Who was Methuselah in the Bible?

Son of Enoch, and the seventh from Adam: he lived 969 years, longer than any other person, and died in the year of the flood. Gen. 5:21-27; 1 Chr. 1:3. He is called MATHUSALA in Luke 3:37.

Noah's grandfather was named Methuselah. Methuselah's father was Enoch, who preached the solemn sermon: "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment." (Jude 14, 15). The name Methuselah means, "When he is dead it shall be." Enoch gave his son this strange name, so that he might be a sign to all that the judgment was coming. As long as Methuselah lived the judgment would not come: but, when Methuselah died, then all the world should know that judgment was near. Methuselah lived to be the oldest man this world has ever known. Why? Because God was not willing that any should perish, and He waited, and waited, and waited, for men to repent. He waited for men and women and children to come into the ark to be saved. God had warned them that when Methuselah died the judgment must come: so in His loving patience, He waited till Methuselah was the oldest man who ever lived, to give opportunity for the people to be saved.

That little babe who seems to have been the means of causing his father to walk with God must have watched that loved parent day by day in his walk. He must have heard him utter those solemn prophecies of judgment to come, recorded for us thousands of years later by Jude; and his own name Methuselah means, "When he is dead it shall be sent". All this must have given him very different hopes and ambitions to those of his cousins, the children of Lamech.

"What's in a name?" has become a proverb in our day; but how much there was wrapped up in the name of Enoch's son, to those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. For three hundred years he watched his father's consistent walk, until "he was not, for God took him:" "took him" without seeing death, as we learn in Hebrews 11. But Methuselah lived on down here, and he knew that as long as he lived the judgment could not fall. His own son Lamech was born and lived 777 years (very different to the man in the last Book of the Bible whose number is 666) and he died, but Methuselah his father lived on for another five years. He watched his grandson Noah (meaning "Comfort") through 600 years of life, he heard the solemn announcement of the judgment, and saw the ark being prepared to the saving of the lives of the whole household of his grandson, before at last he, the oldest man who ever lived, passed from this scene and prepared the way for the judgment to come. The 969 years of Methuselah's life are a mighty voice crying aloud to those who have ears to hear, telling us of God's patience and longsuffering; that judgment is His strange work, but proclaiming with equal clearness and precision the certainty of judgment to come.

His son was Methuselah. "And Methuselah lived a hundred and eighty-seven years and begat Lamech; and Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred and eighty-two years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died" (vers. 25-27). In his instance it might have seemed that man was exceptionally to reach a millennium. But not so. This is reserved for the reign of the Last Adam; and He will make it good throughout His world-kingdom as the rule, and not the exception, for such as welcome Him when He appears to reign in righteousness. Mighty and beneficent the change in that day, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea! It is in vain to reason from the first Adam experience, the prolific source of unbelief.

Look, again, at the prophecy of God’s long-suffering involved in the meaning of Methuselah’s name. It meant “when he is dead it shall be sent,” i.e. the deluge. None have lived longer than he. Older than Adam with his 930 years, older than Jared with his 962 years, surviving his own son, Lamech, with his 777 years, Methuselah’s great age was a standing witness of God’s long-suffering compassion, of His unwillingness to judge. What a light is thrown upon His blessed nature when we read in another connection that He “endured with MUCH long-suffering the vessels of wrath” (Rom. 9:22).

Methuselah’s great age must have caused deepening wonder as year slowly succeeded year until his years almost spanned a millennium of time. Would men pay no heed? Alas! no. As then, so it is now.

The witness was himself affected by his testimony. His soul felt the weight of it. Accordingly he named his son Methuselah, which means "After he is dead it shall be sent." Are our souls influenced by the testimony that we bear in this day? We speak oftentimes of the impending doom of the world; and also of the spueing out of the professing Church, but are our lives really affected by what we say? Holy separation from every form of evil, and godly sobriety, would surely characterise us were it really so.

The long-suffering of God seemed to respond to Enoch's faith in the naming of his son. The judgement of the ungodly was indeed held back until Methuselah was gone, yet his life was lengthened out beyond that of any other man who has ever trod the earth. What a God is ours!

Gen. 5, in giving us a list of these, presents some very striking facts. For not only are their respective ages given, but the very great ages, to which most of them attained, enabled certain "holy prophets," whose names are here given, to testify to many succeeding generations the wondrous works of God. Before the flood there was delivered an oral testimony. Adam and Methuselah were contemporary for over 240 years. One interpretation of the name given to the latter by his father Enoch is, "At his death the breaking forth of waters." These two things are certain, viz., that Enoch foresaw coming judgments, and that the days of the long life of his son was in itself a manifestation of the longsuffering of God ere that judgment by water was outpoured. For Methuselah died just before the flood. The words, "and he died," repeated so many times in this chapter, furnish us with a striking contrast to the words, "And He shall live" written with reference to David's Son and Lord in Ps. 72:15.

Three things prove this: First. The naming of his son, Methuselah. His name (“He has sent his death”) implies Enoch’s intelligent apprehension that judgment must come, and end things as they existed around him. Methuselah’s name was, indeed, a prophecy, and implied that when he died the flood would come, which it did in the very year of his death.

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 that these ten names literally translated in order form the following most 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. Thus the very names of the antediluvian patriarchs would be a standing testimony to the world. Methuselah's name in particular was a warning message to the sinners of old. The prophet Enoch, whose own name marked him out as one able "to instruct," named his son in words prophetic of coming judgment that would "descend" after his death. The very year in which Methuselah died, the Flood came. One cannot help noting that after the name of the oldest man this world ever saw, God wrote "and he died."

At length there came an end to God’s long-suffering. Methuselah died. That year the flood came. The awful blow fell. God’s long-promised but sure judgment on the world was carried out.