Genesis 5 – January 10

Genesis is divided into ten sections that are all highlighted by a genealogy. For example, at the conclusion of the creation, we read “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created…” (Genesis 2:4) In our chapter today we read, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.” As we move forward through this book of beginnings, each of these genealogies serves as a way to shift from one major scene to another. The author is helping us to see how the world moved forward from Adam to Noah. However, tucked away within this genealogy is the story of one of the great saints of the Old Testament: Enoch.

Every genealogy in the Bible contains a pattern that is intentionally designed by the author to make a point. One of the best ways to glean the significance of a genealogy is to search for any place where the author intentionally breaks the cadence and flow of his own style. In Genesis chapter 5, there are only two people whose lives are given additional detail beyond the regular formula: Enoch and Noah. Since Noah will be our focus for the next several days, today we will only zone in on this mysterious man who walked with God. 

One of the interesting things to note about Enoch is that his relationship with the Lord was not something that existed during his entire life. Although it doesn’t come through strongly in the English language, the word “after” is a significant time demarcation in verse 21. It indicates that Enoch did not walk with God before fathering Methuselah at age 65, only after. It is possible that the birth of his son had some effect on his relationship with the Lord, but we have no certainty of that. All we know is that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” That is just about as mysterious as it gets.

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit provides a few more details about this man’s life in the New Testament. First, Jude 1:14 tells us that he was a prophet. “It was also about these 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.” Isn’t it amazing that Enoch’s great-grandson would live through the greatest earthly judgment that has ever been manifested? Enoch’s son, Methuselah, lived until the very year that the flood arrived, leading some to speculate that he may not have been a follower of God and that his incredibly long life was cut short by the arrival of the flood. 

We also learn from Hebrews 11:5 that when Genesis says that “God took him,” it literally means that Enoch was blessed to avoid tasting death. “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” This is probably a good time to inform you that this genealogy has another unique feature. It is the only genealogy in the Bible that includes the refrain “and he died.” After every single individual, we are told that they were unable to escape the curse of death. The infection of sin that began in the garden was yielding its judgment on every successive generation. Every last one of them died, except Enoch who was spared from the judgment of death because he walked with God. You and I will almost certainly not have this blessed opportunity to be spirited away into heaven without experiencing an earthly death. However, Enoch’s life points to the promise that we have of avoiding the greater judgment of eternal death. That will be the reality for every one of us who walks with God.