Genesis 5:6-19

We have here all that the Holy Ghost thought fit to leave upon record concerning five of the patriarchs before the flood, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared. There is nothing noticed concerning any of those particularly, though we have reason to think they were men of eminence, both for prudence and piety; but, in general, their generations are largely and expressly recorded. We are told how long they lived that lived in God's fear, and when they died, that died in his favour; but as for others it is no matter: the “memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot.” That which is especially observable is, that they all lived very long; not one of them died till he had seen the revolution of almost eight hundred years, and some of them much longer; a great while for an immortal soul to be imprisoned in a house of clay. The present life surely was not to them such a burden as commonly it is now, else they would have been weary of it; nor was the future life so clearly revealed then as it is now under the gospel, else they would have been impatient to remove to it. Some natural causes may be assigned for their long life in those first ages. It is very probable that the earth was more fruitful, the products of it more strengthening, and the air more healthful, before the flood, than they were after. Though man was driven out of paradise, yet the earth itself was then paradisiacal; a garden in comparison with its present state. Their living so long, however, must chiefly be resolved into the power and providence of God. All the patriarchs here, except Noah, were born before Adam died, so that from him they might receive a full account of the creation, paradise, the fall, the promise, and those divine precepts which concerned religious worship and a religious life; and if any mistake arose, they might have recourse to him while he lived, as to an oracle, for the rectifying of it, and after his death to Methuselah, and others that had conversed with him; so great was the care of Almighty God to preserve in his church the knowledge of his will, and the purity of his worship.