Genesis

We explore the literary artistry of the Bible, and here we are looking at the genealogy in Genesis chapter 5, learning a technique to help you understand all genealogies.

We have been looking at the genealogies in Genesis chapters 4 and 5, exploring some fascinating literary design there. Genealogies in the Bible are not just lists of names like our genealogies are today; they are rich, deep literary tools that the authors use. We have been examining the genealogies in chapters 4 and 5 because we have two contrasting families: the evil, serpentine Cainite line in Genesis chapter 4, and the godly line descended from Seth and Adam.

The Pattern and the Break

The technique to help you understand these goes something like this: the first step to understanding any genealogy is to understand the main pattern. Every genealogy will have some sort of pattern with the family, the children, and so on. The pattern in our genealogy looks like this:

A lived for X years and then fathered B.
A lived Y years after he had fathered B, fathering sons and daughters.
A’s whole life lasted X + Y years; then he died.

In this first step, once you understand that pattern, you can see what the author is emphasizing and de-emphasizing, and all the interesting things going on there.

Today I am more interested in the second part of understanding genealogies, and that is to look for the break in the pattern. Most, if not all, genealogies in the Bible will always break that pattern in some way. Normally the author will come in and give us just a sentence or a phrase, or maybe two sentences, telling us a little story or a character trait.

That break matters because genealogies are tools of characterization. They are not just telling us a random story about a character as if to say, “Here was an interesting fact about Bill.” No, they are characterizing the whole family. When we are told these little tidbits of information or little stories, that is telling us: let me let you in, let me clue you into the deep structure of this family. This is the essence of that family.

What are the breaks in pattern in our genealogy in Genesis chapter 5? There are two: here and here, with Enoch and Lamech.

Enoch Walking with God

Let us look at Enoch first. His break goes something like this: Enoch walked with God, and he was not, because God took him.

He walks with God, which is a metaphor for living a faithful, righteous life, and then God takes him. How does this unfold something deep about him and this family? There are two fascinating things that our author is doing.

The first thing is that he says Enoch walked with God. Our author has been sparse with this verb, using it only one time up to this point, and that was in the garden. The verb used there was not used of a human being; it was used of God. God was the one who walked previously. Here we have Enoch walking. That is, he is doing the same kind of activity that God is doing; he is being a good image of God. The result of that is that God takes him. In some way, does he surpass death and not die, or is it that he dies and that is how God takes him? We are not sure. All that we know is that because he walks this way, God takes him.

It is also interesting how this taking is described: it simply says, “he was not.” This is a subtle allusion back to Genesis 1. If you remember, in Genesis chapter 1 God is constantly saying, “Let there be light, and there was light”—let there be, and there was, this constant use of the verb to be. Here you have a similar word used, and it says not that he was, but that he was not. Enoch has lived this faithful life, walking year after year, and the conclusion is that God guides him toward a gentle conclusion, taking him up in the same way that he began everything, concluding in the same way that he started. It is a beautiful way of drawing his life full circle.

The Two Lamechs

That is the remarkable material going on with Enoch. But what about with Lamech?

In Genesis chapter 4, the two names that are repeated in Genesis chapter 4 and Genesis chapter 5 are our two characters here: Enoch and Lamech. It is especially important to pay attention to that when we get to Lamech, because in both Genesis chapter 4 in that evil line and here, both Lamechs are the only people who have any dialogue. It is as if the author is saying: really compare these two people, because you are going to learn something.

Let us compare them. There are lots of important comparisons with what is going on, but start at the beginning.

The first thing we are told about Lamech, the evil Lamech, is that he takes something: he takes two wives. In the Bible, there is a recurring pattern where someone sees that something is good, and they take it. Eve sees that the fruit is good, and she takes it. In the next chapter, Genesis chapter 6, the event that serves as the last straw before the flood is that the sons of God see that the daughters of men are good and take them—another allusion back to that first sin. So also in the narrative of David and Bathsheba: David will see that Bathsheba is good, and he will take her. Authors are continually, subtly alluding back to the first sin to show that this has the character of a primal sin. We have an allusion back to Lamech here, where this evil Lamech has that character of taking. What does he take? He takes two wives; he is our first polygamist, which was not the original intention.

This is in contrast to the righteous Lamech. The first thing we are told about him is that he lives, and he lives for a long time. The first Lamech, the evil Lamech, takes; the second Lamech just lives.

Second, the evil Lamech is not only a polygamist, but he is a murderer. This stands in contrast to the life of the good Lamech, where we are told that he works. This is what it says: out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one will bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. The good Lamech has been working; he has been doing the thing that God commanded.

Revenge Versus Rest

Notice also the focus of each dialogue. The evil Lamech says this:

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,
then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.

The evil Lamech’s focus is on revenge, demanding that his wives listen to him about all the vengeance he is going to get.

In contrast, the good Lamech is focused on rest. We have just seen that he is a worker, and he says that this son of his will give us rest. Notice that sequence: he has been working, and then he looks forward to the rest that his son will give. That is the same pattern we have seen from the beginning: God works for six days and then he rests, making his images to do the same thing. That is precisely what the righteous Lamech is doing.

The evil Lamech is looking to the past, looking at what was done to him, how this man struck him, and all the revenge he is going to get. The righteous Lamech is looking to the future and to what his son will bring him: rest.

You also get a fascinating numerological comparison. The wicked Lamech says that he will get seventy-sevenfold revenge. That is contrasted with another seven, but here it is 777, the years of the righteous Lamech’s life. Notice what our author is doing: he is asking, would you rather have this abundant revenge, or this enormous, long, beautiful life?

That connects to a final comparison our author is making: the evil Lamech has been focused on multiplying. He multiplies wives, multiplies revenge, and multiplies speech. Just notice the difference in length between the two speeches; the evil Lamech’s speech is much longer.

To comment on that, immediately after Lamech boasts about all this revenge in his long speech, our narrator narratively kills him off. I do not mean that he kills him off literally in some historical way; I mean narratively. He stops him from speaking, and he stops relating anything else about his family. We are not told anything about the rest of his sons, the rest of his family, his descendants, or how long he lived. The narrator cuts him off right there: you think you are going to talk forever and get all these amazing things, but not in this story.

That stands in contrast to the righteous Lamech, because after him his story issues into the story of Noah—this long, beautiful story of the redemption of this family and the recreation of the world. That is what comes out of his story. It is not preemptively cut off; it unfolds more and more.

These are the breaks in the genealogy. They are telling us: listen, this is the character of the serpentine family, and this is the character of the family that trusts in the Lord. These are the kinds of things that happen to them, and they are morally and aesthetically beautiful.

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