John Gill Commentary Genesis 5

This is the book of the generations of Adam
An account of persons born of him, or who descended from him by generation in the line of Seth, down to Noah,consisting of ten generations; for a genealogy of all his descendants is not here given, not of those in theline of Cain, nor of the collateral branches in the line of Seth, only of those that descended one fromanother in a direct line to Noah:

in the day that God created man, in the likeness of God madehe
him ;
this is repeated from (Genesis 1:27) to put in mind that man is a creature of God; that God made him, andnot he himself; that the first man was not begotten or produced in like manner as his sons are, but wasimmediately created; that his creation was in time, when there were days, and it was not on the first ofthese, but on the sixth; and that he was made in the likeness of God, which chiefly lay in knowledge,righteousness, and holiness, and in dominion over the creatures.

Male and female he created them Adam and Eve, the one a male, the other a female; and but one male and one female, to show that one man and one woman only were to be joined together in marriage, and live as man and wife for the procreation of posterity; and these were not made together, but first the male, and then the female out of him, though both in one day.

and blessed them ; with a power of propagating their species, and multiplying it, and with all other blessings of nature and providence; with an habitation in the garden of Eden; with leave to eat of the fruit of all the trees in it, but one; with subjection of all the creatures to them, and with communion with God in their enjoyments:

and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created ; which, as Philo ^F19 observes, signifies "earth"; and according to Josephus ^F20 red earth, out of which Adam was made; and as soon as he was made, this name was imposed upon him by God, to put him in mind of his original, that he was of the earth, earthly; and the same name was given to Eve, because made out of him, and because other marriage with him, and union to him; on that account, as ever since, man and wife bear the same name: Therefore I should rather think the name was given them from their junction and union together in love; so the name may be derived from the Arabic word ^F21 signifying to "join": though some think they had it from their beauty, and the elegance of their form ^F23 , being the most fair and beautiful of the whole creation. The names of Adam and Eve in Sanchoniatho ^F24 , as translated into Greek by Philo Byblius, are Protogonos, the first born, and Aeon, which has some likeness to Eve: the name of the first man with the Chinese is Puoncuus ^F25 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F19: Leg. Allegor. l. 1. p. 57.
• F20: Antiqu. l. 1. c. 1. sect. 2.
• F21: "junxit, addiditque rem rei---amore junxit", Golius, col. 48.
• F23: (Mda) "pulcher fuit, nituit", Stockius, p. 13. Vid Ludolph. Hist. Ethiop. l. 1. c. 15.
• F24: Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 1. p. 34.
• F25: Martin. Hist. Sinic. l. 1. p. 3.

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years
The Septuagint version, though mistaken, gives the number two hundred and thirty years: and begat [a son] ;
not that he had no other children during this time than Cain and Abel; this is only observed to show how old he was when Seth was born, the son here meant; who was begotten in his own likeness, after his image ;

not in the likeness, and after the image of God, in which Adam was created; for having sinned, he lost that image, at least it was greatly defaced, and he came short of that glory of God, and could not convey it to his posterity; who are, and ever have been conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; are polluted and unclean, foolish and disobedient; averse to all that is good, and prone to all that is evil: the sinfulness of nature is conveyed by natural generation, but not holiness and grace; that is not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of God, and produced of his own will, by his mighty power impressing the image of his Son in regeneration on his people; which by beholding his glory they are more and more changed into by the Spirit of God.

The Jewish writers understand this in a good sense, of Seth being like to Adam in goodness, when Cain was not: so the Targum of Jonathan, ``and he begat Seth, who was like to his image and similitude; for before Eve had brought forth Cain, who was not like unto him---but afterwards she brought forth him who was like unto him, and called his name Seth.''

So they say ^F26 Cain was not of the seed, nor of the image of Adam, nor his works like Abel his brother; but Seth was of the seed and image of Adam, and his works were like the works of his brother Abel; according to that, "he begat (a son) in his own likeness". And they assert ^F1 , that Adam delivered all his wisdom to Seth his son, who was born after his image and likeness; and particularly Maimonides ^F2 observes, that all the sons of Adam before Seth were rather beasts than men, and had not the true human form, not the form and image of men; but Seth, after Adam had taught and instructed him, was in human perfection, as it is said of him, "and he begat in his likeness": but the text speaks not of the education of Seth, and of what he was through that, but of his birth, and what he was in consequence of it; and we are told by good authority, that "that which is born of the flesh is flesh", carnal and corrupt, and such are all the sons of Adam by natural generation; see (Job 14:4) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F26: Pirke Eliezer, c. 22.
• F1: Shalshalet Hakabala, apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 212.
• F2: More Nevochim, par. 1. c. 7.

And the days of Adam, after he has begotten Seth, were
eight hundred years
The Septuagint version is seven hundred; for having added one hundred years more than was the case, to the years of his life before the birth of Seth, here they are taken away to make the number of his years complete:and he begat sons and daughters ;

not only after the birth of Seth, but before, though we have no account of any, unless of Cain's wife; but their number was not certain, either before or after; some say he had thirty children, besides Cain, Abel, and Seth; and others say a hundred ^F3 . Josephus says the number of children, according to the old tradition, was thirty three sons and twenty three daughters. ^F4

(These families had at least five children, for one son is named as well as other sons and daughters. Therefore there must be at least three sons and two daughters in each family. For a family to have at least three sons and two daughters with near certainty, according to the laws of chance, it must on average have nine children. Hence the families listed in this chapter must have been large by today's standards. Given their long life, this is not at all unusual. However even today, the Old Order Mennonites of Waterloo County in Ontario and Lancaster County in Pennsylvannia, have many families this large. Ed.)

FOOTNOTES:

• F3: Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 74. 2.
• F4: Joseph. Antiqu. l. 1. c. 1. footnote on point 3.

And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and
thirty years

Not lunar years, as Varro ^F4, but solar years, which consisted of three hundred and sixty five days and odd hours, and such were in use among the Egyptians in the times of Moses; and of these must be the age of Adam, and of his posterity in this chapter, and of other patriarchs in this book; or otherwise, some must be said to beget children at an age unfit for it, particularly Enoch, who must beget a son in the sixth year of his age; and the lives of some of them must be very short, even shorter than ours, as Abraham and others; and the time between the creation and the deluge could not be two hundred years.

But this long life of the antediluvians, according to the Scripture account, is confirmed by the testimony of many Heathen writers, who affirm that the ancients lived a thousand years, as many of them did, pretty near, though not quite, they using a round number to express their longevity by; for the proof of this Josephus ^F5 appeals to the testimonies of Manetho the Egyptian, and Berosus the Chaldean, and Mochus and Hestiaeus; besides Jerom the Egyptian, and the Phoenician writers; also Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, Ephorus and Nicolaus.

And though the length of time they lived may in some measure be accounted for by natural things as means, such as their healthful constitution, simple diet, the goodness of the fruits of the earth, the temperate air and climate they lived in, their sobriety, temperance, labour and exercise; yet no doubt it was so ordered in Providence for the multiplication of mankind, for the cultivation of arts and sciences, and for the spread of true religion in the world, and the easier handing down to posterity such things as were useful, both for the good of the souls and bodies of men.

Maimonides ^F6 is of opinion, that only those individual persons mentioned in Scripture lived so long, not men in common; and which was owing to their diet and temperance, and exact manner of living, or to a miracle; but there is no reason to believe that they were the only temperate persons, or that any miracle should be wrought particularly on their account for prolonging their lives, and not others.

But though they lived so long, it is said of them all, as here of the first man, and he died, according to the sentence of the law in (2:17) and though he died not immediately upon his transgression of the law, yet he was from thence forward under the sentence of death, and liable to it; yea, death seized upon him, and was working in him, till it brought him to the dust of it; his life, though so long protracted, was a dying life, and at last he submitted to the stroke of death, as all his posterity ever since have, one or two excepted, and all must; for "it is appointed unto men once to die". (Hebrews 9:27) .

The Arabic ^F7 writers relate, that Adam when he was near death called to him Seth, Enos, Kainan, and Mahalaleel, and ordered them by his will, when he was dead, to embalm his body with myrrh, frankincense, and cassia, and lay it in the hidden cave, the cave of Machpelah, where the Jews ^F8 say he was buried, and where Abraham, Sarah were buried; and that if they should remove from the neighbourhood of paradise, and from the mountain where they dwelt, they should take his body with them, and bury it in the middle or the earth.

They are very particular as to the time of his death. They say ^F9 it was on a Friday, the fourteenth of Nisan, which answers to part of March and part of April, A. M. nine hundred and thirty, in the ninth hour of that day.

The Jews are divided about the funeral of him; some say Seth buried him; others, Enoch; and others, God himself ^F11: the primitive Christian fathers will have it that he was buried at Golgotha, on Mount Calvary, where Christ suffered.

FOOTNOTES:

• F4: Apud Lactant. Institut. l. 2. c. 13.
• F5: Antiqu. l. 1. c. 3. sect. 9.
• F6: More Nevochim, par. 2. p. 47.
• F7: Patricides, p. 5. Elmacinus, p. 6. apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 216, 217.
• F8: Pirke Eliezer, c. 20. Juchasin, fol. 5. 1.
• F9: Patricides & Elamacinus, apud Hottinger. ib.
• F11: Juchasin, ut supra. (fol. 5. 1.)