Seth to the Flood

After Abel is dead, Eve bears another son. She names him Seth, for God has appointed her another offspring instead of Abel. Genesis 4:25 To Seth also a son is born. Then people begin to call on the name of the LORD. Genesis 4:26 The murder is not the end of worship. It is the reason the next line has to be appointed.

Adam is 130 when Seth is born. That is year 130 on the count this timeline uses. Adam lives 800 years more, and dies at 930. Genesis 5:5 The chapter then does something that looks, at first, like a list you could skip. It is not a list you should skip. It is the favorite passage.

Ten names

Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah.

The refrain is death. And he died. And he died. The ages are long, and the sentence still lands. The full reading of the names, and the care about which letters are certain, is the page already written for them: Names of Genesis 5. What belongs in this stretch of the story is the sentence those names make when they are read in order.

Man appointed mortality and sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching that his death shall bring the despairing comfort.

The and, the but, and the that are English, so the line can be read aloud. The names are the text. Kenan is the debated one. The letters can be pressed toward lament, or toward possession. In a text without vowels, a bare name does not settle the sound. Set in this list, after mortality, the context reads sorrow. Even if the spoken word were the other one, the list would not become a different gospel. Methuselah is the strongest name in it. His years are the ones that touch the flood, and that arithmetic is below.

Enoch is the break in the refrain. He walks with God, and he is not, for God took him. Genesis 5:24 Everyone else in the chapter dies. He does not. The list is not a machine. It has one man who walks through the sentence.

The years, added

These are the ages of the father when the son in the line is born, in the Masoretic text.

Adam 130, Seth. Seth 105, Enosh, year 235. Enosh 90, Kenan, year 325. Kenan 70, Mahalalel, year 395. Mahalalel 65, Jared, year 460. Jared 162, Enoch, year 622. Enoch 65, Methuselah, year 687. Methuselah 187, Lamech, year 874. Lamech 182, Noah, year 1056. Noah is 600 when the flood comes. Year 1656.

Methuselah dies at 969. Born in year 687, he dies in year 1656. The same year as the flood. The favorite page puts it as 187 plus 182 plus 600, which is the length of his life, and it lands on that same year. The text does not say he died in the water. It says the years end there. A man whose name is pressed as "when he dies, it shall be sent" dies when it is sent. That reading is old, and it is not the only way to cut the letters. It fits the arithmetic the chapter actually gives.

Lamech names Noah and says, "May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the LORD has cursed." Genesis 5:29 The word he uses is related to rest. The next chapters will show what kind of rest a flood is, and what kind it is not. The curse on the ground is not lifted because a boy is born. A greater rest is still being promised in the name.

What else is happening

Genesis 6 is the world these names are living through. The sons of God take wives as they choose. The LORD sees that the wickedness of man is great, and that every intention is only evil continually. He is sorry He made man, and it grieves Him to His heart. Genesis 6:5 Genesis 6:6 Noah finds favor. He is a righteous man, blameless in his generation. He walks with God. Genesis 6:9

The timeline does not turn each of the ten men into his own card. They are one road from a murder to an ark. The ages are in the text. No spade has dated Methuselah, and this page will not pretend one has. A BC number for year 1656 is only what you get if you keep adding until you hit a later king. That sum is an estimate. The Hebrew year is the chapter.

The plan named in the garden is still the plan. Man, appointed to mortality and sorrow. A God who comes down. A death that brings comfort to the despairing. Moses writes this long before anyone uses the word Christian. God does not change halfway through the list.