Chapter 5

2025 - Look at this phrasing:

1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. [Gen 5:1 ESV]

3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. [Gen 5:3 ESV].

So as God man man in his own likeness, Adam "fathered" a son in his own likeness, in  his image.  God delegated the "making in our own likeness" to mankind.  We do this as God did.  Angels don't do this.  This is a key difference in men and angels.  I wonder...when Jesus said that angels don't marry perhaps he was speaking of marriage as the precursor to making others in one's own image.  Angels don't do that.  Men won't do that either when we get to heaven...that "reproductive" relationship will be gone.  But it does not mean that we won't have a special relationship in heaven with those we most loved on earth.

Seth born when Adam was 130.  So not really 9 generations of years, just the storyline moving around.  Adam lives a total of 930 years.

Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

Genesis 5:24 ESV

Noah is Enoch's great grandson, Methuselah's grandson, Lamech's son.  Is this the same Lamech that we saw in chapter four?  The first with two wives?  Or is this a different Lamech?  Methushael was the father of that Lamech, Methuselah was the father of this Lamech.  MSB says Methuselah died the year of the flood.  MSB doesn't comment on the two Lamech's.

After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 5:32 ESV

Were these his first children?  What a break with custom if so.

2024 - If you do the math, Lamech lived 595 years after his son Noah was born.  We know that Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth were grown and married when the rain started.  Noah was 500 years old when his sons were born. (Triplets?  Could that be right?).  We know that Noah spent 120 years building the ark.  So that would make Noah at least 620 years old when the rain started.  Lamech his father would have been dead for at least 95 years.  I think this is important in light of the whole "days of Noah" idea, where there were only evil people outside Noah's immediate family.  We get the idea that Lamech was a good man...and from this math, we see that he was long gone at the flood. We see this later though:

21 To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. [Gen 10:21 ESV].  Doesn't say by how much he was elder.

24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, [Gen 9:24 ESV].  This is about Ham, the youngest.  So the birth order was Shem, Japheth, Ham.  Even though 5:32 lists them as S, H and J, we see from this that S was oldest and H was youngest.  I am still not seeing anything that precludes their being triplets.  But then this one:

10 These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. [Gen 11:10 ESV].  Copying in some text from https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/my-three-sons/

"So, Noah was 600 when the floodwaters came on the earth, and two years later Shem was 100. Therefore, Shem had to be born to Noah when he was 502. We are not sure of Ham’s exact age in Scripture, but he had to be born after Shem. Thus, Genesis 5:32 (NIV) introduces us to Noah’s sons all together, and other passages give more detail about their birth order and age." 

BUT, Shem was the oldest!  And was born when Noah was 102!  So that tells us that the "500" in Gen 5:32 is just a nice round number.  No one prior to that had waited anything like 500 years to have children.  No one else is near a century mark when they have children (Seth is closest at 105).  Could be no one was exactly sure how old Noah was by the time he was this old!  Noah had no children until he was 502.  I am also bothered that the three sons are not listed in birth order in 5:32.  Remember what happened with Jacob and Esau.  This article (  http://www.e-prophetic.com/articles/did-noah-have-triplets/) is wrong, in that near the end it says Gen 10:21 makes Japheth Shem's older brother.  Here is that verse:

21 To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. [Gen 10:21 ESV].  Shem is the elder brother, the first born.  Shem, Japheth, Ham.  Shem born when Noah was 102.  No one born when he was 500.

Chapter 5 is almost entirely genealogy.