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Gen.5:1–2. Here is Adam's genealogy: This is the title of a whole new section (toldoth), like the previous one (Gen. 2.4) and a whole series of subsequent ones (Gen. 10:1, 11:10, 27, 25:12, 19, 36:1, 37:1). Translating this title of the history of the Sethites into the language of modern concepts, we would have to say: “here is a list of the descendants of Adam.” And since further on we are talking only about the Sethites, then, obviously, this list does not apply to everyone, but only to the descendants closest to him, related to him not so much in the flesh as in the spirit. when God created man, in the likeness of God he created him, male and female he created them, and blessed them, and called their name man on the day of their creation. When starting to list the descendants, the writer of everyday life, not without purpose, mentions the creation of the ancestor and his wife in the image of God. Perhaps he wanted to inspire the reader that the listed descendants of Adam through him descend as if from God himself; that God, who created Adam in his own image and likeness, is, as it were, the first member of the genealogy (Luke 3.38), (Vissarion). Gen.5:3. Adam lived one hundred and thirty [] years In the presentation of the genealogical table itself, the biblical author, starting with Adam, always adheres to the same order: naming the name of a famous patriarch, he indicates his age at the time of the birth of the next member of the genealogy, then determines the number of years of the rest of the life of this patriarch, sums up his longevity and ends all this with a mention of his death. In some chronological dates, mainly those relating to the time of the birth of one or another patriarch’s son, there is a disagreement between the Russian and Slavic texts, which occurs due to differences in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles. This difference, in all likelihood, is of accidental origin (introduced by some translator or copyist) and in any case does not have any serious significance for the essence of faith, clearly proving only the obvious truth that the Bible does not have an exact chronology, and the one that is available is rather conventional and relative, and, at least in some of its sections, was, in all likelihood, introduced into it later. Another, even more important question related to this antediluvian genealogy is the question of the amazing longevity of its members, reaching almost a whole millennium. In contrast to the tendentiousness and unfoundedness of rationalistic attempts to undermine faith in patriarchal longevity, its recognition has a number of valid evidence. First of all, the fact of man’s previous heavenly immortality speaks for him: although man lost this divine gift through the Fall, the infection of mortality could only gradually crush the primitive strength of the body. The same thing, further, is evidenced by the analogy of the patriarchal period with human childhood: the patriarchal antediluvian period was a kind of era of infancy in the life of mankind, that is, a time of special wealth, integrity, productivity and freshness of all its spiritual and physical forces. The validity of this, to a certain extent, is confirmed by a number of parallel legends of other ancient peoples, recorded by the Egyptian priest Manetho, the Phoenician - Mochos, the Chaldean - Berosus, etc. Finally, an important confirmation, and together with the best explanation of the fact of patriarchal longevity, is the obvious action of divine Providence, which carried out high religious goals through it: the preservation of religious truth, the spread of the human race and the establishment of the basic elements of religion, morality and culture (more about this, see I. Spassky, “Biblical Chronology”, Plastov, “The Sacred Chronicle” and A. Pokrovsky, “Biblical Teaching on Primitive Religion”). and he begat [a son] in his own likeness [and] in his image, and called his name Seth. These words quite expressively establish the innateness of the basic spiritual and physical properties of human nature; Because of this, both the features of the image of God inherent in his nature and the properties of that sinful likeness that darkened this divine image in the fact of the Fall passed on to the descendants of Adam (Gen. 1:26, 3:19; Rom. 5:12). Gen.5:4. The days of Adam after he begat Seth were eight hundred [] years, and he begat sons and daughters. The Bible names three sons of Adam and Eve and one daughter, presumably the wife of Cain (Gen. 4:17); but in addition to these, as can be seen from the above words, they probably also had sons and, undoubtedly, daughters, who are not mentioned here because they were not of significant importance in the history of the divine economy. We have completely similar news about the families of other patriarchs of this genealogy (Gen. 5:7-26, etc.), from which we are once again convinced that this genealogy does not represent a complete list of all Sethite clans, but notes only selected individuals who stood out in some way in the history of human salvation. Gen.5:9. Enosh lived ninety [] years and begat Cainan. Philological analysis of the name of this patriarch reveals the identity of its meaning with the name “Cain”, i.e. “acquisition, possession”; and this, of course, does not cast any unseemly shadow on this pious Sethite, since the very name of Cain, according to the idea contained in it, was significant and bright (Gen. 4:1). Gen.5:12. Cainan lived seventy [] years and begat Maleleel. which translated means: “praise, glory to God, or one who praises, one who glorifies Him.” This obviously indicates the prosperity of religious interests under Cainan, the son of Enosh, the first organizer of the service of God, in which a prominent place was occupied by the solemn invocation and glorification of the Creator (Gen. 4:26), the Provider of the world and the Redeemer of mankind. Gen.5:15. Mahleleel lived sixty-five [] years and begat Jared. Derived from Hebrew. the verb jarad - meaning "to descend, descend", the name of this new patriarch indicates him as a person from somewhere "descending, descending, falling." Keeping both the literal and figurative meaning of this word, we have the right to assume that here we are talking about both the physical descent of the Sethites from some height and their moral decline. Since the generation of Jared, the fifth from Adam through Seth, was contemporary with the generation of Lamech, the fifth from Adam through Cain, and since, on the other hand, there is a tradition that initially the Sethites lived on the heights, and the Cainites in the low valleys, then the opinion according to which the Sethites, carried away in the age of Jared by the beauty of the Cainites of their day (whose leader was the beautiful Noema, Gen. 4:22), descended from their heights into the valleys of the Cainites, entered into criminal relations with them, and through this they fell morally. This opinion, based on philology, is also based on the ancient Jewish tradition, listed, among other things, in the book. Enoch. Gen.5:18. Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years and begat Enoch. The name of this patriarch, already known to us from the genealogy of the Cainites, indicates its bearer as a renovator, a pioneer, a sanctifier, in a word, something new and, as the firstfruits, dedicated to God. But while Enoch the Cainite was the beginning of worldly power and their cultural dominance (expressed in the construction of the first city of the same name), Enoch the Sethite, on the contrary, was a typical representative of primitive faith, hope and piety, in a word - everything that is united in the concept of the Old Testament “righteousness”. Gen.5:21. Enoch lived sixty-five years and begat Methuselah. Literally translated from Hebrew, this name, according to authoritative Hebraists, means: “man of the arrow, man of weapons.” Since, according to a more probable calculation, Methuselah died in the very year of the flood, they find it possible to see in his name a symbolic indication of his death from this arrow of divine wrath, that is, from the flood. And this is all the more likely because Methuselah’s father, the righteous Enoch, according to the Apostle Jude (Jude 1:14–15), prophesied about the flood and, therefore, in the spirit of this insight, he could easily give the corresponding name to his son. Gen.5:22. And Enoch walked with God A similar expression is found repeatedly in the Bible (Gen. 6:9; Mic. 6:8; Mal. 2:6, etc.) and everywhere it means the highest degree of moral direction in a person’s life, when he began to be deeply imbued with a reverent sense of divine omnipresence, that with the eyes of faith he seemed to constantly see God before him, and in strict accordance with this he coordinated the entire image of his behavior and every step of his life. This expression is even somewhat broader - namely, it contains a hint of the consequences of such good behavior, in the form of a special and exclusive closeness to God, as it is conveyed in the Slavic text: “and please... Enoch God,” as well as the Apostles Paul (Heb. 11:5) and Jude (Jude 1:14). The Piety of Enoch and His Taking into Heaven Alive Gen.5:24. And Enoch walked with God; and he was no more, because God took him. “And was not found” (LXX, Slavic) – Enoch, i.e. he was not completely destroyed, but mysteriously disappeared from among people. This one deviation of the biblical author from his usual way of expressing the death of the patriarchs shows that the end of Enoch’s earthly life was not like the death of the other patriarchs and, therefore, was not ordinary. The further words of the text “because God took him” reveal precisely this very idea, although perhaps also not in sufficient detail and clearly; turning to biblical parallels to clarify this phrase, we find that they are literally repeated once again regarding the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 2:11), from whose history it is positively known that he was miraculously taken alive into heaven. The same thing, according to the interpretation of the Apostle Paul, happened even earlier with Enoch (Heb. 11:5; cf. Sir. 49:16). That is why, probably, in the Holy Scriptures, Elijah and Enoch are presented together, as the forerunners of the terrible second coming of the Lord to earth (Rev. 11:3, cf. Matt. 17:11; Mark 9:12; Luke 9:8). This understanding of the death of Enoch, finally, fully corresponds to the context where this death is presented as a reward to the righteous for his piety; since death is the “worst of sin” (Rom. 6:23), and Enoch, by his “walk with God,” sufficiently atoned for his guilt, he moves into the afterlife without seeing the corruption of the flesh (Ps. 16:10), which underwent an instant transformation in the likeness of what awaits, according to the promise of the apostle, the body of believers - contemporaries of the second glorious coming of the Lord (1 Cor. 15:20–23; 2 Cor. 5:4; 1 Thess. Gen.5:25. Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years and begat Lamech. From the Cainite genealogy we already know that the name “Lamech” means “fierce man, man of war and destruction.” It is difficult to determine with precision how the thought of the Sethites is symbolized by such an apparently inappropriate name for them. Most likely, it should contain a trace of the warlike and hostile spirit of the Cainites, which began to be noticeably strongly felt among the Sethites from this generation. Gen.5:27. All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died. This is the most durable of all ten antediluvian patriarchs (and together - all historically known people), whose summer or age has become a proverb among us (the summer, the age of Methuselah). Gen.5:28–29. Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two [] years and begat a son, and he called his name Noah, saying, He will comfort us in our work and in the labor of our hands in cultivating the land which the Lord [God] has cursed. The last antediluvian patriarch was the son of Lamech - Noah. The meaning of this name is interpreted in the biblical text itself, precisely in the sense of “calm, consolation” in the labors and work of cultivating the land. It is believed that Lamech himself, who was not distinguished by piety, when giving such a name to his son, connected with him an ungodly thought, namely, he expressed the hope for the speedy destruction of the power of the divine curse over the earth, thanks to cultural successes, the planter of which he imagined seeing his newborn son. But, according to the interpretation of John Chrysostom, Lamech, like the high priest Caiaphas in the trial of Jesus Christ (John 11:49–52), in addition to his will, expressed here another great idea: placing the indication of the biblical text on the weakening of vanity and work in connection with the words of the divine judgment on the Fall and with their explanations from the Apostle Paul (Gen. 3:13; Rom. 8:20 ), the Fathers of the Church rightly see in the name of Noah a prophetic indication that through Noah and his descendants the power of divine punishment for the Fall will be weakened and after the storm of wickedness (violence of giants), (Gen. 6:4) and the threat of heavenly punishment for him (the flood under Noah), a new, relatively peaceful and calm course of socio-religious life will begin. Gen.5:32. Noah was five hundred years old and Noah begat [three sons]: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Noah lived most of his life in the antediluvian era and by the end of it he already had three sons; but the activity of these latter already belongs to the post-Flood era, when, in the course of the story, we will also talk about them. As for why Noah, compared to other patriarchs, had these children born so late (Noah was already 500 years old), the best answer is the assumption that Noah’s children before the flood would not have had time to become parents themselves, or would have become so deteriorated and corrupted that they too would have had to share the sad fate of the entire primitive world. You might be interested in: