And Lemech lived a hundred and eighty-two years, and begot a son.
Genesis 5 keeps one rhythm: births, long years, then the words "and he died." At Lamech's son the record slows. Here a father names his child and speaks about the cursed ground. What did he mean by that name? Did his hope come true? And how much did he understand of his own words?
The chapter says almost nothing about most of its men. The exceptions stand out.
The record says little about Adam's line through Seth. They lived many days on the earth; they had sons and daughters, besides the one who continued the line; and they died. That silence gives great weight to everything else the record says.
Lamech gives this son a name with a meaning, and his words about the boy reach far past him.
Lamech, the son of Methuselah, called his son's name Noah, meaning "rest." Whatever Lamech was thinking when he spoke about Noah, his words were prophetic. God inspired them (v. 29)... We may be sure that Lamech did not know how this was to be done. For the rest that was to come depended on Noah's long years of labour in building the ark. In the same way the great work of the Lord Jesus in His sacrifice at Calvary is the basis of rest for the believer. The curse of sin has spoiled the earth for us. But the work of Christ has brought in eternal blessing above the level of earth, and it gives rest to weary hearts. Of course Noah's work is only a very faint picture of this.
The same Hebrew root shows up again later in Noah's story, tying the name to what God gave.
Noah means, as we have seen, "rest" or "comfort." His father Lamech gave the name in faith that God's comfort would come through him. The hope was well founded. In Genesis 8:4 the ark rested — literally "Noahed" — on the mountains of Ararat. In verse 21 of the same chapter, "the LORD smelled a sweet savour," literally "a savour of rest," or Noah. In each case the root is the same. It shows how truly God answered the faith seen in the name. He gave rest in a scene of ruin, and declared that the sacrifice was the basis of it.
The name is not only hope. It also admits what the world had become.
When we reach Noah, the tenth from Adam, the history expands again... His father Lamech acknowledged that the earth was under the curse of God, and he expected that his son would bring rest or comfort. This he did by building the ark at God's command, carrying a few — eight souls — into a new world.
Lamech's own words come in the next verse: this son "shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands" (ESV). The promise has a limit.
You do get relief in a way afterwards. So Lamech named his son Noah. He said, "This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed." It does not say the curse was taken away; but there was comfort concerning it... The curse is not gone; but its effect was lessened.
Commentators differ on how far to press Lamech's confidence. Several read his "us" as the flaw in an otherwise sound hope.
Even in Noah's father, Lamech, we can detect a decline, though he speaks about God with reverence. Is he not, even in his name, sadly linked with Cain's line? He is another Lamech, a "strong man," not a man humbling himself before God. It is striking, too, that like his namesake in Cain's line, he also has his memorable saying...
Lamech's prophecy was true, then, about the "comfort" God had in store for man. It was false only in one thing: he applied it to a generation still alive, and the judgment cut them off before the blessing came.
Set beside Enoch's prophecy, Lamech's word still waits its turn.
Enoch's prophecy (Jude 14) spoke of judgment. It will have its answer, its full answer, when the present course of things is closing and the day of the Lord comes to convince the ungodly. Lamech's prophecy (Genesis 5:29) spoke of rest. It will be made good later. First the day of the Lord carries out the judgment; then the presence of the Lord brings its restoration and refreshing.
- Curse. Lamech names his son and admits the ground lies under God's curse. The hope starts with an honest look at the world.
- Comfort. The name means rest. The same root returns when the ark "rested" and when God smelled "a savour of rest." God answered the faith behind the name.
- Cost. The rest came only through Noah's long years of building the ark. That is a faint picture of the rest founded on Christ's sacrifice.
- Limit. The word promised comfort about the curse, not its removal. The effect eased; the curse stayed.
- Later. Lamech was right about the comfort and wrong about the generation. Judgment came first. The full rest waits for the presence of the Lord.
And he called his name Noah, saying, This [one] shall comfort us concerning our work and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed.
Chapter 5 runs through names and death dates until one father stops to speak: Lamech names his son and ties a hope to him. What did that name mean, and did the hope come true?
The name Noah carries the sense of rest. Lamech's words show a man weighed down by the ground he worked. The writers quoted here use older translations, where the verse reads "comfort us" instead of the ESV's "bring us relief."
The word first appears on the lips of Lamech as he named his son — Noah. What he said in Genesis 5:29 shows that he was feeling the sorrows of a cursed earth. He looked forward to something in which he could find rest or repose. That is what the name Noah means. Sadly, the world in Noah's day had not changed morally; it could give no comfort to the hearts of men.
A man can speak a true word without seeing how it will be kept.
Whatever Lamech's thoughts were in what he said about Noah, his words were prophetic, for God inspired them. Noah would "comfort us" or "give us rest from our works and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed." We may be sure Lamech did not know how this would happen. The coming rest depended on Noah's long years of work in building the ark.
Set beside Enoch's prophecy of judgment, Lamech's saying supplies the other half of the picture.
Enoch speaks openly of the Lord's coming with tens of thousands of His saints. A heavenly portion only sharpens the sense of coming judgment on all. Lamech was given, though more dimly, to see in Noah the pledge of comfort for the earth, after the judgment of the living has done its work.
There is a difference between lifting a burden and easing it.
It does not say the curse was taken away, but there was comfort concerning it... In the garden Adam did not toil to get food. He ate the seed, and the animals ate the grass. Once he was driven out, he had to work hard for his food — "by the sweat of your face." After the flood, seed-time and harvest are certain, and farming has a kind of blessing on it: not the curse gone, but man comforted.
One writer ties the fulfilment to the offering Noah made, and then names its limit.
What suited then was a burnt-offering, of a sweet savour, or savour of rest... Now came, it would seem, the fulfilment of Lamech's word in calling his son Noah: "This same shall comfort us concerning our works and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed." Only Christ coming in power will remove the curse. In the meantime Noah brought relief and comfort for man in his toil.
The promise reaches further than Noah himself could carry it. One writer sees in him an advance portrait of Christ.
The prophecy spoken over Noah was this — "This shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed." This introduced Him as the remover of the curse from a corrupted earth. So He is the rest of those under sentence to eat of it and till it with pain and sweat... Here we see Christ, the true Noah, Heir of the new earth. In that day, as we read, "no longer will there be anything accursed," and all things in it are given into His hand.
Genesis has another Lamech, in Cain's line, with a saying of his own. One writer sets the two men side by side.
Like his namesake in Cain's line, this Lamech also has his memorable saying. The Lamech of Cain's line says he will go unpunished for his wrongdoing, arguing falsely from God's patience. This Lamech, on the very eve of judgment, speaks of comfort to a generation soon to be swept away by the flood... His prophecy was true, then, about the "comfort" God had in store for man. It was false only in applying it to a generation whose survivors the judgment cut off before the blessing came.
- Curse — Lamech names his son out of the sorrow of a ground under sentence, longing for rest from endless toil.
- Comfort — the name means rest, and the promise is real: not the curse cancelled, but man comforted in it.
- Cost — the rest Lamech named came only through Noah's long years of work on the ark.
- Correction — the word was true of God's purpose, but wrong about its timing. Judgment came first and swept that generation away.
- Christ — the full comfort waits for the true Noah, Heir of a new earth where there will be no more curse.
And Lemech lived after he had begotten Noah five hundred and ninety-five years, and begot sons and daughters.
Genesis 5:30 records the second half of Lamech's life: the 595 years that followed Noah's birth, and more children. The numbers look like filler. Then you see what the chapter does with them: every life here runs long, and every life here ends.
Verse 30 follows the pattern set for each name in this list: years lived, children born, then a closing line. One commentator reads the whole chapter as a record of man's inability to escape that last line.
Look through chapter 5 and you find a clear record of man's weakness, and of his subjection to the rule of death. A man might live for hundreds of years and "have other sons and daughters." But in the end the record closes, "he died." "Death reigned from Adam to Moses." "It is appointed for man to die once." Man cannot get over this.
That closing note is not fixed in Scripture. A later genealogy, running from Shem down to Abram, follows the same pattern but leaves it out.
The sorrowful chime sounds all through the earlier one, "and he died." Not once does it sound in the later one, though in fact all those spoken of in chapter 11 did die. Chapter 5, on the other hand, had the striking exception of Enoch, "who walked with God and was not, for God took him." Human life was so long in those days that it was all the more moving to say of each one, with that exception, "and he died."
Another 595 years after one son's birth is hard to imagine. One writer points to what such long lives made possible.
God's revelation was still only spoken. How could it reach Adam's family effectively, except by the long life that marked those early days? 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 prospects said in few words, plain in meaning, and of the deepest importance.
The "sons and daughters" have a purpose too. The same writer links them back to the command given to the first couple.
We can see how well the long span of life in those days served God's word of blessing to the first pair: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it."
Count them forward and they stop just short of the flood, which came in Noah's six hundredth year. Lamech's father outlived him, and the arithmetic of this chapter turns into a countdown.
But Methuselah went on living here, and he knew that as long as he lived the judgment could not fall. His own son Lamech lived 777 years and died, but Methuselah his father lived on another five years. He watched his grandson Noah (meaning "Comfort") through 600 years of life. He heard the solemn announcement of the judgment. He watched the ark take shape to save the lives of his grandson's whole household. Then at last he, the oldest man who ever lived, passed from this scene and prepared the way for the judgment to come.
At Noah's birth Lamech said that this son would bring relief from the ground the LORD had cursed. The 595 years of verse 30, and the children born in them, ran on under that hope.
after_note: DELETE
Even in Noah's father, Lamech, though he speaks about God in a devout way, we can detect decline. On the very eve of judgment he speaks of comfort to a generation soon to be swept away by the flood. And yet there was truth in this. It was of Noah's day that we read, "When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in His heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man.'" So Lamech's prophecy was true about the "comfort" God had in store for man. It was false only in applying that comfort to a generation whose survivors were cut off by the judgment that came before the blessing.
- Pattern. Years, children, then death: chapter 5 runs the same formula through every name. One writer calls it the record of man's subjection to the rule of death, which no length of life can undo.
- Exception. One name breaks the chime: Enoch, "who walked with God and was not, for God took him." A later genealogy in Genesis 11 drops the death-note altogether.
- Purpose. Long lives carried a spoken revelation from Methuselah to Shem, and from Shem to Abraham and Isaac. They also served the word of blessing: be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.
- Countdown. Lamech's 595 remaining years end five years before his father Methuselah dies. Methuselah's death prepared the way for the flood.
- Comfort. Lamech's word about Noah was true about the comfort God had in store. It was wrong about his own generation: judgment came first, and only Noah's household came through it.
And all the days of Lemech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years; and he died.
Lamech lived 777 years. Then the chapter ends his life the way it ends almost every life in it: "and he died." The man who named his son "comfort" did not live to see the comfort arrive.
Long lives, many children, then the same ending each time. One writer reads the list as the record of what man cannot escape:
Chapter 5 gives a clear record of man's weakness, and how death rules over him. He might live for hundreds of years, and "beget sons and daughters," but at the last the record must say, "he died." "It is appointed for man to die once." Man cannot get over this. He cannot disarm death of its terrible sting — not by steam, not by electricity, not by anything else within reach of his genius. He may produce the comforts and luxuries of life. He still cannot set aside the sentence of death by his own energy.
Lamech named his son Noah, hoping for relief from the toil of a cursed ground. The same root turns up again later in the story:
Noah means "rest" or "comfort." His father Lamech gave him that name in faith that God would give the divine comfort through him. The hope was well founded. In Genesis 8:4 the ark rested, literally "Noahed," on the mountains of Ararat. In verse 21 of the same chapter, "the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma," literally "an aroma of rest," or Noah. In each case the root is the same. It shows how God answered the faith seen in the name. He gave rest in the middle of a scene of desolation, and declared that the sacrifice was the basis of it.
The relief Lamech hoped for did come, but only in part:
Only Christ coming in power will remove the curse; but Noah brought relief and comfort meanwhile for man in his toil.
Commentators differ on how to weigh what Lamech said. One reads it as real prophecy, standing beside Enoch's:
The prophetic Spirit is plain in what Lamech says. He recognised Noah as the witness of comfort for man's work and toiling hands. So Noah is the type of the One who will govern and bless the world to come, after it has passed through His judgment on those who defile or destroy the earth. Lamech acknowledges the righteous dealing of Jehovah no less than Enoch does in the prophecy Jude records. But Lamech saw it more dimly than Enoch. He was given to see in Noah the pledge of comfort for the earth, once the judgment of the living has done its work.
Another writer finds decline in Lamech himself, and a true word aimed at the wrong people:
Even in Noah's father, Lamech, we can detect decline, though he speaks piously of God. Is he not, even in his name, sadly linked with Cain's race? — another Lamech, a "strong man." It is striking, too, that like his namesake in Cain's line, he also has his memorable saying. There was truth in this. It was of Noah's day that we read, "And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in His heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man." So Lamech's prophecy was true about the "comfort" God had in store for man. It was false only in applying that comfort to a generation whose survivors the judgment cut off before the blessing came.
The ages are not filler. They measure God's patience, and the testimony passed on before the flood:
Genesis 5, in giving us this list, presents some very striking facts. It gives their ages. And the very great ages most of them reached let certain "holy prophets," named here, testify to many later generations about the wonderful works of God. Before the flood this testimony passed by word of mouth. Two things are certain: that Enoch foresaw coming judgment, and that his son's long life itself showed God's patience before that judgment by water fell. For Methuselah died just before the flood. The words "and he died" come again and again in this chapter. They stand in striking contrast to the words "And He shall live," written of David's Son and Lord in Psalm 72:15.
One writer lets the repetition stand, then names who breaks it:
The story of the ages only proves that man could not free himself. Death reigned from Adam to Moses, and after Moses too. But if man cannot, God can get the victory. For men, all down the ages, death was the victor: "and he died," "and he died," "and he died" is the record of one after another (Gen. 5).
- Sentence. Lamech's 777 years end where every life in this chapter ends: "and he died." No length of days sets aside that sentence.
- Hope. Under that sentence he named a son "rest." He reached past the cursed ground for comfort he could not produce himself.
- Patience. The long lives carried testimony down the generations. They measured God's patience before the flood.
- Limit. The comfort came, but only in part. Noah brought relief in man's toil; only Christ's coming in power removes the curse.
- Victory. Death holds the record in Genesis 5, but not the last word — where man could not win, God does.
And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Noah is the tenth name in Adam's family line. No one else in the chapter waits so long to become a father, and then three sons arrive at once. Why does Scripture pause the count of years here, and why is Shem named first when he was not the eldest?
The list running from Adam to this point keeps repeating one grim result, and one writer counts it out:
Genesis 5 is one of the most solemn chapters in Holy Scripture. It is a chapter of death. Eight times over, of one man and then another, we read that "he died." The ruin of everything here, as the fruit of sin, stands out sharply. Yet right in the middle of this grim list of dying men, we read of one who did not die: "He was not, for God took him."
The list ends at Noah, and this time the chapter records no death. Its last line gives three sons instead.
One writer compares the dates and works out when the sons were born:
Verse 32 tells us Noah was 500 years old, and then speaks of the birth of his three sons. This seems to show that his sons were born while he was building the ark. It seems likely that God told Noah to build the ark 120 years before the flood came (Genesis 6:3). That would be 20 years before he turned 500, since he was 600 when the flood came.
Commentators differ on how exact the figure is. One takes it as a round marker, not a precise birth date:
In verse 32, I take the date to be a loose one. It points to about the time when God began to act with the Flood in view. But if we take the age given in the family record of chapter 11:10, Shem was born three years after Noah was 500. I suppose Japheth was the eldest.
The order of the three names is not the order of their births, and Scripture itself supplies the evidence:
He seems to have lived to the great age of 500 years before fathering his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Shem is mentioned first, not because he was the oldest, but because his was the line in which faith was preserved. He seems to have been the second son, for Genesis 9:24 calls Ham the "younger son," and Genesis 10:21 calls Japheth "the elder."
The same habit of writing shows up again with Abram's family. Reading these lists as birth order is where people go wrong:
Terah, we read, lived seventy years and fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. In the same way we read that Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In both places the father's age comes before the names of any of his sons. And in neither case does the eldest come first; he comes last, as a study of other scriptures proves beyond fair doubt. In both cases the first place marks the special and spiritual honour God put on that son.
Shem and Japheth both carry meanings, and one of them marks out the line God would use:
Shem, meaning "name," becomes the family in which Jehovah, the Name, is to be revealed. Jehovah is the God of Shem. Soon we shall see a son of Shem, Abram, and his seed becoming the depository of Jehovah's revelation… Japheth means "expansion."
Everyone alive today traces back to one of these three sons:
A fresh start for the human race began after the flood that judged the guilty mass of mankind. From Noah and his three sons, kept safe from destruction, began the conditions that hold today. They will hold for their descendants until the Son of Man comes with the clouds of heaven… Instead of starting with a single line, we now have three heads with their wives — three great families to renew the history of man on earth, carrying the experience gained from the world before the flood.
- Death — The chapter says "he died" eight times. Verse 32 ends it with three births, and it records no death for Noah.
- Delay — Five hundred sits inside a countdown: 120 years of warning, an ark being built, a flood at six hundred.
- Order — Shem stands first by honour, not by birth. Japheth was the elder, and the same pattern returns with Abram, named ahead of his older brothers.
- Name — Shem means "name," and his line becomes the family through which God makes His name known, down to Abram.
- Nations — Three sons, three families, and from them the whole earth fills again. It is a fresh start whose conditions still hold until the Son of Man comes.