This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died……….Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.
When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.
After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Comment: At the beginning of Genesis we are told that death came because of sin, and the natural understanding from this is that people were meant to live for ever. In this set of verses (I have dropped out many peoples’ history which you can read in your own Bible if you like) but I have chosen to deal with several and raise some of the problems which these passages bring to modern minds. I, and without any proof for it, think that God initially allowed people to live long because He had meant there to be no death. It says that Seth was born when Adam was 130. We also know that he had at least 2 sons born before that and maybe daughters. People have postulated that ‘years’ means ‘months’, but this can’t be true when Kenan aged 70 fathered Mahalalel – he would have been about 6 years old. You wonder what people did in their evenings – they had no radio or TV! Why are people mentioned as starting being parents when they were 100+ years old. I suspect that they had many more children (the earth had to be populated) and we are only given the names and histories of those whose stories God wants us to know in detail. So we end up with Noah, whose story is crucial in Bible history.
Prayer: When I don’t understand help me to think hard and search but to accept Your Word as Your Word.
As I read it! 