Genesis 5

KJV · Chapter 5/50

¹This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

²Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

³And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

⁴And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

⁵And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

⁶And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:

⁷And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:

⁸And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.

⁹And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:

¹⁰And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:

¹¹And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.

¹²And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel:

¹³And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:

¹⁴And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died.

¹⁵And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared:

¹⁶And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:

¹⁷And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.

¹⁸And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch:

¹⁹And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

²⁰And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.

²¹And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:

²²And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

²³And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

²⁴And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

²⁵And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech:

²⁶And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters:

²⁷And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

²⁸And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:

²⁹And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.

³⁰And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:

³¹And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.

³²And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

The genealogy from Adam to Noah is presented, listing the ages and sons of each patriarch, with special mention of Enoch, who 'walked with God' and was taken by him.

Explanation

Genealogical lists like this one may seem tedious, but they served a serious purpose: to show real historical continuity between creation and the events that followed, like a registry office record of the human family. The extremely long ages were common in ancient Near Eastern texts to describe a special primeval era. Amid the repetition of 'and he died,' the case of Enoch stands out as a brilliant exception: he is not said to have died, but that 'God took him' — a rare biblical example of someone taken to heaven without passing through death, a reward for a life of close communion with God. The practical message here is that, amid routine and mortality, a life lived close to God stands out and is remembered.

Fun facts

Enoch lived 365 years — a number that matches the days of the solar year, which scholars note as a possible link to ancient calendars of the region, although the text does not directly explain this coincidence.
Enoch is mentioned again in Hebrews 11:5 and Jude 14-15, in the New Testament, as an example of faith and as someone who prophesied the final judgment — showing how characters from Genesis reappear elsewhere in the Bible.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Genesis 5:1A new genealogical list begins here, tracing Adam’s descendants down to Noah at the end of the chapter. The text picks up the language of chapter 1, recalling that humanity was made ‘in the likeness of God,’ to connect this list back to creation.
Genesis 5:2It repeats that man and woman were created together and that the two, as a couple, received the collective name ‘Adam’ — the same name that also becomes the proper name of the first man in the list that follows.
Genesis 5:3This line repeats almost the same words used in chapter 1 to describe the creation of man in God’s image — except now it’s Adam fathering Seth in his own image. The text is showing that this mark of being made in someone’s image passes from father to son, generation after generation, even after everything that happened in the garden.
Genesis 5:4This closes out Adam’s entry in the list with the pattern that will repeat for each person: how many years he lived after having the son mentioned, and that he had other sons and daughters besides him.
Genesis 5:5This records Adam’s death at 930 years old — the first death told with an exact number in the Bible, fulfilling the warning that the human being, taken from dust, would one day return to it.
Genesis 5:6Seth’s entry in the list begins, the son who replaced Abel: at 105 he fathers Enos, carrying forward the line that continues down to Noah.
Genesis 5:7Following the list’s pattern: after fathering Enos, Seth lived another 807 years, having other sons and daughters over that time.
Genesis 5:8This closes out Seth’s entry, who lived 912 years in all before he died — one of the longest lives recorded in this genealogy.
Genesis 5:9Enos, Seth’s son, fathers Cainan at 90, continuing the line that runs down to Noah.
Genesis 5:10After fathering Cainan, Enos went on to live 815 more years, having more sons and daughters during that time.
Genesis 5:11This closes out Enos’s entry in the list, who lived 905 years in all.
Genesis 5:12Cainan fathers Mahalaleel at 70, continuing the same line that links Adam to Noah.
Genesis 5:13After fathering Mahalaleel, Cainan lived 840 more years, having other sons and daughters.
Genesis 5:14Cainan lives 910 years, close to the average for this line between Adam and Noah — well short of Methuselah’s 969 years, the record for longevity in the whole Bible.
Genesis 5:15Mahalaleel fathers Jared at 65, continuing the same line that links Adam all the way down to Noah.
Genesis 5:16After fathering Jared, Mahalaleel lived 830 more years, with other sons and daughters.
Genesis 5:17Mahalaleel lives 895 years, one of the shortest spans among the ten generations listed here — only Lamech, Noah’s father, would live less time than him.
Genesis 5:18Jared fathers Enoch at 162 — the father of the most unusual figure on this list, whose different fate is told in the verses that follow.
Genesis 5:19After fathering Enoch, Jared lived 800 more years, with other sons and daughters.
Genesis 5:20This closes out Jared’s entry, who lived 962 years in all, one of the longest lives on the list, even though it doesn’t beat the record set by his grandson Methuselah.
Genesis 5:21Enoch fathers Methuselah at 65 — the start of a life marked by a unique detail the text highlights in the very next verse.
Genesis 5:22After fathering Methuselah, the text changes the verb used for Enoch: instead of saying he merely ‘lived,’ it says he ‘walked with God’ — an expression of closeness that foreshadows the unusual ending told in 5:24.
Genesis 5:23In all, Enoch lived 365 years — far less than the others on this list, but a number that matches the days of a year, which some read as one more sign that his life was different from the rest.
Genesis 5:24Enoch is the only one on the list who does not receive the phrase ‘and he died’ at the end — instead, the text says he ‘walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.’ The narrative doesn’t detail how that happened, it only marks that his ending was different from every other name in this genealogy.
Genesis 5:25Methuselah fathers Lamech at 187, continuing the line that reaches down to Noah, his great-grandson.
Genesis 5:26After fathering Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 more years, having other sons and daughters over that very long stretch of time.
Genesis 5:27Methuselah, at 969 years old, holds the record on the list — the oldest person named in the whole Bible. The enormous ages in this chapter puzzle readers today, and scholars offer more than one explanation: some think the years were counted differently than ours, others that the numbers were symbolic, tied to a figure’s prestige rather than a literal count the way we do now.
Genesis 5:28Lamech fathers a son at 182 — his name is only revealed in the next verse, along with the reason for choosing it.
Genesis 5:29The name ‘Noah’ sounds, in Hebrew, close to the word for ‘to comfort’ — that’s why the text immediately explains the reason for the name, linking the newborn son to the hope of relief from the hard labor on the cursed ground. It’s another case of a biblical name chosen for both sound and meaning, not by chance.
Genesis 5:30After fathering Noah, Lamech lived 595 more years, having other sons and daughters.
Genesis 5:31This closes out Lamech’s entry, who lived 777 years in all, ending the list of generations before reaching Noah.
Genesis 5:32At 500 years old, Noah fathers three sons — Shem, Ham, and Japheth — whose names will come up again and again in the flood story starting in the next chapter.