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1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. ~ Genesis 5:1-5
Today, we continue our study of Genesis which is the book of beginnings. Things that are first presented in this book are carried through the Bible narrative and are fulfilled in the last book of the Bible, the book of the Revelation.
In v.1-2 of today's passage we read, "1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created."
Genesis is a book that contains a lot of genealogies, in fact there are ten different genealogies in it. These genealogies help substantiate the Bible’s historical accuracy. They confirm the physical existence of the people found in the Bible. By knowing family histories, we understand that the Bible is far from a mere story or a parable for how we should live our lives on this earth. The Bible is authentic, historical truth.
In the previous chapter, Genesis 4, we considered the genealogy of Cain while here in Genesis 5 we have the genealogy of Seth. It was through the godly line of Seth that eventually the Messiah would come to this earth.
The first time the word genealogy is used in the Bible is in Genesis 2:4 where we read, "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens."
A careful study of this word translated "generations" reveals it was made up of two Hebrew "vavs" in its spelling in Genesis 2:4. But, here in Genesis 5:1, after the fall of man, it is spelled with only one "vav." As we indicated earlier, the second "vav" fell out of the word just as man fell in the garden.
The Hebrew letter "vav" is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet and it pictures a tent peg. In addition, the number 6 in the Bible represents "man" since he was created on the sixth day. What we have here in this word "genealogy" is a picture of "fallen man." This word is used 39 times throughout the Old Testament at various times when referring to different groups of people, but it is never spelled with two vavs again until the end of the book of Ruth. In every occurrence between Genesis and Ruth one or both of the vavs is missing in the word. The reason for this is that in Ruth, the lineage of King David is given. Up until that time, God was working through various people and had made various covenants with them. These were Noah, Abraham, and Moses. The final covenant was to David. At this time, the second vav in Ruth 4 was reintroduced to the word translated genealogies to indicate that the restoration of fallen man would come through the line of David and this was the final peg in the tent of God’s covenants before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In v.3-5 of today's passage we read, "3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died."
Adam's son Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old and as we follow the years in the Bible we can determine the age of the world. During those 130 years, Adam had Cain, Abel, and at least one daughter. We know this because Cain had a wife. It’s likely that they had lots more children by the time Seth came around, but Seth is the focus of the story because it was through his lineage that the Lord Jesus came to this earth to redeem us.
Seth was made in the image and likeness of his father, Adam. We also find ourselves here in the narrative because we too are sons and daughters of Adam and we also share the same characteristics as Seth. When the account uses this phrase, "in his own likeness, after his image," it is referring to the hidden, inner pattern of man, and the actual outward characteristics. Seth was what Adam was, both in his inner life and in his outer life. He was, like you and me, fallen and sinful.
The last phrase in v.5, "and he died" is mentioned over and over throughout this chapter. Every individual that is mentioned "died." Like the sounding of a great bell at a cathedral in Italy, this phrase resounds throughout the passage. Eight times it is recorded, contradicting the lie of Satan in the garden when he said to Eve, "If you eat of this fruit you will not die." And, there was not only physical death. No, sin brought with it other incipient forms of death like malice, jealousy, hatred, meaninglessness, despair, and emptiness. These forms of death are all evidences of the absence of the life of God. That is what death is, the absence of the life of God in our lives. Of course the Lord Jesus came to this earth to remedy our problem. He said, "I did not come to condemn you, I came to give you a life that is more than abundant."
