Mahalalel’s son Jared is the subject of Genesis 5:18-20: “When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.” In the Pseudepigraphal book of I Enoch, we read the myth of Mahalalel, interpreting the vision of his grandson Enoch regarding the coming of the flood to destroy all life on the earth. Another Pseudepigraphal book, The Book of Jubilees, tries to fill in information about those in the line of Seth. Parts of these two books were found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they were not understood as being part of the Holy Bible. One writer says, “As for whether the Book of Jubilees should be in the Bible, we must first recognize the fact that God is the One at work in the Scriptures, and if He wanted the Book of Jubilees as a part of Scripture, no man (or Satan) could have prevented it. Hundreds and hundreds of years of Christian (and Jewish) scholars have labored to ensure that the Holy Scriptures remain true and untainted. Part of the problem with the Book of Jubilees is that so little remains of original writings that there is no way to determine if the book as it now exists is the same book that was originally written. This is one huge reason that the Book of Jubilees fails the standards of the canon of Scripture.”[1]
Though it is not scripture, many of the earlier Christians regarded it worthy of reading, and some of the early Christian writers refer to the book of Jubilees. I mention it because it attempts to add information about the people mentioned in Genesis 5 who are in the godly genealogy of Seth. Most modern commentators treat the first 20 verses of Genesis Chapter 5 like Pink does. He says, “Until we reach the twenty-first verse of Genesis 5, there is little else in the chapter which calls for comment.”[2] They will say about my life: “not much calls for comment.” I like to push the borders a little to say something about them, like the writer of I Enoch and the Book of Jubilees.
The Book of Jubilees tells us about Mahalalel’s birth and his marriage. It says, “In the second week of the tenth jubilee Mahalalel took unto him to wife Dînâh, the daughter of Barâkî’êl, the daughter of his father’s brother, and she bare him a son in the third week in the sixth year, and he called his name Jared.” The name Jared means to go down or to descend. According to the Book of Jubilees, he was named thus because. “In his days, the angels of the Lord descended on the earth, those who are named the Watchers, that they should instruct the children of men, and that they should do judgment and uprightness on the earth.” Then we read about Jared’s wife. “Her name was Bâraka, the daughter of Râsûjâl, a daughter of his father’s brother, in the fourth week of this jubilee, and she bare him a son in the fifth week, in the fourth year of the jubilee, and he called his name Enoch.”[3]
[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/book-of-Jubilees.html
[2] Pink, Arthur Walkington. 2005. Gleanings in Genesis. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[3] Charles, Robert Henry, ed. 1913. Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.