In Genesis 5:4, we’re introduced to the long life-spans of the ante-diluvian characters. It tells us, “The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters.” He was 130 years old when Seth was born, making Adam 930 years old at his death. Some that will follow in the genealogy will even live longer than Adam. Methuselah lived to be nearly 1000 years old. One of Carasik’s ancient Jewish commentators says, “It is unclear whether all the children lived these unusually long lives, or whether this applied only to the named ones, who did not pursue the bodily appetites that shorten one’s life. Maimonides certainly thought so.”[1] He was a 12th century “Jewish scholar, physician, and philosopher, the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages.”[2]
Who am I to argue with one of the most influential Jewish thinkers? Yet, there are other records of people who lived during this time who lived long lives. Matthews writes, “Although there is no satisfactory explanation of the long life spans before the flood, there are Sumerian lists of kings who purportedly reigned before the flood with reigns as long as 43,200 years. The Sumerians used the sexagesimal number system (a combination of base six and base ten), and when the numbers of the Sumerian king list are converted to decimal, they are very much in the range of the age spans of the preflood genealogies of Genesis. The Hebrews, like most other Semitic peoples, used a base-ten decimal system as far back as writing extends.”[3] Most modern conservative commentators attribute the long life to the climate conditions that existed before the flood. Afterward, the canopy that protected man from the aging rays of the sun was gone and the lifespan of man was reduced.
Exell argues that it isn’t the length of one’s life that is important but the content. He says, “We cannot measure a man’s life by the number of years he has passed in the burden and battle of the world. A long life may be lived in a very short space of time, and a number of years may be the chronicle of a brief life. Man’s truest life is spent in and measured by deeds, thoughts, sympathies, and heroic activities. A man may live a long life in one day. He has been instrumental in the salvation of one soul; then, in that day, he has lived a short eternity. A man who writes in a year a thoughtful book, which shall instruct and culture the minds of men, lives a century in that brief space of time. The schoolmaster who teaches a boy to think, the minister who helps men to be pure and sound, the gentle spirits who aid by visitation and prayer the sorrowful and the sick, are the world’s most extended lives; these are the world’s true Methuselahs.”[4]
[1] Carasik, Michael, ed. 2018. Genesis: Introduction and Commentary. Translated by Michael Carasik. The Commentators’ Bible. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.
[2] Lagassé, Paul, Columbia University. 2000. In The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. New York; Detroit: Columbia University Press; Sold and distributed by Gale Group.
[3] Matthews, Victor Harold, Mark W. Chavalas, and John H. Walton. 2000. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. Electronic ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[4] Exell, Joseph S., and Thomas H. Leale. 1892. Genesis. The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary. New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company.