Monday, April 12, 2021

Genesis 5 Devotional Bible Study by Steve Wilson

Genesis 5


This is the written account of Adam’s family line.

When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind”[a] when they were created.

 

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

 

When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father[b] of Enosh. After he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.

 

When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. 10 After he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived a total of 905 years, and then he died.

 

12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13 After he became the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived a total of 910 years, and then he died.

 

15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. 16 After he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years, and then he died.

 

18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. 19 After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.

 

21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

 

25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. 26 After he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Altogether, Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.

 

28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah[c] and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.

 

32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.

 

Footnotes

  1. Genesis 5:2 Hebrew adam
  2. Genesis 5:6 Father may mean ancestor; also in verses 7-26.
  3. Genesis 5:29 Noah sounds like the Hebrew for comfort.

 

In Your Likeness

Genesis 5:1-3

When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.

 

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.

 

In Genesis 5:1-3, we are reminded that God made Adam in His own likeness. Adam was created to be like God. We are then told that Adam's son, rather than being in God's likeness, was born into Adam's likeness.

 


What does that contrast mean to you, that Seth was born in Adam's likeness rather than God's?

 

Part of Adam and Eve having been made in God's likeness means that at the moment of their creation, their souls were pure. Their natural desire was to serve God obediently and joyfully.

 

As we know, however, that does not mean they could not be tempted to break their natural state of purity, and sin did eventually become part of their experience.

 

Seth, being in Adam's likeness rather than God's shows the very real effect that Adam and Eve's sin had on their own souls and on the spiritual state of their children.

 

Are your actions and your spiritual disciplines worthy of emulation? Would God be pleased with your children if they grew up treating and reacting to others the same way you do?

 

 

Walking with God

Genesis 5:21-24

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

 

In verses 21-24, we are briefly told about a man named Enoch. Enoch walked with God and then, was no more because God took him. Hebrews 11:5 explains that Enoch did not experience death but was taken to Heaven without dying.

 

What do you think it means to walk with God?

 

I imagine two people taking a long journey together, talking on the road as they walk. The longer the journey, the more topics they find to talk about, and their conversations, and their relationship, become deeper.

 


Jude 1:14-15 shows that Enoch was a prophet and that he hated sin.

 

What about you? Do you walk with God in your daily life? How can you walk with Him more closely? Do you hate sin with a passion just as God does? Are you warning others to flee from sin?

 

If you walk with God, you may not be able to skip death like Enoch did, but like Enoch, God will bring you to Himself when your time comes. And the reward of walking with God isn't just Heaven. The reward of walking with God in this life is getting to walk with God in this life! It's having Him as your constant companion on your journey through life. It's having His comfort, His strength, His wisdom, and His love continually with you.

 

 

“He Will Comfort Us”

Genesis 5:28-29

When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”

 

In verses 28-29, Lamech says that his son, Noah, will comfort him from the hard work of raising crops out of a God-cursed ground. Remember that one of the punishments for Adam's sin was that it would be more difficult to work the land.

 

Lamech was feeling the weight of that global punishment. What I find interesting is that he didn't stop working the land. It was difficult, but he didn't give up. He kept going.

 

What do you find difficult in your life? Your work situation? Finances? Your health? A relationship? A loss?

 

There are many things we can improve in life, but some things we can't. Some things we simply have to endure. We have to keep going through the difficulty.

 


But note that Lamech did not let his difficulty overshadow the rest of his life. He didn't give his problem more attention than it was worth. He was still able to find hope and comfort in something else.

 

We know that God will never leave us to live a completely bleak existence. He allows difficulty in our lives, but He also always provides us comfort, often in a different area of life.

 

Let’s follow Lamech's example and endure our difficulties but not letting them define us. Put your difficulty in perspective by finding comfort in the other areas of your life in which God has blessed you.

 

 

Begat, Begat, Begat

 


Why are genealogies in the Bible? Are we that interested in Jewish history that we need to know about strings of (relatively) unimportant people? I mean, looking  through Genesis 5, I think I can safely say that most of these fathers and sons don't matter to us today.

 

Except for the fact that they precede the legendary events that Noah and his children were a part of, as told in the next chapters.

 

It would be easy to write off the account of "Noah's Flood" as an exaggeration or mere metaphor if it were not for the historicity of Genesis 5. We know who Noah's father was, and his father, and his father... We know how old these men were when these certain children were born and what age they died.

 

The Bible would not painstakingly tell us these details if it intended to simply tell us a made-up story in the next few chapters. If it intended to tell us mere legends, it might skip the genealogy altogether and simply say something to the effect of, "A long time ago, in a land far, far away, there lived a man named Noah..." No context, no details.

 

But the Bible doesn't do that. Instead, it gives us the history of Genesis 5 to help us understand that Genesis 6 is also history.

 

And the God who caused each of those names in Genesis 5 to be remembered, the God who punished sin and saved Noah in Genesis 6, is the same God who continues to act in the real events of our world, and in the circumstances of your own life.

 

God is real, and He acts in real ways. Genesis 5 (in tedious detail) tells me so.

 

 

Noteworthy

As you skim the list of names in Genesis 5, how many would you say are noteworthy? Who in that list really stands out as being important?

 

Adam, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah?

 

What about Kenan? Or Mahalalel?

 

Out of the 13 names in that list, only half are considered to belong to important people. The other half are simply names linking the important people to one another. They're not important for anything they did.

 

Don't feel bad for them though. We're not very important people either. Oh, we might be important to the people in our families, but in the grand scheme of things, we're probably just links in the chain of one important person to another. We won't be remembered for any great deeds of our own.

 


The interesting thing is that even the unimportant people in Genesis 5 are still in Genesis 5! They're still part of the list. Even though they never accomplished any noteworthy feats, God still considers them noteworthy. God still remembers them.

 

The good news is that God will remember you and me too. We don't have to be important people to be important to God. We're still on His list, and that's all that matters.

 

 

Do you have another insight into Genesis 5? Please share below!

 

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