Jared’s son Enoch is the subject of Genesis 5:21-24: “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years.  Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” We already read about how it was in this line from Seth that people began to call out “in the name of the Lord.” The pseudepigraphal Book of Jubilee has some interesting Lore about Enoch as well. “He was the first among men that are born on earth who learned writing and knowledge and wisdom and who wrote …a testimony, and he testified to the sons of men among the generations of the earth, and recounted the weeks of the jubilees, and made known to them the days of the years, and set in order the months and recounted the Sabbaths of the years…and what will be he saw in a vision of his sleep, as it will happen to the children of men throughout their generations until the day of judgment; he saw and understood everything, and wrote his testimony, and placed the testimony on earth for all the children of men and for their generations. And in the twelfth jubilee, in the seventh week thereof, he took to himself a wife, and her name was Ednî, the daughter of Dânêl, the daughter of his father’s brother, and in the sixth year in this week, she bare him a son, and he called his name Methuselah. And he was moreover with the angels of God these six jubilees of years, and they showed him everything which is on earth and in the heavens, the rule of the sun, and he wrote down everything.”[1]

We can’t be sure what the Book of Jubilee says about Enoch, but the biblical text tells us two things we can trust. Enoch did not die but was taken into heaven body and soul. Vos says, “Though some have sought to water down that statement and make it refer to something less than being caught away into heaven alive, Hebrews 11:5 is particular: “Enoch was translated that he should not see death.” The New Testament also fills in another aspect of Enoch’s life. He functioned as a prophet, condemning the ungodliness of his society and predicting that ultimately the Lord would return in judgment on the ungodly and their evil deeds (Jude 14–15).”[2]

As for “walking with” God, Enoch gives us the first of three different “walks” we see in the Bible. Enoch walked “with” God, as we see in this text. In Genesis 17:1, we’ll see that Abraham walked “before” God. In Deuteronomy, we see that all of Israel was commanded to walk “after” God. Maclaren suggests, “These three prepositions, with, before, after, attached to the general idea of life as a walk, give us a triple aspect—which yet is, of course, fundamentally, one—of the way in which life may be ennobled, dignified, calmed, hallowed, focused, and concentrated by the various relations into which we enter with Him.”[3]

[1] Charles, Robert Henry, ed. 1913. Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

[2] Vos, Howard F. 1982. Genesis. Everyman’s Bible Commentary. Chicago, IL: Moody Press.

[3] MacLaren, Alexander. 2009. Expositions of Holy Scripture: Genesis. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.