Episode 9: The Millennials, part 1
After Cain murdered Abel and left God behind, Genesis tells the story of two families. It’s a story of faith, civilization, technology, and men who lived to be nearly a thousand years old. This is the story of the Millennials.
Quotes from the Bible were were taken from the English Standard Version (see ESV copyright here) or the New King James Version. For the other sources, including commentaries, websites, or articles, you can find links and references in the show notes below in the order they appeared. If you have any questions, there’s a place to contact me at the bottom of the page.
Show notes:
For the details about Edmund Schulman, Tom Harlan, and when and where the Bristlecone pine tree was sampled, see here. For a further description of Bristlecone pine trees in general, see here. For more about the “Methuselah” tree, see here. Due to fears of vandalism, we don’t know exactly where the “Methuselah” tree is or what it looks like.
Figuring out a timeline of history from tree-rings is known as “dendrochronology,” and there are claims the dendrochronology of Bristlecones goes back nearly 8,000 years (see here. This timeline doesn’t match Biblical data which only goes back about 6,000 years. Researchers have made various suggestions to explain the discrepancy, the best being the chance that more than one ring forms in a year. For more, see the articles here and here.
To be clear, nothing says Methuselah was the oldest man in history, only that he is the oldest man mentioned in the Bible.
For details about Jeanne Calment the, until proven otherwise, longest lived person in history, see articles here (which had a helpful audio recording on how to pronounce Calment’s name) and here that explain the background and controversy as well as the Guinness World Record notes here.
For the 1215 signing of the Magna Carta, see here.
For some royal houses in English history, see here for the Plantagenets, here for the Tudors, and here for the Windsors, who changed to that name name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha during World War I.
As an example of a compressed genealogy, where “father” is used when “great-great-grandfather” would be more accurate, see Matthew 1:7-9 that skips some generations. The actual family tree from Joram to Azariah can be found in 2 Kings 8-15 and 2 Chronicles 22-26. In those lists, three other kings come between ones that are right next to each other in Matthew. (To be clear, “Uzziah,” listed in 2 Chronicles 26:1 and “Azariah,” listed in 2 Kings 15:1 are the same person). One theory suggests Matthew skipped over those names in the middle because of their wickedness or close family relationship to the evil family of Ahab and Jezebel in the north. For more, see Jones, F.N. (2015) Chronology of the Old Testament (pgs. 37-39). Master Books. For ideas about why the lineage of Jesus is listed differently in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, see France, R. T. (1985). Matthew: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 77–78). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
As mentioned in footnote 5 here, a reliable timeline of Adam’s family works whether you assume the story skips generations or not since the age of each father when the son is born is explicitly recorded. In short, even if Seth was a great-great-grandson, Adam was still only 130 years old, so the timeline doesn’t change.
The comment that the word used in Genesis 5 for “he begot” refers to “a direct physical offspring” (see Doukhan, J. B. (2016). Seventh-day Adventist International Bible Commentary (p. 126). Pacific Press Publishing Association).
Further support for the fact that there aren’t any skipped generations, at least between Adam and Enoch, comes from Jude 14 which mentions that Enoch was the seventh from Adam, just as Genesis describes. For more, see Jones, F.N. (2015) Chronology of the Old Testament (pgs. 33). Master Books.
This commentary doesn’t think you can use Genesis 5 to make a reliable timeline. Another one admits the best conclusion is that Genesis 5 is probably talking about literal years but thinks they are exaggerated. See also here for a reference to the idea that some argue “year” means 3 months (i.e. season) and a statement that the Hebrews never had such a measurement.
The likelihood of getting 30 ages to all end in the same five digits is small. The low probability is offset a little by the fact that the third age in each set is just the sum of the first two, but still, in my simulation, the chances came back at around one in 570,000 (over 20,000,000 runs of 10 patriarchs). It’s possible some of the numbers could be due to rounding since a lot of the ages ended in 0 or 5, but there are numbers that end in 2, 7, and 9. Suffice it to say, while the odds of randomly generating this set of numbers is low, nothing suggests this record is intended to be understood as anything other than real numbers, and, as such, without evidence to the contrary, that’s the best way to understand these numbers.
If the ages in Genesis 5 aren’t literal, there are theories about what they symbolize, but none of the theories point to anything significant. Either the symbolism is just an artifact of Moses’ history in Egypt and Abraham’s history in Mesopotamia, which suggests the Bible’s message is no more important than any other ancient document, or the symbolism is religiously valuable (otherwise why would Moses have used it?), but we have no idea what it that valuable thing is, which makes it useless. For some theories about what the numbers in Genesis 5 might mean, see here.
I went through thirteen commentaries and Bible dictionaries as well as statements from Josephus to see whether the authors thought the ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 were literal. Josephus and twelve of the thirteen other sources supported the idea that the ages were literal or intended to be taken literally. For Josephus’ words, see chapter 2, paragraph 3, here.
For a reference to the common belief that people live longer today than they once did, see here. In brief, the article says life expectancy has gone up, but life span hasn’t.
Genesis doesn’t say why people lived so long right after leaving the Garden of Eden but treats the subject as a matter-of-fact and moves on. For suggestions by scholars about why Adam’s early descendants lived so long, see here, here, and here, as well as Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 245–246). Review and Herald Publishing Association.
For a general reference to authors outside the Bible attesting to a memory of ancient people who had long lifespans, see here as well as a similar statement in Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 89). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. There are also references to a primordial golden age in Hesiod’s “Work and Days,” but it gives no lifespan references there. For a translation, see here.
For the Iranian Epic of Kings, see here. To find references to the kings who ruled a long time, search “years” in the various sections. Interestingly, these long periods of time are interspersed with much more normal spans, still, it supports the idea that people believed such long lives were possible.
The Sumerian King list is a document discovered by archeologists and first published in 1906 that contains a record of various kings and dynasties from ancient Sumer. The striking thing about the list is that it begins by listing 8 kings who ruled before a flood swept over, and each of these kings, according to the account, reigned for thousands of years. These two details make it tempting to find connections between the 10 patriarchs in Genesis 5 and the 8 kings in the Sumerian King list, but the evidence linking the two documents is mixed at best. First, there is the problem of the time span. The Sumerian king list claims each king reigned for thousands to tens-of-thousands of years while Genesis refers to life spans of around a thousand years at most. This discrepancy could be due, in part, to a mix-up between the base-10 system we use today and the base-60 system the Sumerians and later Babylonians used. That would explain, in part, why each of the king’s reigns is a multiple of 3600 (60 times 60) but dividing them all by that number reduces each span to just a few years and removes the long-timeline significance. Beyond chronology, there is also the problem of different versions of the Sumerian list. Some copies have eight names, but others have seven or 10. In short, we don’t know what’s going on with the Sumerian King list. Perhaps it refers to the same people mentioned in Genesis, perhaps it doesn’t. Maybe it refers to other people who also lived before the Flood that the Bible makes no mention of, but that’s just speculation. For now, the only link between the Bible and the Sumerian King list is that they are both old and mention people who may or may not have lived a long time before a flood, which may or may not be the same worldwide Flood Genesis describes. For the first important publication of the Sumerian King list, see pg. 1 here. For the text of the Sumerian King list, see here. For a list of kings, see Zondervan,. NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, eBook (Kindle Locations 7595-7608). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.). For one theory about how the Sumerian King list was derived from a mistaken reading of the record contained in Genesis, see the article here. For the ancient Babylonian and Sumerian use of base-60 and the invention of minutes and seconds, see here. For a list of other problems with the idea that the Sumerian King list and Genesis refer to the same history, see here. For a conclusion that we don’t really know what’s going on with the Sumerian King list, see Bauer, Susan Wise. The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome (Kindle Locations 508-510). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
For Josephus’ list of ancient authors who also had records of people living for a thousand years in the past, see chapter 3 section 9, here.
Some dates in this episode are guesses. For instance, we know Cain and Abel were born after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, but we don’t know how long after. They might’ve been born right away or not for a while. Similarly, from Genesis 5:3 we know Seth was born when Adam was 130, and from Genesis 4:25 we know this happened after Abel was murdered, because Seth was recognized as a replacement for Abel, but the gap between when Abel was killed and when Seth was born is unknown. Admitting this ambiguity, for the purposes of imagining the civilization that developed during Methuselah’s life, I assume Cain was born shortly after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden and both he and each of his children had the same lifespan as the average lifespan of Adam, Seth, and their descendants (discounting Enoch and Lamech who are mathematical outliers).
The names of Adam’s descendants may have specific meanings, but those meanings aren’t clear. Seth probably means, “a substitute” given by what Eve said in Genesis 4:25 when he was born and from Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers. The meaning of the names of Seth’s descendants, though, have a variety of options. Enosh (or Enos) might mean “man” according to this commentary, or “mortal, decaying man,” and “man, sickly” according to this one with the same idea presented here. Meanwhile, according to this commentary, Cainan (or Kenan), means “child,” “one begotten,” “a created thing,” “a creature,” “a young man,” “possessor,” or “spearsman.” Cainan might also mean “possession” or “smith” according to Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers. or even “worker in metal” as stated by Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 172). Review and Herald Publishing Association. Next, Mahalaleel (or Mahalalel) means, “praise of God” or “glory to God” (see here and Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 696). Review and Herald Publishing Association.), while Jared means “a going down, or “the going down, or descending, river” (see here). “Jared” is translated as “descent,” in Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers and “servant” in Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 552). Review and Herald Publishing Association. Even more options are suggested for Jared here. With the origin of human history so close to when these men lived, as with the names “Cain” and “Abel,” we don’t know if name or the meaning of the name came first, and even figuring out the meaning is pretty tricky. One interesting idea is that the names or details have a form of story embedded in them. In that version, Seth means “put in the place”, Enosh is associated with the calling of the Lord, Cainan (Kenan) may be a reference to Cain and hope in reforming past failures, Mahalalel means “praising God,” and Jared means something like “May God come down.” For this idea, see Doukhan, J. B. (2016). Seventh-day Adventist International Bible Commentary (p. 131). Pacific Press Publishing Association.
Scholars disagree about whether the names in the genealogy in Genesis 5 are names of oldest children or not. For the belief that these were oldest sons, see here and here. For commentaries suggesting that these weren’t necessarily the oldest, see here and here.
For details on the history of the birthright, see “Birthright” in Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 153). Review and Herald Publishing Association. and in Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.
In the Bible, the importance of being the oldest son in a family goes back to at least [Deuteronomy 21:15-17] which was written during the time of Moses (if you accept Moses wrote Deuteronomy), but there are lots of exceptions to the rule that the oldest son become the father’s main heir. In fact, of the main characters we know about, in Genesis the oldest son usually doesn’t get the birthright. At the beginning of the book, Seth is at least Adam’s third son (see Genesis 4:25). Shem is Noah’s second son (see notes on WiderBible Episode 10). Abram (Abraham) was either a second or third son (see end of note, below). Abraham’s heir, Isaac was Abraham’s first son with Sarah, his wife, but he also had Ishmael, an older son with his concubine (see Genesis 16:16 and Genesis 21:5). Jacob was Isaac’s second son, but bartered and stole the birthright from his older brother (see Genesis 25:24-26 and Genesis 27). Jacob’s oldest son was Reuben, but by Reuben’s poor choices the birthright went to Joseph, the first son by Jacob’s favorite wife (see Genesis 29:31-32, Genesis 49:3-4, Genesis 48:5, Genesis 30:22-24, and Genesis 29:30). Finally, at the end of Genesis, of Joseph’s two sons, the younger one gets a greater blessing than the older one (see Genesis 48:8-19). If you go on through the BIble, the examples of youngest children taking the lead are less frequent, but they include Moses, who wrote Genesis and was at best a second-oldest son (see Exodus 7:7), David, later king David, who was the youngest of several brothers (see 1 Samuel 16:6-13), and Solomon, who David crowned as king instead of Solomon’s older brother (see 2 Samuel 3:4 and 1 Kings 2:13-15). We don’t know for certain where the birthright tradition came from, but in the pages of the Bible, it seems clear that it wasn’t sacrosanct. There were plenty of exceptions to it. God could just as easily appoint a younger sibling as He could an older one. From above, you can derive the fact that Abram wasn’t an oldest child from Genesis 11:26, Genesis 11:32, Genesis 12:1-4, and Acts 7:4 as well as explanations in Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 288). Review and Herald Publishing Association. and Jones, F.N. (2015) Chronology of the Old Testament (p. 25). Master Books.
For the suggestion that the lineage given in Genesis 5 isn’t because of the status as eldest son, but because a son was more spiritual, see the reference on Genesis 5:18, here as well as statements here and chapter 2, paragraph 3, here I assume that this same reasoning applies to the generations besides Enoch as well.
There’s not much information in the genealogy descending from Adam. It’s possible the names in Genesis 5 are only there to bridge the gap between Adam and important people later on, but the idea that it is a list of people who were faithful or devoted to God is supported by a few bits of evidence. First, it is the traditional perspective found in a couple of commentaries where it says these people were the ones who were faithful or virtuous (see note on Genesis 5:6, here and note on Genesis 5:5, here as well as the writings of Josephus, a Jewish historian from around 2000 years ago who also mentions it (see ch. 2, sec. 3, here. Beyond this traditional viewpoint, there’s also context. Genesis 4 is about Cain’s wicked family and Genesis 5 is contrasting that with Seth’s family, suggesting the family was, as a whole, more faithful. Finally, while we don’t have concrete evidence for eight of the ten names, there is specific mention of God during the 3rd generation (Genesis 4:26) and Genesis says the men in the 7th and 10th generations “walked with God” (see Genesis 5:22 and Genesis 6:9), and, though the faith of a father doesn’t become the religion of a son, it is, perhaps, more likely. Given these pieces of evidence, I assume each of the named men in the lineage in Genesis 5 were God-fearing.
Genesis 5:3 mentions that Adam was made in the image of God, but Seth was made in the image of Adam. Both this and this commentary see it as an emphasis that Seth was born with a sinful nature unlike the original perfect nature Adam was created with.
For a timeline of the events a person turning 700 in 2020 would be able to recall, see The Hundred Years’ War, The Battle of Crecy, The Black Death, Gutenberg’s printing, and Columbus’ voyages. See also Protestant Reformation, the Spanish Armada, and the Napoleonic wars, see here, here, and here.
In researching population models for the Bible, the best article I found was this one that weighs a lot of variables to see how they affect population growth, but even that article admits there are too many unknown variables from the time when Methuselah was alive to get a useful value. Changing values lets you have a small, sparse population or an enormous one.
My comment that each family would need to have an average of 6.9 children (5 children minimum) to have a son as well as other sons (at least 2) and daughters (at least 2) is based upon a Monte Carlo simulation of 1 million families having children until they had at least 3 sons and 2 daughters. I recognize “other sons and daughters” might be an idiom for “other kids” and not a statement meant to be used for statistics, but I was curious nonetheless. For background, the idea came from a comment on Genesis 5:4 in this commentary that claims 9 children would be required to meet the 3 boys and 2 girls quota, but there was no basis given for that conclusion and my simulation suggests ~7 children would be more accurate. You can find the birthrates of the world over the last 80 years here and the birthrates in the American colonies in chapter 11 here.
For the number of sons and daughters people claim Adam and Eve had, see comment on Genesis 5:4 here as well as Josephus’ comments in chapter 2 paragraph 3 and footnote 8 here. I should point out that these numbers are guesses or, at best, based on unknown traditions.
As an example of how the generations grow, if you assume the gap between generations in Seth’s day was 117 years (the average of the numbers in Genesis 5, minus an outlier), and Seth and his wife had 7 kids (3.5 kids per person per generation), there would be 389 descendants when Methuselah was born. If he had 10 kids (5 kids per person per generation), there would be over 2,000 descendants. Taking those same numbers, but decreasing the generation gap to 65 years (the youngest age of any father listed in Genesis 5) and still over twice the modern average, with 7 kids per family there would be 46,000 descendant when Methuselah was born and over 970,000 if each family had 10 kids. With the Earth being new and fertile, it’s possible that there were very large families and closely spaced generations as it could, potentially, supply enough food for greater population densities than today, but the numbers get hard to fathom and you begin to wonder when the planet’s carrying capacity would come into play. For the average age of mothers around the world when their first child was born, see here.
At this point, five centuries after Cain left, many of Seth’s descendants may have already defected to Cain’s side, but assuming the didn’t, and estimating land use from the 2,000 square meters per person per year noted here, even if Methuselah lived at the outer fringe of that 389 person group, he still might be less than a mile away.
Genesis mentions Cain building a city in Genesis 4: 17 but says nothing about Seth and his descendants doing the same thing. This could be part of the contrast between the two branches of the family, and if that’s the case, the natural assumption is that Seth’s family followed a more rural, probably agrarian, lifestyle that practiced the farming and shepherding Cain and Abel were involved in from the early days of Adam’s life outside the Garden of Eden.
To figure how far Methuselah might’ve traveled to see Adam, the distance between the gate to the Garden of Eden and Enoch’s homestead, I assumed people radiated in a half-circle as they settled, always blocked by the border to the Garden of Eden, but this is, of course, wild speculation. Eden could’ve been circular, rectangular, square, trapezoidal, or of a more random border defined by natural valleys and rivers.
For the history of personal computers, see [here]. For fountain and ballpoint pens, see here. For typewriters, see here.
For the history of feather quills, see here. Feather quills are enough a part of tradition that the United State Supreme Court still places quill pens at the tables whenever the court sits in session (see here). For preparing a feather quill and using it, see here.
For oral tradition as the most used form of communication both in the past and today, see here.
For the study of Yugoslavian oral tradition, see comments here.
For details about the sacred Hindu writings, originally passed down orally, see here.
Though Genesis doesn’t say Adam’s memory was “perfect,” it is, perhaps, a reasonable conclusion given God’s statement in Genesis 1:31 that Adam and the rest of the world was “very good” at the end of the sixth day of creation.
For a chart of the overlapping generations between Adam and Methuselah and beyond, see the diagram on the WiderBible website here.
For “city” referring to any size settlement, see Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 82–83). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press as well as Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 4:17, note. Zondervan.
The name of Cain’s son, and the city he built, is “Enoch.” To be clear, this is not the same Enoch as Methuselah’s father. According to this commentary, in Proverbs 22:6, Enoch means “train” as in ”train up a child,” but it is also used in Deuteronomy 20:5 to refer to the dedication of a house, so the name of Cain’s son might mean “dedicated.”
Cain probably built his city as a distraction, for security, and maybe in an attempt to protect himself from God’s judgment according to speculation here, here, and here which also mentions that it wasn’t so much a city as a fort. See also Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 242). Review and Herald Publishing Association.
For forts in the Plymouth colony, see here. For the Jamestown colony, see here. For Roman forts, see here.
Mentioning how animals changed after Adam and Eve sinned opens up any number of discussions about evidences for Creation versus evidence for the Theory of Evolution. I stated my position in the first episode of WiderBible (see here), and don’t plan to make this podcast about that debate. If you are interested in the evidence for creation, while I can’t vouch for everything that is written, I’ve used both Creation.com and Answers in Genesis to study the evidence in my own research.
For details about the lizard experiment on the island in Croatia, see the article here as well as a discussion of it here.
For God’s statement that the animals were good, even “very good,” and that they were originally meant to eat plants, see Genesis 1:30-31. It was not till after the Flood that God gave man permission to eat of the flesh of animals (see Genesis 9:3).
For a description of different eye shapes in the animal kingdom, see this article.
The origin of the word “dinosaur” comes from here. The award for largest dinosaur is speculative, but this article suggests 131 feet long, 19 feet tall at the shoulder, and 70 tonnes of weight (which, from the source and spelling, I assume means metric tons). For the mass of an African elephant, see here. That source gives US tons, I think. To be accurate, I should’ve said that the largest dinosaurs might’ve weighed at least 10 times as much as an African elephant. There were also small dinosaurs. For the predators, saber-toothed tigers are found here, For the discovery large crocodile jaw bones, see here and for the length of the crocodile itself, see here. For the largest crocodile (at least in captivity), see here.]. To get a sense of this, look up If you need some scale, look up pictures of salt water crocodiles in Australia, but then take that image and make it one-and-a-half or two times larger. For the length of a school bus, see pg. 39, here.
For details about humans bred dogs for the traits they wanted, and some speculation about what wild dogs the domesticated ones descended from, see here. For details about Rottweilers, see here and here. For general information on dog senses, see here and here.
For the comment that there’s no reason to believe Cain or his descendants died any younger than Seth or his children, see comments on Genesis 5:3 here.
For the use, later in the Bible, of “calling upon the name of the Lord” as a reference to formal worship, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 244). Review and Herald Publishing Association. as well as Andrews Study Bible (2010) Genesis 4:25-26, note. Andrews University Press.
For the “call upon the name of the Lord” potentially meaning they were called by the name of the Lord, a title perhaps given as an insult by the non-followers of God see note on Genesis 4:26, here as well as comments on the same verse here. For the “call upon the name of the Lord” being a reference to followers of God first calling themselves, “Jehovah,” see here. If true, this has a parallel in how how the followers of Christ were first called “Christians” in Acts 11:26, their religion called by the name of their God. Another option, given here and here, suggests this phrase refers to praying to God or worhip of God in a public and respectful way. While both this source and Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.) suggest it was referencing a sort of revival. In any case, it’s interesting that later in the Bible, the exact same words referring to calling upon the name of the Lord are used in Joel 2:32 as the definition of those who would be saved (see lexicons for the two verses here and here.
For the use of “United States War of Independence” as an alternative title for the American Revolution, see here. For the background to the song “Yankee Doodle” and it’s use in the American Revolution, see the transcript of an interview here. Unlike the reference in the interview, but assuming his other facts are right, the British did not surrender at the Battle of Bunker hill, but it was a hard won victory which encouraged the Americans to keep fighting. For more, see here. For the use of the song by the rebels through to the end of the war, and it’s status as an unoffical national anthem, see here.
The ancient sources used for Bible translations sometimes vary on the ages of the patriarchs listed in Genesis 5. For instance, the Septuagint, an Egyptian translation, claims Methuselah was only 167 (instead of 187) when Lamech was born. It also says Lamech was 188 (instead of 182) when Noah was born. If Noah was 600 at the time of the Flood (as the Septuagint admits, and if Methuselah lived to be 969 (as the Septuagint also claims) then he outlived the Flood by 14 years. Considering only 8 people were on the Ark, and none of them was Methuselah, it seems the Septuagint dates aren’t the most reliable and the dates from the Hebrew manuscripts ought to be used instead. For more about the Septuagint, see here and for the dating issue, see Jones, F.N. (2015) Chronology of the Old Testament (pg. 11). Master Books.
For the case of Cain’s family, I assume Lamech was five generations away from Cain since only four other names are mentioned as coming between them, but with so little information, it’s entirely possible other generations were skipped. As with the names of Seth’s descendants, the meaning of the names of Cain’s descendants is open for debate. The name of Cain’s grandson, “Irad,” might mean “runner,” or “wild ass,” according to Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers, or alternatively “townsman,” or “ornament of a city,” according to Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 242). Review and Herald Publishing Association. “Mehujael” might mean “smitten of God” or “God gives life” (see Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 725). Review and Herald Publishing Association.). “Methusael” could mean “God’s hero” (see here) or “man of God” (according to Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 734). Review and Herald Publishing Association.) or “champion of El” by the translation in Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Unlike the earlier names, “Adah” and “Zillah,” the names of Lamech’s wives, appear to have clear meanings most translators agree about. “Adah” means “ornament” or “adornment” and refers to the decoration of a person. There’s a chance it also means “brightness” or “the dawn.” (For meanings of “Adah,” see here and here). “Zillah” means “shadow” and apparently implies “comfort” and “coolness” as mentioned here and here. The suggestion that the names refer to sensual attractions, as well as some other possible translations, see here.
For the suggestion that the meaning of “Adah” and “Zillah” suggest a focus on luxury and pleasure, see comments on Genesis 4:19 and Genesis 4:24 here.
For this as the first example of polygamy in the Bible, see Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.
One scholar suggested that Jesus’ advice to forgive in Matthew 18:22 with a reference to either seventy-seven times or seventy times seven (depending on the translation) is a reference back to this boast by Lamech, which, to me, would suggest Jesus is saying one ought to forgive even the Lamech’s of the world. For the idea, see Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 83–84). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
One commentary suggests the word Lamech used for “killed” refers to the use of a sharp weapon, but the lexicon for that terms means more like “slew,” “murdered,” or “slaughtered.” For more, see here.
For the lexicon reference to the word Lamech uses to describe the person he killed, see here as well as comment in verse 14, here.
For overreaction and murder as the point of Lamech’s boast, see Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 83–84). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
For the concept of a blood feud in Lamech’s words, see here.
There’s a lot of argument over what the “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.” means. One idea is that his crime was self-defense, so it was certainly not as bad as Cain’s act of cold-blooded murder, and therefore if someone were to kill him, the vengeance on that person should be greater than it was on Cain. Alternatively, it might be a boast that Lamech’s act of violence was more impressive than Cain’s, therefore the vengeance should be 11 times greater. Origen, an early Christian leader, apparently wrote two books on this passage and still couldn’t figure it out (see here). For various opinions, see here.
For the idea that Lamech was treating God’s tolerance of Cain as permission to kill, see here.
“Enoch” means “initiated” according to Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.
For the reference to the Greek version of the Old Testament that mentions that Enoch “pleased” God, see here.
We might now know specifically what it means to “walk with God” or whether it is solely metaphorical, but there is a rhetorical question later in the Bible that says, “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” (see Amos 3:3) so it’s reasonable to assume this statement is evidence of Enoch’s close companionship with God. After this time, the phrase came to be a common way of referring to a constant companionship (see here. For more, see the description Matthew Henry gives, here.
For a quote of Enoch in the New Testament, see Jude 1:14-15. This quote from Enoch is not to say that other quotes, sometimes attributed to Enoch, and found outside the Bible in various places, are also genuine or accurate.
Regarding Enoch going to heaven when he was 365 years old, you might hear it suggested that this is just a myth about some sort of solar deity, since Enoch’s age was the same as the number of days in a year, but this is projecting our current calendar back on a culture that thought about things differently. According to one scholar, the Hebrew calendar was 354 days, and the Chaldean (Babylonian) calendar was 360, neither of which gives you the modern 365 days in a year. That said, there is still, perhaps, room to see how the story of Enoch was known by people around the world, but twisted over time as, according to one source, the seventh king of the Babylonian dynasty from before the Flood received information from the sun-god and built a city dedicated to the sun-god. For more, see here.
The fact that Enoch didn’t die is evident from context, language, and an explicit comment in the New Testament. First, the reference that God took im is later used for the translation of Elijah to heaven in [2 Kings 2:3-10] according to this commentary. Second, the chapter of Genesis 5 is focused on people getting old and dying, with the sole exception of Enoch. Claiming “God took him” is a euphemism for death doesn’t fit since death is stated explicitly in the case of everyone else besides Noah, who ends the chapter. Finally, Hebrews 11:5 provides the most concrete evidence as it state that Enoch did not see death.
For the suggestion that there must’ve been witnesses to Enoch’s translation, see here.
For the reference of Enoch’s translation as proof of the accuracy of the things he taught, see Jude 1:14-15 and the comment on Genesis 5:24, here.