And Jared lived a hundred and sixty-two years, and begot Enoch.
Genesis 5:18 is one link in a chain of almost identical sentences: a man lives, he fathers a son, he lives on, he dies. What lifts this link out of the list is the son: Jared fathers Enoch, the one man here never said to have died.
Genesis 5 records the line of Seth.
There is a striking contrast with the record of the Cainites in the previous chapter. The Cainites were progressive, built cities and made inventions. Nothing is said of the God-fearing generations in this chapter accomplishing great earthly things. They were pilgrims and strangers, waiting for better things. In the fourth chapter the word "die" is not mentioned. Nothing is said of the duration of the life of Cain and his seed. Eight times in the fifth chapter we read "and he died." One did not die. We learn from this that the Lord keeps a record of the lives, the work and the years of His people. His saints are in His hands.
Every name in this chapter carries a meaning. Read in order, the ten names form a single sentence.
If we turn back to 1 Chronicles 1, the opening three verses give us one of the wonderful sentences of Inspiration. It is a sentence containing ten proper names and not a single verb. The names are these: Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. Dr Kitto has pointed out what these ten names mean when translated in order. They form this remarkable sentence in English: Man, Appointed [or Replaced], Miserable, Lamenting, The God of Glory, Shall descend, To instruct, His death sends, To the afflicted, Consolation. So the very names of the patriarchs before the flood would be a standing testimony to the world. Methuselah's name in particular was a warning message to the sinners of his day. Enoch the prophet, whose own name marked him out as one able "to instruct," named his son in words that foretold a coming judgment. That judgment would "descend" after his death. The very year Methuselah died, the flood came.
Jared is the "shall descend" in that sentence. A shorter list of the same meanings has been set out this way:
Adam — Man; Seth — Set; Enos — Frailty; Cainan — Deplorable; Mahalaleel — The Blessed God; Jared — Descends; Enoch — Teaching; Methuselah — Death sent away; Lamech — Powerful; Noah — Rest, Comfort.
The New Testament counts the generations from Adam down to the son born here.
He was the seventh from Adam, as Jude tells us, and we can check this in Genesis 5. He was number seven counting through the line of Seth, the line that kept faith alive in the days before the flood. When Eve bore Seth she said, "God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him." These words were doubtless prophetic. Cain the man of flesh had killed Abel the man of faith, and God had now appointed another godly seed by which faith should not perish from the earth. The seventh man on that line of faith was the outstanding man of the line. In him faith shone out with special brightness.
The long lives in this chapter served a purpose while God's revelation was still only spoken.
How could a revelation that was still only spoken reach Adam's family, except through the long lives of that early day? Methuselah lived to tell Shem what Adam passed on from God Himself. Shem lived to repeat it all to Abraham and Isaac. These were facts and prospects said in few words, plain in meaning, and deeply important.
Jared's entry ends the way the others do. One cause lies behind that ending.
Those who judge only from what we see today are far from the truth. By nature, man was made at the start to live. Death was sin's wages, not a physical necessity back then. God had provided the means to prolong his life if he obeyed. But He took it away from him outright when he fell. For what greater misery, or moral contradiction, than an endless life of sin? So death is in no sense a debt owed to nature, but to sin. Here we read its death-knell for each of these men. That includes those who stood apart from the evil way of Cain, the ancestors not only of Israel but in due time of the Messiah. Of Adam, and so of Seth, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jared, it was alike said "he died."
Enoch breaks the pattern — but not by escaping death under his own power.
The one exception to the common lot of man forms no exception to the rule that no one can deliver himself from death. Of Enoch we read, "he was not, for God took him." It was God's act, not Enoch's effort, which kept his body from the grave.
- Recorded. God records the years of His people. Seth's line gets its quiet years counted; Cain's line gets cities and inventions but no years at all.
- Named. Jared supplies the "shall descend," and the ten names of the chapter read as one sentence of testimony to the world.
- Fathered. At 162 Jared fathers Enoch, seventh from Adam, in the line that kept faith alive before the flood.
- Died. The refrain over Jared and all the rest traces death to sin, not to nature.
- Excepted. Only Enoch escapes the refrain. God took him; his own effort could not have done it.
And Jared lived after he had begotten Enoch eight hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.
Genesis 5 repeats one short formula through ten generations, and verse 19 is Jared's turn: eight hundred more years after Enoch's birth, then children no one names. Why so little detail, why such long lives, and why does every entry close the same way?
The verse says almost nothing about eight hundred years, and that silence is deliberate. God's record follows one line toward the Messiah, and folds everyone else into a single phrase.
The inspired writer gives the same simple outline of these lives so prolonged... Divine purpose is the key. It explains both the mention that looks so meagre and the special record in the cases of Enoch and Noah. It also explains why the general genealogy gives no details beyond the direct line of the chosen people, and so above all of the Messiah. He is God's salvation, a light for revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel. The rest of their children, however many or distinguished in a human way, are merged into nothing more than the "sons and daughters" they fathered.
Jared's name is not decoration. One writer lines up the ten names of this line in order and reads them as a single sentence, with Jared sixth in the chain.
The opening verses of 1 Chronicles 1 give a sentence containing ten proper names and not a single verb. The names are these: Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah... translated in order, these ten names form a remarkable sentence in English. It runs: Man, Appointed [or Replaced], Miserable, Lamenting, The God of Glory, Shall descend, To instruct, His death sends, To the afflicted, Consolation. So the very names of the patriarchs before the flood would be a standing testimony to the world.
Eight hundred extra years is not a curiosity of ancient record-keeping. Before anyone wrote truth down, long life was how it travelled.
It mattered greatly to them to have sure witness to the origin of the race, and of the earth and heavens, and of all creatures in them. Higher still was it to hear of the fall and its solemn results. Highest of all was to know that He, both the Creator and in moral relationship with man, had stepped in... revealing a suffering Deliverer, the woman's Seed, to destroy the enemy... And how could a revelation still passed on by word of mouth reach the whole family of Adam, except by the long lives of that early day? Methuselah lived to tell Shem what Adam passed on from God Himself. Shem lived to repeat it all to Abraham and Isaac.
The previous chapter lists Cain's descendants: city-builders and inventors. This chapter lists fathers of unnamed children, and one repeated verdict.
The Cainites pushed ahead, built cities and made inventions. This chapter says nothing about the God-fearing generations achieving great things on earth. They were pilgrims and strangers, waiting for better things. The fourth chapter never mentions the word "die." It says nothing about how long Cain and his descendants lived. Eight times in the fifth chapter we read "and he died." One did not die. We learn from this that the Lord keeps a record of the lives, the work and the years of His people. His saints are in His hands.
Jared's long life closes the way every other life in this chapter closes. One writer refuses to treat that ending as natural.
Death was the wages of sin. Back then it was not a necessity built into the body. God had provided the means for prolonging his life if he obeyed, but took that means away from him outright when he fell. For what greater misery, or moral contradiction, than an everlasting life of sin? So death is in no way a debt owed to nature but to sin. Here we read its bell tolling even for those who stood apart from the evil way of Cain... Of Adam, so of Seth, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jared, it was alike said "he died."
The genealogy is not the last word, because the line it protects arrives at Someone death could not hold.
How sad, if this were all! But it is not; it is only the first man. "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead." The devil had the power of death. Christ in grace submitted to death, but death could not hold Him, and His death brings the devil to nothing.
- Line — God keeps the record narrow on purpose. This chain leads to the Messiah.
- Length — long lives carried the spoken story of creation, the fall and the promised Deliverer down the generations.
- Legacy — his other children are just "sons and daughters." This family built no cities and left no inventions. They were pilgrims, waiting for better things.
- Loss — the repeated "and he died" marks death as sin's wages, not nature's design. It falls on the godly line too.
- Life — one man in this chapter did not die, and Christ is risen. That is where the whole list has been heading.
And all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died.
Jared's entry in the line from Adam to Noah ends like every entry before it: a count of years, then three short words. He lived 962 years, longer than Adam, and still the record closes where all the others close.
The record tells us nothing of Jared's character, his work, or his words. Other ancient writers tried to fill that gap. One commentator explains why the Bible does not.
Josephus and certain Arabian writers, quoted by Hottinger, claim to give details about the men listed here. Their claims are not worth repeating, because they have no real authority. The inspired writer gives only the same simple outline of these long lives, and that is all the more striking... Divine purpose is the key. It explains why the general family line leaves out every detail beyond the direct line of the chosen people, and so above all of the Messiah — God's salvation, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel. The rest of their children, however many or however distinguished in a human way, are simply merged into the "sons and daughters" they had.
Why does every life in this chapter end the same way? One writer traces those closing words back to their cause.
At the outset God made man to live. Death was the wages of sin; at that time it was no physical necessity. God had provided the means to prolong man's life if he obeyed, but took that means away when he fell. What greater misery, or moral contradiction, than an everlasting life of sin? So death is in no way a debt of nature but of sin. Here we hear its bell toll for each man, even for those who kept clear of the evil way of Cain... Of Adam, so of Seth, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jared, it was alike said "he died."
The same sentence still stands over every generation since.
He might live for hundreds of years and have "other sons and daughters." But in the end the record must say, "he died." "Death reigned from Adam to Moses." "It is appointed for man to die once." Man cannot get past this. Steam, electricity, and everything else his genius can reach will never disarm death of its terrible sting.
If long life could mend human nature, these men had every chance.
Adam at the end of his nine hundred and thirty years' life on earth was no better than he was just after the fall. Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. His nature was just as corrupt at the close of his life as it was on the day he was born. So time counts for nothing here. Nothing can change a nature. What man really needs is a new one.
Why did God let men live so long? One writer points to a time when His word had not yet been written down.
At that time God made man's life long, and that took the place of a written word. We can see His wisdom in it. At the flood, life was cut in half. It was cut in half again when the earth was divided up among the peoples.
Two long lives carried that word all the way from Adam to Abraham.
God's revelation was still spoken, not written. How could it reach the family of Adam, except by the long lives of that early day? Methuselah lived to tell Shem what Adam had passed on from God Himself. Shem lived to repeat it all to Abraham and Isaac. These were facts and things to come, said in few words, plain in meaning, and of the deepest importance.
Jared's death notice is the last one before the chapter breaks its own pattern. The next man in the line, his son Enoch, never gets that ending.
Genesis 5 is one of the most solemn chapters in Holy Scripture. It is a chapter of death. Eight times over we read of one and another that "he died." Sin has wrecked everything here, and the chapter puts that before us in vivid terms. Yet right in the middle of this dismal list of dying men, we read of one who did not die. "He was not, for God took him."
The list is sad, but it is not the last word.
How sad, if this were all! It is not so, however; this is only the first man. "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead."
- Cause. Death is not built into human nature; it is the wages of sin, and Jared's ending says so as plainly as Adam's.
- Reign. The refrain repeats because death ruled — long life delayed it, no human skill has ever disarmed it.
- Unchanged. 962 years did not improve anyone; time cannot alter a nature, so what man needs is a new one.
- Purpose. Long lives carried God's spoken word forward before anyone wrote it down — Adam to Methuselah, Shem to Abraham.
- Exception. Right after Jared comes Enoch, who did not die. That one break in the pattern points on to resurrection in Christ.
And Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methushelah.
Genesis 5 reads like a register of funerals. Then the list slows down for one man. Enoch reaches sixty-five and fathers a son, and from there his story turns. Why does the record of his walk with God start only after this birth, and what did that son's name tell the world?
This chapter's refrain, "and he died," falls on every man in it but one.
Genesis 5 is "the book of the generation of Adam," a chapter over which the shadow of death is apparent in the often repeated expression "and he died" — a shadow universal in its effects, and one which the power of God, the living God, alone can remove. It is a blessed thing to read in such a chapter that "Enoch walked with God … and God took him." By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death (Hebrews 11:5).
Two men in Genesis share this name.
His name was the same as that of Cain's son, the man the world's first city was named after. "Enoch" means "dedicated." So we may say of the one that he was dedicated to the world, and of the other that he was dedicated to God. Eternity will show which had the better part.
Scripture tells us nothing of Enoch's first sixty-five years. Only after this son is born does the record of his walk with God begin.
There seems to be a suggestion in the next verse that the dawn of the new life in Enoch happened at the same time as the birth of his son Methuselah. One can easily understand how this might be. Births and deaths are alike solemn family events, and the Spirit of God can use them to turn the heart to things eternal.
For parents, this can start in the small hours of the night.
Happy are the parents who can walk with God as they walk the floor with a crying, restless infant. Those dreaded night watches become heavenly talks with their best and dearest Friend. You will find the silent house, when everybody else is asleep, is just the place where your Lord and you can walk together undisturbed.
The words "walk with" point first to company.
To "walk with" implies companionship. If you saw me going down the street in conversation with someone, the suggestion would be that I enjoy his company. God values this in His people more than anything else. … While others were busy making a name and a place for themselves here, building their city and perfecting their crafts, "Enoch walked with God." The presence of God and communion with Him meant more to his heart than anything a sin-cursed earth could give.
But it is no soft thing. It holds together qualities that seem to pull against each other.
How much is involved in these three words, "walked with God"! What separation and self-denial! What holiness and moral purity! What grace and gentleness! What humility and tenderness! And yet what zeal and energy! What patience and long-suffering, and yet what faithfulness and uncompromising decision! … It is not merely living by rules and regulations, nor laying down plans of action, nor making resolutions to go here or there and do this or that.
Enoch kept this up for three hundred years, and not in seclusion.
He was no recluse or dreamy mystic, for the record is that "Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters." He entered into ordinary human life. He knew all the usual trials and troubles, as well as the joys of bringing up a family. … Despite that, he walked with God — not by fits and starts, but with steady persistence for three centuries! A wonderful walk — the longest walk on record.
The name Enoch gave his son carried a message.
Look at the prophecy of God's long-suffering wrapped up in the meaning of Methuselah's name. It meant "when he is dead it shall be sent" — that is, the flood. Nobody has ever lived longer than he did. He was older than Adam with his 930 years, and older than Jared with his 962 years. He even outlived his own son Lamech, who reached 777. That great age stood as a witness to God's patient compassion, to His unwillingness to judge. … In the end God's patience came to a close. Methuselah died. That year the flood came.
- Setting — Genesis 5 repeats "and he died" over every name. Enoch's walk is the one line death does not close.
- Start — the record of that walk begins at a cradle. A son's birth may well have been what God used to turn Enoch's heart, and the same door stands open to every parent.
- Substance — walking with God means enjoying His company above anything the world is building. It draws in holiness, gentleness, zeal and patience at once. It is not a set of rules.
- Stamina — three hundred years with no breaks, lived among sons and daughters and ordinary troubles. The longest walk on record had the most ordinary setting.
- Sign — the son's name announced mercy: "when he is dead it shall be sent." God stretched that life longer than any other. When Methuselah died, the flood came.
And Enoch walked with God after he had begotten Methushelah three hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.
Genesis 5 is a list of names that all end in death, until one man breaks the pattern. Enoch walked with God for three hundred years while raising a family — so what is that walk, and how did it begin?
The verse dates Enoch's walk from a specific event: the arrival of his son.
Genesis 5:22 seems to hint that new life dawned in Enoch at the very time his son Methuselah was born. It is easy to see how this could be. Births and deaths are both solemn family events. The Spirit of God can use either one to turn the heart to eternal things.
The word "walked" is not decoration. It describes who chose the direction of Enoch's life and who kept the speed.
As Enoch walked with God, his activities came under Divine control. He had the happy privilege and responsibility of keeping in touch with God. That way he could know His thoughts and understand His ways. Then God ordered his life and path, for it was His to show the direction and set the pace. God led the way, and Enoch was at His side, led by Him with understanding. His walk was not like a dog's, faithfully following his master's steps, because Enoch was given a wonderful grasp of God's mind and purpose, as Jude's letter makes plain.
Genesis says nothing about how Enoch came to this. The New Testament supplies the missing link, and it is not effort but faith.
This is where faith begins, whether for Enoch or for ourselves. It leads us to the knowledge that GOD IS, and that is something very different from believing that there is a God. Even today, many people cannot explain how everything came to exist without assuming a God of some kind, somewhere. But that is reason, not faith. Only faith puts us into the presence of the LIVING GOD. He knows, He sees, He acts, He makes Himself known, and He even rewards those who seek Him with all their heart. In days when all thought of the living God was fading from people's minds, Enoch by faith had the living God before him. He sought Him with all his heart, and so he found Him. There began that remarkable walk with Him, which lasted three hundred years.
The same verse that records the walk also records sons and daughters. Enoch did not step out of family life, and he did not walk with God in short bursts.
Enoch did not live in an easy day. Jude tells us that ungodliness was everywhere in Enoch's time... But he walked with God — he walked with God! He sensed in his heart that God wanted his company. And God so worked in his heart that Enoch answered God's own desires as he walked with Him. He didn't walk with God casually; he didn't walk with God now and then; he didn't walk with God for a few moments; he walked with God for hundreds of years. He didn't go into a monastery to do it, for we read in Genesis 5:22 that "Enoch walked with God … and had other sons and daughters."
A long walk is made of single steps. Enoch took his steps quietly, one at a time.
Enoch, in a day when there was no Scripture, walked with God. For 300 years he walked according to the mind of God. Such a walk makes very little noise in the world... It was a very quiet, very unshowy walk. At every step it simply asked, "Where is God in this step?" Did the people of that day ask, before they put a foot down, "Is God in it?" No — it appears that Enoch walked alone with God. He had a set of thoughts and ways peculiar to himself, but the same as God's.
The setting gives Enoch's walk its force.
Genesis 5 is one of the most solemn chapters in Holy Scripture. It is a chapter of death. Eight times over we read of one and another that "he died." This sets before our eyes the wreck of everything here, which is the fruit of sin. What a remarkable thing: right in the middle of this dismal list of dying men, we read of one who did not die.
- Cause. The walk began at a cradle. Methuselah's birth seems to be the moment eternal things gripped Enoch's heart.
- Root. Faith held the walk up — faith that God is, and that He rewards those who seek Him.
- Shape. God chose the direction and set the pace. Enoch kept close enough to know His mind.
- Setting. All this happened in ordinary life, among sons and daughters, in a day full of ungodliness. Enoch never hid away.
- Result. In a chapter that repeats "he died" eight times, the one man who walked with God is the one man who did not.
And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.
Genesis 5 lists long lifespans, and closes each one with the words "and he died." Enoch's total is the smallest in the chapter — 365 years, beside neighbours who passed nine hundred. That raises two questions. Why did the best man get the shortest life, and why does his entry end without a grave?
Set beside the men around him, Enoch's total looks like an early exit. One writer puts the surprise bluntly.
If we had to choose which of the patriarchs before the flood should live a long life of witness, we should have said, "Enoch of course, Enoch is the man. He is the man who walks with God; he is the man who bears unswerving witness." We should have been wrong. Enoch was taken in early life. Look at Methuselah — 969. Enoch has 365 years and he is gone. The very man we want is gone!
The figure sounds ancient to us, so it is easy to picture Enoch worn out and ready for the grave. Scaled against the lifespans recorded in this very chapter, the picture changes.
If Genesis 5 had not given us such full details about the ages of the patriarchs when they died, we might have pictured Enoch at 365 as a worn-out old man looking for his grave. But we can hardly do that. Human life then was about ten times as long as it is now. So Methuselah's life matches that of an old man today who misses being a hundred by a few years. And Enoch's comes to about 36 and a half years — the age when a man is in the prime of his strength. Death clearly threatened him while he was young, and God snatched him away so that death should not take him as its prey.
Another writer describes the same man as no hermit — married, a father, living among people, and speaking to them about God, right up to the point where the record stops.
Standing aloof from the corruptions of his day, he warned men of a judgment which should surely come. By the force of truth he was a stranger in the world. His way was contrary to that of other men. But he pleased God whom it was alone his care to please. Thus he lived and worked, holding patiently to a better hope than that of far-extending earthly days, until he ceased at the noontide of his natural life (Gen. 5:23). He was not found. Men sought him.
The same pattern repeats in every generation, and it unsettles us. One writer names the feeling instead of smoothing it over.
Enoch was without doubt the one outstanding man of faith before the flood, yet he lived by far the shortest life. If the arranging had been left to us, would we not have ordered it otherwise? We often see believers of godliness and gift taken away fairly early in life... Meanwhile another, who has never stood out for godliness or service, and who is more of a drag on his fellow believers, is left to a very old age! We all tend to treat this as strange, and we feel like questioning the wisdom of God's ways.
The same writer answers that complaint by pointing to the greatness of the One who arranges it.
Ever since sin entered it has looked as though our Lord is fighting a losing battle. His greatest servants go when most needed, yet He will bring victory out of what looks like defeat. We have an immensely great Lord, One who is big enough to bring about glory all along the line. Consequently He can do with very small servants.
Scripture spends one line on the total and one line on the man. That proportion is itself the lesson.
There is a very striking difference between God's inspired records of His people and all human biographies. The first can truly be called "much in little." Many of the second can just as truly be called "little in much." The story of one of the Old Testament saints covers 365 years. It is summed up in two short clauses: "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." How brief! And yet how full, how complete! How many volumes would a man have filled with the record of such a life? And yet, what more could he have said? To walk with God covers everything that could be said of anyone.
The short total is not a loss but a distinction. It is the one life in the chapter that never ended in a grave.
Once, and but once, in the days before the flood, a man had walked with God 365 years of life, and then, without seeing death, been removed to heaven to walk with Him there. That life of Enoch, on which the shadow of death had never fallen, might suffice to show the possibility.
One writer ties that removal to a hope held out to others.
Enoch was the first sample of being taken up to heaven, and he remains the lasting type of it — a real removal to heaven, quietly done, with no sign beforehand and nothing to prepare for it in events or prophecy. This was a special honour to Enoch, and the pledge of what all God's people called to heaven will enjoy: those still alive when the Lord comes.
- Shortest. Of every man listed in this chapter, Enoch's total is the smallest — the outstanding believer given the briefest run.
- Youngest. Measured against lifespans ten times ours, 365 years is a man in his prime, not a man waiting for a grave.
- Fullest. The shortest span gets the fullest description: one phrase about walking with God covers all 365 years.
- Safest. The shortest life is the one life the shadow of death never fell on. God took him to keep walking with Him in heaven.
- First. What ended Enoch's count early became the first sample of a hope held out to others — taken, not buried.
And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Genesis 5 reads like a register of graves — name, years, "and he died" — until one man breaks the rhythm. Enoch's story raises two questions: what is it to walk with God, and why did he not die?
The setting gives the verse its force.
Genesis 5 is one of the most solemn chapters in Holy Scripture. It is a chapter of death. Eight times over we read of one and another that "he died." So the ruin of everything here, the fruit of sin, is set before us. Yet right in the middle of this grim list of dying men, we read of one who did not die.
But Enoch did not save himself from death.
The one exception to the common lot of man is no exception to the rule that no one can deliver himself from death. Of Enoch we read, "He was not, for God took him." It was God's act, not Enoch's effort, which kept his body from the grave.
In the garden, God walked with man. Here a man walks with God, and the state of the world is the reason.
These few words hold a world of meaning! "Walking" means not rest but activity, of mind or of body. Enoch's activity of mind — his talk and his communion — and his activity of service too were "with God." Before Adam fell, the Lord God had walked with him in the garden, as Genesis 3:8 implies. Enoch, however, lived in a scene of growing corruption and violence. God could no longer walk with him as He once did in an unfallen creation, so Enoch walked with God. He knew God Himself. In God's things he lived and moved and had his being.
The walk began at the birth of Enoch's son and ran for three centuries.
He was no recluse or dreamy mystic. The record is that "Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters." He entered into ordinary human life. He knew all the usual trials and troubles, as well as the joys of bringing up a family. Despite that, he walked with God — not by fits and starts, but steadily, for three centuries! A wonderful walk, the longest walk on record was that!
The record of those years holds no drama.
Genesis 5 records no ups and downs. No failures, and no brilliant successes. Just this short but full sentence: "Enoch walked with God." It shows a quiet, steady purpose — a holy life lived apart from a world under judgment. Hebrews 11:5-6 shows us it was a life of faith, of seeking God diligently.
The phrase sounds strange in English, but Scripture uses it elsewhere with a settled sense. In older translations Jacob's "is no more" reads "is not" — the same words used of Enoch.
It is what we may call a technical term. It has to do with personal presence on earth. So we read of Enoch's removal to heaven, "he was not, for God took him" (Gen. 5:24). He was no longer on earth, but in the other world. Again, when Jacob was asked to let Benjamin go down to Egypt, he cried out, "You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin" (Gen. 42:36).
One writer reads the removal as a rescue: violence was about to reach Enoch, and God took him first.
They were after him. But just before the blow could fall, "he was not, for God took him." God did not step in for Abel: that man was commended as righteous, and then died a martyr's death. He did step in for Enoch. This man greatly displeased the men of his age, but he pleased God so much that God took him into His presence, beyond the reach of his enemies. We may sum up his story by saying that he walked with God, he witnessed for God, and he went to God.
One man's removal showed where God means His own to be.
What a plain sign God gave in that great but simple fact! It went far beyond the ordinary experience of undoubted saints. It showed that heaven was to be the home of those He loves on earth — the heaven of His presence, where time and change are unknown, to say nothing of sin and sorrow. … Enoch was the first sample of being taken to heaven, and he remains its lasting picture: heavenly in reality, and done in silence, with no sign beforehand and no preparation in providence or prophecy.
- Walked — the walk was activity, not retreat: mind, service and family life all carried on with God while the world around him grew corrupt.
- Witnessed — three hundred years with no recorded failures and no brilliant successes: a quiet, steady purpose, apart from a world under judgment.
- Went — "he was not" means absence from earth, not extinction; Scripture speaks the same way of Joseph and Simeon.
- Taken, not escaped — God's act, not Enoch's effort, kept him from the grave; he pleased God, and God took him beyond the reach of his enemies.
- Pledge — one man lifted out of a chapter of graves became the first sample and lasting picture of heaven as the home of those God loves.