And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot [a son] in his likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.
Genesis 5 opens a fresh record of the human race by recalling that God made man in His own likeness. Verse 3 then changes the wording — Adam passes on his own likeness, not God's — and what we inherit from our first father turns on that shift.
The verse uses two words: "likeness" and "image." One writer explains the difference.
When God made man (Genesis 1:26), He purposed it to be in His image, after His likeness. So He created him in His image, as Genesis 1:27 says twice. And we have already seen the difference: likeness resembles, image represents. This distinction is important to grasp, since it holds everywhere in Scripture. The "likeness" was the set of qualities matching God, such as no other nature on earth had. The image was man's place in presenting Him to others, a place not even the angels of heaven filled or could fill. But now that the head of the race was fallen, he "fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image." It was in his own likeness, not God's.
The likeness went; the image stayed. That is why taking a human life is still a crime, however far a person has fallen.
"Adam," Scripture says, "fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image." It was no longer in the likeness of God, but always in the image of God. For man, fallen or not, is in the image of God; sin destroyed the likeness... Suppose the crime depended on man keeping the likeness of God. Then someone could deny or justify murder: if a man were not like God, that unlikeness could excuse killing him. But murder is a crime against man made in the image of God. That image remains, fallen or not, so the guilt of murder stands beyond challenge.
Commentators differ on how complete the loss was. One writer sees something of the original left:
It may seem strange that Seth was not born until Adam was 130 years old. But however much time passed, Adam could only bear a child in his own likeness and image. In measure this was still in God's likeness and image, though it had been spoiled by sin.
Adam becomes a father only here, after the fall. That timing settles the condition of everyone who comes after him.
For our racial head we have to go back to Adam — and to Adam in his fallen condition. Only when fallen did he father sons and daughters. His fall came about by an act of sin, and that act produced a state of sin which spread through his very being. It changed his whole spiritual make-up so deeply that the change affected all his descendants. He could only father children "in his own likeness, after his image" (Genesis 5:3) — the likeness and image of a fallen man. Heredity of this sort is a terrible fact, and Scripture bears witness to it.
Adam himself had faith. One writer explains why he could not hand it down.
God made him a subject of grace, and he had and showed a living faith in a promised Saviour. But this was nothing natural; it was divine. And since it was not natural, nature had no power to pass it on. It was in no way hereditary. Adam could not leave or give his faith to Cain or Abel... Whatever was natural Adam could pass on; but nothing more. And since he, as a father, was in a condition of ruin, his son could only be in the same.
A nature reaches us by birth. The second nature reaches us the same way.
We get a nature from the first man by birth. In the same way we get a nature from the Second man by new birth. Once born, we share the nature of the first; once "born again," we share the nature of the Second. A newborn baby could never have done the act that brought Adam into a fallen condition, yet the baby shares his nature. In the same way a newborn child of God had nothing whatever to do with working out the perfect obedience of "the man Christ Jesus," yet shares His nature.
Eve's words at Seth's birth look ahead.
When Eve bore Seth she said, "God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him." These words were no doubt prophetic. Cain the natural man had killed Abel the man of faith. Now God had appointed another godly offspring, so that faith should not die out from the earth.
- Likeness resembles. These were the qualities in man that matched God. Sin destroyed them, so Adam could only father a son like himself.
- Image represents. Man's place of standing for God on earth never went. That is why murder is still a crime, even against a fallen man.
- Heredity is real. Adam had no children until after he fell, so a ruined father could produce only a race in his own ruined condition.
- Faith is not inherited. Adam believed, but he could pass on only what was natural. His faith came from God, and no one hands that down.
- Birth answers birth. Only new birth answers a nature we got by birth. And in Seth, God appointed the line by which faith survived.
And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years; and he begot sons and daughters.
Genesis 5:4 covers eight centuries of Adam's life in a single line, and it names no one. After Seth, the record says only that Adam had other sons and daughters. A whole world of families fits into four words. Why does God's account count so carefully and tell so little?
The chapter just before this one paints a striking picture of the world's rapid progress. Adam's remaining centuries get a single line.
Scripture does not tell us what children Adam had during this early time. It says only that "the days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters." How little this record says about the line of faith! Compare it with the striking picture the previous chapter gives of the world's rapid progress in everything nature counts worth living for.
Cain does not appear in this chapter at all. The same silence covers him when Israel later draws up its national records.
In the Book of Chronicles, where God is recording His people, the Spirit refuses to bring in Cain, that wicked one, or his descendants, or even to mention them... We may ask in passing: how could that man be a link in the records of a chosen people? He walked away from the presence of God and became a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Seth is the opposite. He is the substituted and appointed one, put in place of righteous Abel, whom Cain killed. With him the generations of men and their family lines begin again in Genesis 5.
Adam's other children may have been many, and some of them may have been remarkable. The record names none of them. It follows one thread only.
Divine purpose is the key... It explains why the general genealogy leaves out every detail beyond the direct line of the chosen people — and above all beyond the line 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 and however impressive by human standards, are simply merged into the "sons and daughters" they had.
These lives gave the world nothing to put in a history book. Yet God counts their years one by one — something the record never does for Cain's descendants.
Of the men of this generation the record notes only that they lived and died. Yet here, for the first time, we find every year of their quiet lives counted before God — something missing from the account of Cain's race. God shows interest in what holds no interest for man and adds nothing to the world's history.
Eight hundred more years after Seth's birth sounds impossible today. Commentators meet that objection head-on.
It is useless for men to dismiss the long lives of the men before the flood, and after it too, though the years grew shorter... To say this goes against the known laws of physiology is only the refuge of narrow, ignorant unbelief. If God wished, He could reduce man's life from 900 years to 90 simply by changing the conditions. This is a question of fact, and His word vouches for it. There is no need to argue for the plain statements of Scripture. Man before the fall never ate from the tree of life, and once he had fallen, God drove him out so that he would not.
Those long, overlapping lifetimes did real work. Before there was any written Bible, truth travelled by living memory.
The chapter gives each of their ages. It also shows that the very great ages most of them reached let certain "holy prophets," named here, tell many later generations about the wonderful works of God. Before the flood, testimony was passed on by word of mouth. Adam and Methuselah were alive at the same time for over 240 years. Two things are certain: Enoch foresaw coming judgments, and the long life of his son Methuselah was itself a display of God's patience before that judgment by water fell. Methuselah died just before the flood.
- Chosen — the record restarts with Seth, the appointed replacement for Abel. It drops Cain's whole line.
- Silent — eight hundred years of Adam's life get one sentence. The previous chapter tells Cain's line in full.
- Unnamed — Adam's other children, however many or however impressive, become one phrase: "sons and daughters." The record tracks one line only, the line to the Messiah.
- Counted — God numbers what the world would call empty years. His interest rests on lives that add nothing to human history.
- Witness — those long lifespans overlapped. Adam and Methuselah shared more than 240 years, and spoken testimony carried God's works long before anyone wrote them down.
And all the days of Adam that he lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.
Genesis 5 is a family record. Verse 5 gives the first entry its ending: Adam reached 930 years, and then he died. Why should a man made by God end that way at all — and is that the last word?
The words that close Adam's entry are not unique to him. One writer counts how often they return in this chapter, and marks the one place where they are missing.
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 man after another that "he died." So the ruin of everything here, as the fruit of sin, is set vividly before us. And 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."
Adam's death was not the natural end of a natural process. One writer argues that dying was never built into man at all.
Those who judge only from what we see now are far from the truth. Man was made at the start to live. Death was sin's wages; it was not then a necessity of his body. God had provided the means to prolong his life if he obeyed, but took that means away 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. And here we hear its bell toll for each man, even for those who kept clear of Cain's evil way.
God warned Adam that he would die on the day he ate, yet this verse counts out more than nine centuries. The answer offered turns on what the word "death" means.
God threatened Adam with death on the day of his disobedience. Adam disobeyed and lived on to the age of 930 years. Was it, then, an empty threat? Not at all. The day he sinned he died, in the first sense of the word. He became completely separated and estranged from his Maker, "dead in sins." His physical death was put off, because that day the Lord brought death on some other creature or creatures of the garden and clothed the guilty sinners with their skins. Centuries later, physical death arrived.
The same writer defines the word itself:
It is not the end of existence. If it were, no reconciliation would be possible. Death is separation. First, separation from God Himself, the source of all life and happiness. Second, the breaking up of man's whole makeup: spirit and soul parted from the body.
One writer sets man's long years and all his inventions beside the same closing words.
He might live for hundreds of years and have sons and daughters. But in the end it must be recorded that "he died." "Death reigned from Adam to Moses." "It is appointed for man to die once." Man cannot get past this. Steam, electricity, and anything else within reach of his genius cannot disarm death of its terrible sting. He may produce the comforts and luxuries of life, but his own energy cannot set aside the sentence of death.
Enoch is the exception in the list. But the writer is careful about what his case proves — and what it does not.
"He died" is the simple statement the inspired historian adds to the life of all but one named here… And the one exception to the common lot of man is no exception to the rule that no one can deliver himself from death. For we read, "he was not, for God took him." It was God's act, not Enoch's efforts, that kept his body from the grave.
The repeated words of this chapter stand against a very different word spoken of Another.
The words "and he died" are repeated so many times in this chapter. They stand in striking contrast to the words "And He shall live," written about David's Son and Lord in Psalm 72:15.
(Note: the ESV renders Psalm 72:15 "Long may he live"; the writer is quoting an older translation.)
Because of that contrast, one writer draws the line where the chapter's rule stops:
Therefore the iron rule "and he died" does not apply to Christians. Even Genesis 5 points to this in the one exception we find there: Enoch, who walked with God and was taken away without seeing death.
- Sentence. Sin cut Adam off from God the day he ate. His body's death 930 years later carried out that sentence; it was not a new one.
- Wages. Death is not a debt owed to nature but the wages of sin — man was made to live, and dying is the intruder.
- Refrain. Eight times the chapter tolls "he died," so no length of life and no human progress can be mistaken for an escape.
- Exception. Enoch alone is missing from the toll, and even he proves the rule: it was God who took him, not effort that saved him.
- Answer. Against a chapter of men who died stands the word about David's Son: "He shall live." With Him, the refrain is not the Christian's ending.