The family that trusts God (Genesis 5)

Genesis 5 is a new family story, in contrast to the community of Chapter 4 who went out from God’s presence and built a city dedicated to human honour and ingenuity, relying on violent superheroes to bring justice. We’re now turning to the family that relies on God to give life and calls on his name for their survival (4:26).

Genesis 5:1-2 (NIV)
¹ This is the written account of Adam’s family line [tôlēḏôṯ āḏām].
When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. ² He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.

Āḏām is best translated Human. That’s what his name means. The same word is translated as “mankind” in the second part of the verse and the next verse. Tôlēḏôṯ āḏām is the human family story. To be human is to be made in God’s likeness (as in 1:26-27). What Cain did — killing another person — is a failure to recognize God’s image in them. That’s crucial to the ethics of the Old Testament (Genesis 9:6) and the New (James 3:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:8). That’s the case Ben Witherington III makes in The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament (IVP Academic, 2009, 2010.)

The human in God’s likeness passes on that likeness to their descendants:

Genesis 5:3-5 (NIV)
³ When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. ⁴ After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. ⁵ Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

It took a long time, but the human died as surely as God had said (2:17; 3:19). This is going to be a long story, but one day the authority God gave humans in the beginning will be restored to the earth through the Son of Man (descendant of humanity). By installing him as head of the human family, God restores earth to heaven’s reign:

Colossians 1 ¹³ He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves … ¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn [family-head] over all creation.

That’s where the story is headed, but there are many steps along the way. The joy of Genesis 5 is God’s providence: the birth of an heir in each generation. The tragedy of Genesis 5 is the refrain, “and then he died” (verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27, 31). The exception in Genesis 5 is someone who did not die because God took him:

Genesis 5:21-24 (NIV)
²¹ When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. ²² After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. ²³ Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. ²⁴ Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

Enoch has evoked much speculation. When the Jews came under Persian rule (539 BC), they wondered how God would free them to be his people again. They imagined Enoch returning from his journey into the heavens, revealing that God had judgement all prepared to pour out on the nations and the ungodly. In the centuries that followed, they kept developing this story, imagining a “son of man” who would receive the authority God promised in the beginning. In the end, the story identifies Enoch as this son of man (1 Enoch 71.14).

It’s not clear if the “son of man” parts of Enoch were written before or after Jesus’ time. What is clear is that the notion of a human descendant (son of man) restoring the reign of heaven to earth was already there in Daniel 7.

The other message of hope in Genesis 5 is found in Noah’s name:

Genesis 5:28-29 (NIV)
²⁸ When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. ²⁹ He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labour and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”

The name Nōaḥ sounds like the Hebrew word nmh — to feel sorry, or to be comforted. Noah’s name bears the hope that God will comfort us, saving us from our sorry existence. Like Paul in Romans 8:20-21, Noah’s father understood the curse of Genesis 3:17-19 to be a temporary arrangement, that one day earth would no longer be exiled from God’s presence. The prophets often used the word nmh to speak of the comfort God will bring, especially in bringing them back from exile. It’s the word Isaiah used to say:

Isaiah 40 ¹ “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. … ¹⁰ See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm.”

In summary, Genesis 5 traces the family that recognizes the God who gives them life and calls on the name of the Lord in their struggles (4:25-26). The descendants in their image carry God’s image (5:1-2). When the patriarch who represented God’s reign died, a new one received that role. In the seventh generation, the patriarch did not die because God took him. The family lives with anticipation of the day when God removes the struggle and restores his people.

Related posts

• Who will represent the sovereign? (Gen 5)
• The faith of Enoch (Heb 11:5-6)