there.  Begat always sounded so harsh and impersonal that its use made those already tedious and uninteresting passages all the more difficult to get into and to appreciate.  And yet, when I was finally able to get past the archaic wording, as well as all of the repetitious and somewhat sanitized documentation contained in the passages, I found that there was a lot of truth just waiting to be discovered among all of those old begats.  So, searching for some of those truths is what we will be attempting to do next, as we once again don our Critic’s Hats and critique the material recently presented to us in Vignette #5 of God’s One Big Story.

Given that the bulk of this material from Genesis 5 is so antiquated and boring in nature, the case might be made by some that there is nothing of real value here to critique. However, because we have the assurance from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that…

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work…

…we know that this cannot be true. So, let’s dig in and see what nuggets of truth we can find hidden in this all too often-neglected portion of scripture.

By way of review, in Vignette #5, we were introduced to the descendants of Adam through his son, Seth, up to the time of Noah. As previously noted, Cain’s descendants, as the line that was rejected by God, were introduced back in Vignette #4 and following their brief moment in the spotlight, they were moved to their proper place at the rear of the stage. Now, with God’s chosen line in place, we can begin our search for truth by analyzing the People, Patterns, and Precedents that are being presented to us in this Vignette.

 

The People

When coming to this first genealogical list in the Bible, it’s important for us to remember is that all of these funny sounding and sometimes hard to pronounce names belonged to real people, living in real time, and doing life in very real ways.  They were people who had to work for a living, find and make homes for themselves and their families, learn to relate to the other people around them—however difficult they may have been–and who had to learn to cope with the raising of children—many, many children, in fact.  Because they were all descended from Adam, this meant that they were all members of the same family—with everyone, at any given time, having to fill the roles of mother or father, brother or sister, aunt or uncle, niece or nephew, or grandparent or grandchild to someone else.  What a relationship nightmare that must have been!

However, there was more to being a descendant of Adam than merely belonging to the same huge physical family; it also meant being members of the same huge spiritual family.  Since each one had come into the world bearing the image and likeness of Adam, this meant that they, like he, were all sinners in desperate need of redemption.  Even though not all of them would go on to acknowledge this need in their lives, ten that did were lined up across our stage—with one representing each of the ten generations from Adam to Noah.  As the men who held on to their faith in God and to the promise He had made to Eve concerning a coming Redeemer, they, as the members of the Antediluvian Spiritual Hall of Fame, were the ones who kept the promise and the lineage of that Redeemer alive all the way to and through the Flood.  Of these ten, there are four—Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, and Noah–who merit special recognition, something which we will be sure to give them when we get to the Precedents section of this critique.

 

 

The Patterns

For now, though, let’s take a step back and try to get a look at the big picture presented to us by the men in this genealogy.  In so doing, we will see some Patterns starting to develop as a result of the sin nature passed down by Adam which will characterize the human experience from this point on.  They are…

• • Life becomes a tedious and monotonous cycle of birth, reproduction, and death;
  • As this cycle repeats itself and as more and more people are born into the world, the level of wickedness increases dramatically while righteousness decreases in a corresponding manner;
  • This decrease in righteousness leads to a diminishing of the hope that God’s promise of a Redeemer will ever be fulfilled which, in turn, leads to an ever-increasing sense of despair among the people of God;
  • But even in the face of this all of this wickedness and despair, God repeatedly proves His faithfulness by His on-going preservation of a remnant through whom the Redeemer will one day come.

 

The Precedents

As for the precedents that were established during this pre-flood period in history, if we look at the unusual way in which this chapter opens, and at the unique characteristics of the men previously singled out for special recognition, we will find these Precedents to include…

1.  The Precedent of The Book of the Righteous… 

When Chapter 5 opens, it does so by saying, “This is the book of the generations of Adam”—a statement marking out a whole new section in the book of Genesis.  We know that it is the beginning of something new because toledoth, the Hebrew word for generations, is used eleven times in Genesis, and each time it is used to designate a break or a transition in the story.  But while a break in the story is significant, it isn’t unusual enough to qualify as a precedent-setting event.  For that, we need to direct our attention to sepher, the Hebrew word for book, because its use here marks the first time that a record of human history is made, and God begins recording a list of the righteous.

This list of names will become a special set of books, later referred to as The Book of Life which, when human history comes to an end, will be brought out for all to see.  Its ultimate revealing will take place at an event called the Great White Throne Judgment, the climactic end-time event described in Revelation 20:12,15, where the Apostle John describes how these books will be used…

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Then another book was opened, which was the book of life.  And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done…And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

From this, we can conclude that the name of every human being who has ever lived will be written in one set of books, The Book of the Living, along with everything he or she has ever done.  In addition to these there is another set of books, referred to here and in other places as The Lamb’s Book of Life, which contains the names of all of those who, through faith, have trusted in God for their salvation.  While everyone’s name will be listed in the first set of books, only the names of those who are deemed righteous according to God’s standards will appear in the second set of books—books having their origins here in Genesis 5.

2.  The Precedent of The Practice of Prayer…

From what we can gather about Adam and Eve’s and Cain and Abel’s encounters with God, they appeared to have taken place on a personal and very intimate level.  However, with the appearance of Seth and at about the time that his son, Enosh, was born, a new and different shift in the way men approached God seems to have taken place.  This change is noted for us in Genesis 4:25-26, where it says that…

…Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”  To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.

Although this passage tells us that for the first time, men began to call upon God in prayer, it doesn’t explain why this practice became necessary.  Was it because as more and more people were born, worship became less of an individual practice and more of a corporate one? Or was it because God, in response to the ever-increasing level of wickedness upon the earth, had withdrawn His presence from among the people?  Whatever the reason, here in the lifetime of righteous Seth, the practice of prayer had become a necessity and an established precedent in the lives of godly men. 

3.  The Precedent of Preaching and Prophesying…

Because the population and the level of wickedness began increasing at such an alarming rate, it wasn’t long before the preaching of repentance and the prophesying about a coming judgment became a necessity.  As we learn in Jude 14, 15, 16, 19, this was something that Enoch undertook with great zeal…

It was also about these [the wicked] that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” …These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage…It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

Although there may have been others who had seen the need for this type of ministry and practiced it before the time of Enoch, it was during his lifetime and as a result of his ministry that the preaching of repentance and the prophesying about judgment became, for us, a Biblically documented Precedent. 

4.  The Precedent of The Translation or Rapture of the Saints…

Not only was the Precedent of Preaching and Prophesying established in the life and ministry of Enoch, the Precedent of a Translation or Rapture of the Righteous was also established by him.  For in Genesis 5:24 we are told that…

…Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him…

…and in Hebrews 11:5, that…

…By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.

Although another translation from this life to the next, without experiencing death, was realized centuries later by the prophet Elijah, the ultimate fulfillment of the precedent set by Enoch is still to take place at the end of time when, just before the onslaught of an event known as The Tribulation, a global translation or Rapture of the Saints from the earth will take place.  Just as Enoch was removed from the early world prior to the Tribulation of the Flood, those who are alive and whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life at the end of time, will also be “taken up” because they, like Enoch, had obtained the witness that they walked with and were pleasing to God.

5.  The Precedent of God’s Long-suffering and Mercy…

In Genesis 5: 21-24, we learn that…

…When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah, Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.  Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years.  Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

And in Genesis 5:27 that…

…all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.

The implication in the first passage is that before his son’s birth Enoch had gone his own way, but that following Methuselah’s birth he began developing a close, personal walk with God.  To me, this begs the question of “Why the big change all of a sudden?”

Although the meaning of Methuselah’s name has not been completely settled for some, many believe that it means, “When he is gone, it will come”—with “it” referring to the judgment of the flood about which Enoch would later prophesy.  If so, it could be that Enoch had received a revelation about the coming judgment at the time of Methuselah’s birth and if he had, it would only be logical for him to believe that he might only have a short period of time in which to repent.  What if his son only lived a year or five years?  Not knowing how long a life his son would have would certainly have been reason enough for getting his life right with God as soon as possible—and to begin preaching to others about their need to do the same.

Could it be that Methuselah lived longer than other human because God, in His mercy, was trying to give men every opportunity to repent like Enoch did?  It would certainly seem so, for as the second passage tells us that not only did God extend Methuselah’s life longer than any other human being, but that the year he died was the same year that the flood came upon the earth.

6.  The Precedent of The Preservation of a Remnant through Tribulation and Judgment…

By the time Methuselah’s son Lamech had a son of his own, things must have seemed pretty dismal because when he named his name Noah, he spoke this prophecy over him, recorded for us in Genesis 5:29…

This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.

We shall see the fulfillment of this prophecy in our upcoming Vignette, for it will be through Noah that God will…

• • Reach out to the lost in his generation;
  • Bring the judgment of the Flood upon all of those who refuse to repent; and,
  • Faithfully protect and provide for His own, through the Precedent of the Preservation of a Remnant through Tribulation and Judgment.

As you can see, there is a lot more truth in this First Book of Begats than initially meets the eye, and it is still relevant and has application for our lives today.  That’s because, like those living between Adam and Noah…

• • We are all sinners whose natural end is death and eternal separation from God;
  • However, we can choose life instead of death by choosing to follow in the way of Seth instead of in the way of Cain;
  • This choice will always put us at odds with the majority who will be following Cain and the ways of the world;
  • But it will also mean that our names will be written in the Book of Life;
  • This will give us access to God through prayer;
  • It will motivate us to reach out to the lost through our testimony of the truth; and,
  • It will provide us the assurance that God will either take us out before, or preserve us through, any kind of tribulation or judgment that may come upon the wicked of the earth.

Coming up next, we make preparations for the flood in But Noah...