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"And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty five years, and Enoch
walked with God: AND HE WAS NOT, FOR GOD TOOK HIM."
The entry of death, first made against the name of Adam, is repeated with constant
succession throughout this book of the generations of Adam, with the one exception of
Enoch. That Enoch did not die Heb. 11: 5 affirms:--
"By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found,
because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he
pleased God".
The words of the sub-title, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, are supplied by the Epistle
of Jude, from which we may gather the corrupting ungodliness of the days of Enoch, and
learn that just as the "last days" shall be "as it was in the days of Noah", so also shall they
be as the days of Enoch. The seventh from Adam is not allowed to see death. Here we
may observe a prophetic foreshadowing of the end. Just as the seventh day of Gen. 2:
foreshadows "the rest that remaineth to the people of God", so the seventh from Adam
foreshadows the triumph over the death of those who shall not sleep, but be changed at
the last trump; this last trump appears to be the sounding of the seventh trumpet of the
book of the Revelation.
In a world of ungodliness, fifty-seven years after the death of Adam, Enoch was
translated. The name Enoch means "teaching" or "initiation", and Enoch's two
prophecies show that he had an inner knowledge that guided him in the world of
wickedness in which he was placed.
His first prophecy is the naming of his son. When Enoch was sixty and five years old
a son was born, and he named him Methuselah, which by interpretation is, "At his death
it shall be". Of what does Enoch speak? He speaks of coming wrath, he warned of the
flood that was to destroy all flesh. See how exact is his prophecy; Noah was 600 years
old when the flood came (Gen. 7: 6). Lamech his father was 182 years old when Noah
was born, and Methuselah was 187 years old when Lamech was born. What is the total
number of years then from the birth of Methuselah to the flood:--
187
Age of Methuselah at birth of Lamech.
182
Age of Lamech at birth of Noah.
600
Age of Noah at time of the flood.
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969
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Gen. 5: 27 tells us that "all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died".
At his death it shall be, prophesied Enoch, and at his death, to the exact year, the awful
deluge came, so faithful is the word of God. Yet note, and note well, the age of
Methuselah is proverbial, even among unbelievers; yet how few recognize in this a
glorious exhibition of longsuffering; the man whose death was to be the signal for
judgment lived longer than any man before or since, it was as though God waited until