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.