Genesis 5:32

And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Noah was five hundred years old. That he and the other patriarchs were advanced in life ere the children whose names are mentioned were born to them, is a difficulty accounted for, probably, from the circumstance that Moses does not here record the first-born sons of the preceding patriarchs, but only those who were in the line of succession from Adam, through Seth, to Abraham.

Noah begat - i:e., began to beget. He had reached the five hundredth year of his age ere he became a father. 'This,' as Schlegel remarks, 'is another striking example of a wonderful prolongation or delay of time. The first nine patriarchs of the primitive world propagated their race at the mean or average term of the 100th year of their lives: some near that period, others considerably earlier, and others again much later. But in the case of Noah we find that to the mean term of 100 years, 400 years were yet added; and that the patriarch was 500 years of age when he propagated his race. The high motive of this evidently supernatural delay may be traced to the fact that, although during this long prophetic period of preparations, the holy seer well foresaw and felt firmly assured of the judgments impending over a degenerate and corrupt world, it was not equally clear to him that he was destined by God to be the second progenitor of mankind, and the renovator of the human race. But that great doom of the world, already foretold by Enoch, Noah had probably expected to be its last end; and hence, perhaps, might consider the propagation of his race as not altogether conformable to the divine will, until the hidden decrees of the eternal were more fully and more clearly revealed to him.'

Shem, Ham, and Japhet. That Japhet was the oldest (see the note at Genesis 10:21), and that Shem was two years younger (cf. Genesis 11:10), appears from the fact that Japhet was born in the 500th year of his father's age, and consequently was 100 years old at the commencement of the flood, which occurred in Noah's 600th year; whereas it is distinctly recorded that Shem did not attain the 100th year of his age until two years after the deluge. Ham is regarded as the youngest of the three brothers by Josephus, who is followed by Bochart, Gesenius, Furst, and Delitzsch (see the note at Genesis 9:24); but others conclude, from his being always mentioned between the other two, that he was the second son of Noah. In this record Shem has the precedency assigned him, in preference to Japhet, on account of the distinguished honour conferred upon him of being the destined ancestor of Abraham, in whose seed the promised blessing was to be consummated; and the same order was followed in other familiar instances, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon, in which the prophetic blessing was not transmitted to the oldest of the family, along with the other rights of primogeniture.

"Shem" signifies a name, which was given to him apparently with reference to the fact of the knowledge of the true God being preserved among his posterity, and to the renown which, in consequence, they should acquire. Ham, the root of which is found equally in the Semitic chaamac (H2554), to be warm or hot, and in the ancient Egyptian and the Coptic Kem, denotes sunburnt, swarthy, black, as the ancestor of those who should inhabit torrid regions; and Japhet is traced to yaapaah (H3303), beauty, or fairness of complexion, corresponding to the physical features of the Japhetic races. Whether these two latter names indicate any natural variations in Noah's family, it is impossible to say. 'Any original difference of type that may have existed in this primitive household would be very rapidly developed; because there would be a greater tendency to the perpetuation of those varieties, in other words, to the origination of distinct races, during the earlier ages, than at the present time, when, in fact, by the increasing admixture of races which have been isolated, there is a tendency to the fusion of all those varieties, and to return to a common type (Carpenter's 'Physiology'). It is possible that these names were not borne by any of Noah's sons in the early portion of their lives, but were, according to ancient custom, bestowed on them at that memorable period when their venerable father, gifted with prophetic foresight, described their future destiny. A few observations require to be made on the contents of this chapter:

(1) This is the first specimen of those genealogical registers which are found abundantly in subsequent parts of Scripture. There are two views in which they may be regarded. First, as a proof of the great antiquity of the sacred record; because family registers must of necessity constitute the first materials of general history; and hence, we find them treasured, especially among the people of the East, in their early stages, previous to their emerging from their isolated or tribal condition into national existence. 'They are perhaps the oldest examples, first, of an oral, and then of a written tradition, that there are on earth. They derive their importance from two elements which belong to them. One is the Elohistic or general element, which relates to the past, and the other the Jehovistic or Messianic, which points forward to the future. The former has respect to the human race as God's creatures or offspring, the latter to the goal or destination for which he designed them. In the one point of view they serve as a means of adjusting the chronology, especially when, as in this fifth chapter as well as the eleventh chapter of Genesis, the year when the patriarchs had sons, and the duration of their lives are preserved with them. In the other, a new light is thrown upon the significance of the genealogical tables. It is the form specially adapted to the design of a book which has to do with the earliest origin of the holy people as a distinct family; and we learn also from this source the explanation of another fact: we see why the woman's seed only, the "generations" of Adam on which the welfare of mankind depends so much, are regarded as worthy of a continuous genealogy; while of the race of Cain a few names only are mentioned, and the succession is broken off as soon as the wickedness of the race has reached a characteristic height in Lamech and his family' (Hackett).

(2) There are considerable discrepancies with respect to numbers in the genealogical notices of these (2) There are considerable discrepancies, with respect to numbers, in the genealogical notices of these patriarchs as given in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Samaritan and the Septuagint versions. The following table will show this: The details recorded respecting this series of patriarchs form our only basis for the early chronology of the world; and in this view it is of importance to compare the numerical statements in the Samaritan and the Septuagint versions with those of the Hebrew text, from which our translation was made; because in both versions the discrepancies are very striking, and in the Septuagint actually amounts to a difference of more than 1,300 years.

Moveover, they exhibit so uniform and systematic a deviation from the Hebrew Scriptures, that they could not have been accidental, and must have originated in design. Thus, for instance, in the Septuagint, every patriarch is recorded as exceeding 150 years of age before he became a father. Where the Hebrew represents any as not having reached that term, the Septuagint adds a century, and deducts as much from the subsequent portion of his life; so that the sum total remains unchanged. This arrangement is observable in the first five members, as well as in the seventh member; and the effect of these alterations, together with the addition of six years to that of Lamech previous to paternity, is to extend the interval between the creation and the flood 606 years. On the other hand, the Samaritan version has proceeded on exactly the opposite principle-that of making the alterations so that no one is exhibited as having begotten his son after he had passed 150 years. Thus, since Jared is represented in the Hebrew copy as having begotten his son at the age of 162 years, the Samaritan text subtracts 100 years from the amount. In all these corrections the evidences of design are traceable.

What was the motive, and who were the parties by whom the changes were made; whether, as Hales affirms, they were the work of Jews in the beginning of the second century of the Christian era, who tampered with the original text in order to extend the predicted time for the advent of Messiah, and destroy the claims of Christ to that character by corrupting the dates in this history; whether, as Bertheau maintains, they were done in accordance with different chronological systems regarding the occurrence of the flood; or whether, with Augustine, they are regarded merely as errors of transcription, originating from a wrong of the value of ancient marks of notation, and perpetuated through the ignorance of subsequent copyists, it is impossible to say. But most critical writers in modern times, following in the wake of J.D. Michaelis, have decided that the numbers of the Hebrew text are the most original, and therefore the most correct, on the ground that the Septuagint and the Samaritan texts betray systematic alterations.

(3) The authenticity of this passage as a family record has been denied on various grounds. Buttmann, who considers the genealogies in Genesis 4:1-26 and Genesis 5:1-32 as embodying two traditions, the one taken from the Elohistic record, and the other from the Jehovistic, holds that the pedigree contained in the present chapter is nothing but a repetition, in a confused, disjointed form, of that given in the preceding one, so far as it goes. This view, which is adopted also by Von Bohlen, Hupfeld, etc., rests on resemblances which, appearing in some of the names, have been assumed as extending to all. But such analogy is a rash and groundless hypothesis; for the two registers are entirely different both at the commencement and the close; and although there is a partial similarity between them, as might be expected in the early stages of the human family, when the names in use were but few, and therefore repeated in successive generations; yet, when examined closely, they are seen to be separate and independent catalogs. Thus, Cainan is conceived to be a corrupted form of Cain, Mahaleel = Mehujael, Jared = Irad, Methuselah = Methusael. But the supposed identity or resemblance is more apparent than real. In the original Hebrew it does not exist, and, although there is one point of similarity-namely, that two of the Cainite patriarchs as well as the Sethites, have the name of 'Eel (H410), God, incorporated with their names, thus affording ground of hope that the race was not universally atheistic-every scholar knows that there are verbal elements in the names of the latter which show that they are perfectly distinct and incapable of assimilation with the former.

Besides, the hypothesis overturns the entire order of this genealogy and destroys the relationship of fathers and sons; because the adoption of it would be necessary to change the succession of the generations, in order to make the persons bearing the names correspond to one another and to their parentage. Even in the two names which are the same in each genealogy, circumstances are added to the brief notice of the Sethites, as if for the express purpose of distinguishing them from the Cainite bearers of those names. Enoch, who "walked with God" - and 'was translated, that he should not see death' was a totally different personage from the son of Cain after whom the first city was called; and the godly, inspired father of Noah was a man of a character the very opposite of his namesake, who was a homicide and a polygamist.

There is no ground, then, because the allegation that the two lists form substantially one and the same family register: they are separate and distinct, though they run parallel to each other; and this is a sufficient refutation of the objection that, there being not one tradition but two, the genealogies cannot be considered of historical value. Equally arbitrary are other interpretations of this chapter by many learned men, who look upon it as an isolated document, inserted without any intelligible purpose in the midst of the history-the views, for instance, of Bredeau, Rask, and Gamborg, who consider the genealogical names as national appellatives: Adam, a chief or petty king who ruled in Babylonia, the same as the Aloros of the Chaldeans and the Horos of the Egyptians; and Seth, the first who established the most ancient form of divine worship in that country; as well as the theory of Bunsen, that the genealogical names here are ideal, not used to designate individuals, but to mark epochs or great cycles of time-Seth, as he writes it, Set or Suti, being the oldest Oriental god; Enos or Enosh (man), the first human creature; Enoch, 'seer of God,' signifying an era distinguished by a high degree of religious fervour; and the other patriarchs being representatives of periods corresponding to their respective names ('Egypt's Place'). Such extravagant interpretations, paraded as the scientific view of Scripture, would not deserve a passing notice, but for the authors who have formed and published them. Treated in this manner, the Bible may be made to say anything: for when men once forsake the obvious and literal import of the sacred record, and indulge a spirit of wild speculation, they will twist and bend the testimony of Scripture to support whatever theories their fancy may devise.

(4) Some are of opinion that, the "years" by which the patriarchal lives are reckoned did not embrace so great a length of time as is now understood by that term, and that when it is said the patriarchs existed on the earth for 800 or 900 years, the computation was made by the moon and not by the sun. 'In other words, the years were months; or, according to Hensler and Hufeland, they consisted of three months' duration until the time of Abraham, of eight months until that of Joseph, and not until after twelve months. According to this view it is not easy to discover what was the object of recording the lives of those patriarchs; because if the common interpretation appear a stumbling-block, as pointing to an existence protracted far beyond the known course of nature, the hypothesis of lunar years is equally objectionable, leading to the opposite extreme, reducing these lives to an unnatural brevity.

According to this theory the patriarchs must have been married, and have become fathers at the early age of four or five. The lives of several of them would scarcely be equal to the average duration of life in the present day, and even Methuselah himself, who lived 969 years, so far from enjoying the privilege of unprecedented longevity, attained to no greater age than 86 years and five months! Surely it cannot be supposed that Moses would commit so great an absurdity as to use the same words in the same history in senses so widely different-to mean by a "year" sometimes a month, and at other times twelve months (Genesis 8:13), without different-to mean by a "year" sometimes a month, and at other times twelve months (Genesis 8:13), without giving his readers any intimation of the change.

(5) Admitting the word as employed in this book to denote a common astronomical year, as has been often proved, and is generally acknowledged, some writers have urged the objection against this genealogy in another form, founded on the alleged fabulosity of the account. The story of the extraordinary longevity of these patriarchs, men who were so long in reaching maturity:

`That still a hundred years beheld the boy Beneath his mother's roof, her infant joy;'

And the lives of some of whom extended over a period equal to that from the Norman Conquest to the present day, is, it has been said, to be regarded as a myth of pre-historic times. Such millenarian existences are so far beyond the range of human experience, and so directly at variance with all the laws of animal organism, that they have been pronounced utterly incredible. But the principles of modern physiology are not applicable in such a case; because we are so entirely ignorant of the condition of mankind in an age so remote, and a state of the world so completely separated by an impassable wall from later ages, that we are not warranted to judge by present analogies.

Besides, there are remarkable instances on record of longevity in subsequent times. Not to detail some ancient cases mentioned by Pliny, of Greeks and Romans who lived 200 years and upwards, there are numerous examples even in the present day of a longevity far exceeding the ordinary standard of human life. 'In India it is by no means uncommon to meet with men, especially in the Brahminical caste, more than 100 years of age, in the enjoyment of a robust and even generative vigour of constitution. In the labouring class of Russia, whose mode of living is so simple, there are many examples of men living to more than 150 years of age' (Schlegel).

In our own country there are also some rare but well-authenticated instances, such as Thomas Parr, who lived 153 years; Henry Jenkins, 169; Mary Billinge, 112; Sarah Lee, 105. Old Parr was a simple labourer, and the report of the celebrated Harvey, who made a post-mortem examination of the body, was, that he might, and ought to have lived longer. His death was occasioned by no disease, but by an altered fare, the rich diet of the Court of Charles, which, by making too great a demand upon the digestive and other functions of his body, destroyed his little remaining vitality. His life would have been prolonged had he adhered to his usual food. Here, then, was a man whose life was equal in length to that of three ordinary lives; and as it is too well attested to be called in question, physiologists will find it as difficult to account for the extraordinary duration of the physical powers in such cases as in that of the patriarchs. The fact is, that they cannot tell what life is; and although a serene climate, simple, wholesome food, light work, the steady government of the passions, 'sana mens in corpore sano,' are undoubtedly conducive to longevity, it is useless to seek for the influence of secondary causes. The only rational way of accounting for the patriarchal longevity is by resolving it into the will of the Creator, who can impart the privilege of protracted existence to the present frame of man, as easily as to any other physical conformation.

(6) It has been alleged that this register bears evidence of artificial construction; for the genealogy before the flood, as well as that after it (Genesis 11:1-32), comprises just ten names. The coincidence is singular (cf. Matthew 3:17), but whether any intermediate links have been omitted, or, if so, why the number, ten, was fixed, is unknown.

(7) The preceding objections having been removed, the question occurs, Does the longevity of these patriarchs furnish a scale by which to measure the duration of human life generally before the flood, or was it the exclusive privilege of a few, who, being specially employed in the service of God, had their lives miraculously prolonged? From the first and the last of them having received direct communications from God, and from a third having been a 'seer,' the burden of whose solemn addresses was the infliction of divine judgment upon incorrigible sinners (Jude 1:14), it is highly probable that the other associated patriarchs sustained the same official character, and formed the first in that long series of "prophets who have been since the world began." They might be, and probably were, the media of transmitting the revelations originally communicated to the first pair by celestial visitants, respecting the origin of the world, the formation of man, as well as the lamentable incidents of the fall, the means announced for restoring man's severed relations with God, and the mode of worship appointed for a race of sinners.

On these topics of deep and universal interest, they would frequently converse with those around them; and, as Adam lived until the 57th year of Lamech, so that he thus was enabled to converse with eight generations of his children; since seven of these ten patriarchs were contemporaries with Noah, the course of tradition was direct and pure; a unity of sentiment, of feeling, and of worship, was preserved among the Sethites, which, at no subsequent period of the world's history, could possibly be maintained.

Moveover, as depositaries of general knowledge, they would fill an important and a most necessary place in the first ages for the instruction 'of mankind; and from their hoary age, and their sage experience, rich with the accumulated stores of information on all matters relating to the course of things in the world, successive generations would repair to those living oracles, as we consult monuments and coins, records and memoirs, as sources of historical information. For performing such important purposes, the lives of those holy men might have been supernaturally extended, and they would form remarkable exceptions to the usually brief term of man's continuance on earth. But this does not appear a correct view of the case; for numerous data are found in Scripture which warrant the conclusion that an extraordinary longevity, instead of being confined to a select few, was the common inheritance of all the antediluvians.

Not to insist on Genesis 6:3, the true meaning of which has been disputed, distinct allusions to the great length, and the subsequently gradual decrease of man's life, are made in Genesis 47:9; Psalms 90:10; and Isaiah 65:20. And this is just as might be expected, that sin would not produce all its physical effects immediately; that the original vigour of constitution and the temporal life of man would continue long ere the effects of the fall upon the human frame would be apparent; and that the diminution of its extraordinary vital power, and the corresponding faculties of vigour and energy with which it was endowed at creation, would, according to the usual course of Providence, take place only in a gradual manner. 'What in the present physical degeneracy of mankind forms but a rare exception, may originally have been the ordinary measure of the duration of human life, or, at least, may afford us some trace and indication of such a measure, more especially as other branches of natural science offer correspondent analogies. In that remote world, so little known to us, a standard for the duration of human life very different from the present may have prevailed; and such an opinion is extremely probable, supported as it is by manifold testimony, and confirmed by the sacred record of man's divine origin' (Schlegel).

The view given in the commentary is opposed alike to two theories: the one, that the genealogy in this chapter contains the account of a human creation posterior to that narrated in the three opening ones; and the other, that each country or climate produced its indigenous race of men [thence called geegeneis], sprung from its own prototypal Adam and Eve. The passage comprises in a few verses the history of 1,656 years, according to the Hebrew text, and of 2,242 years, according to the Septuagint. It is a bare register of names, without any historical notices, in accordance with the main purpose of its insertion, which was to show the genealogical descent of Christ from Adam through the line of Seth (cf. 1 Chronicles 1:1; Luke 3:36-38).

The best modern chronologists, Ussher, Clinton, and Parker, follow the dates given in the Hebrew text. The sacred record relative to the extraordinary longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs is confirmed by independent testimony from many sources. Josephus ('Antiquities,' 1: 3) has appealed to the unanimous testimony of ancient authors among all nations, that in the first ages man lived to the age of about one thousand years; and traditions to the same purport are found among the Indians, the Chinese, and even the Burmans. These ten patriarchs are distinctly mentioned, under different names, in the Sagas, not only of the Indians, but of other people in Asia. Seth, according to Josephus, made great acquirements in science, particularly in astronomy, and set up pillars inscribed with the result of his observations. Enoch, under the name of Idris, is not only celebrated as an astronomer all over the East, but his fame was carried by the Celtic emigrants to Britain, where, on the summit of a majestic mountain, called from him Caeder Idris, the antediluvian sage, according to tradition, was accustomed to pursue his investigations.

It has been objected that 'the fewness of the generations between the creation and the flood indicates an imperfect record, which is ill-adjusted by the preternatural lives of the patriarchs.' But surely it would have been more serviceable to Moses' purposes, if he had had any other object than a simple relation of the truth, that men should not have been so long-lived; because when he had so much scope for his invention (if it had been an invention of his own), he would have imitated the Egyptians, Chinese, and other nations, in their pretensions to an immense antiquity; instead of fixing the creation of the world at the distance of so few generations from the time at which he wrote, he would have represented the generations of men as greater, and their lives shorter, so that he might better have concealed his fictions in obscure and uncertain narratives, which must be supposed to have been transmitted through so many hands down to his age.

The longevity of the antediluvian world was highly conducive to intellectual development; and since it is easy to imagine what achievements would be made in any branch of knowledge if a Galileo, a Newton, or a Watt been preserved to continue their pursuits for a century or more, we may conclude that the arts and sciences must have made prodigious and constantly increasing progress in the world before the flood. In fact, the march of mind could never have been arrested or overtaken by the shades of night when the lamp was held up for one thousand years by the same mighty spirits who struck the spark and continually fed the flame. But now that the life of man has dwindled to threescore years and ten, it is obvious that such development would depend on a succession of gifted intellects, and that when the line was broken, the empire of thought would pass away. And it has passed from East to West; and its throne has been raised, and tottered and fallen, in almost every quarter of the globe, and never continued in one station' (Miller).