Methuselah’s son Lamech is the subject of Genesis 5:28-31: “When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, ‘Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.’ Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.” In the lineage, you cannot help but notice with Guzik notices. He observes, “If these genealogies are consecutive, Seth died when Noah was 14. Noah could have known Adam’s son.”[1] If this is true, Noah could have very well heard the stories of the Garden of Eden, of Cain’s murder, of the lost paradise, and the birth of all the other members of the family from Seth himself.
In the line of Cain, the murderer, as recorded in Genesis Chapter four, we find a bigamist who confesses to double homicide and the furtherance of vengeance and hatred and violence upon the earth. They advanced civilization by building cities, domesticating animals, and using metal for instruments and weapons. The line of Cain went down in depravity until God looked down and saw that the whole world was corrupted, even the descendants of those who come from those in the line of Seth. But the two genealogies are different in one significant way. Butler puts it this way, “There are nine men in this obituary—Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech. They are all in the line of Seth, the godly line from Adam. This line is a vast improvement over the ungodly line of Cain. From this line came the Savior, Jesus Christ. From Cain’s line came nothing—all were destroyed in the flood of Noah’s day.”[2] Not every commentator sees the two lines this distinctive; one wicked and one righteous. Walton says, “I find it difficult to substantiate the idea that the text is juxtaposing a wicked line against a godly line. The penetration of sin is not just in one line but reaches throughout the human race.”[3] Of course, the children of all nine on the list will be destroyed in the flood because of their wickedness. McGee says, “Here is mankind, and we are following a godly line now. Where is it going to lead? Is it going to lead to a millennium here upon this earth? Are they going to come to Elysian fields and establish Utopia? No. The very next chapter tells us that a Flood, a judgment from God, came upon the earth.”[4]
Lamech named his son Noah. The text says that he was named thus because he would deliver us from the works and painful toils of our hands. Many of the early church fathers saw this as a prophecy not to be fulfilled by Noah himself but by the one who will fulfill the line of Noah that would come through Shem, through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and from the house of David that would end the genealogy once and for all with the complete fulfillment of God’s promise made back in Genesis 3:15. Origin preaches on this. He said, “For how shall it be true that the ancient Noah gave rest to that Lamech or that people who were then contained in the lands? How is there a cessation from the labors and sorrows in the times of Noah? Jesus only has given rest to humanity and has freed the earth from the curse with which the Lord God cursed it.”[5]
[1] Guzik, David. 2013. Genesis. David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible. Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik.
[2] Butler, John G. 2008. Analytical Bible Expositor: Genesis. Clinton, IA: LBC Publications.
[3] Walton, John H. 2001. Genesis. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[4] McGee, J. Vernon. 1991. Thru the Bible Commentary: The Law (Genesis 1-15). Electronic ed. Vol. 1. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[5] Louth, Andrew, and Marco Conti, eds. 2001. Genesis 1–11. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.