Enoch Walks with God

Genesis 5 unrolls “the book of the generations of Adam”: ten generations, from Adam to Noah. The text moves to the beat of a relentless refrain: so-and-so lived, fathered sons and daughters… “and he died.” Adam dies at nine hundred and thirty, Seth at nine hundred and twelve. But in the seventh generation, the refrain breaks. Enoch, the son of Jared, fathers Methuselah at sixty-five, then “walked with God three hundred years.” At three hundred and sixty-five years, “he was not; for God took him.” No “and he died” for him! The letter to the Hebrews adds that he was taken by faith, without seeing death, because he pleased God. Methuselah, for his part, will live to be nine hundred and sixty-nine. The list ends with Lamech, who names his son Noah: “This same shall comfort us.”