Gen 5: Adam's line to Noah - Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah

The genealogy recorded is inserted briefly in the pedigree of Jesus (Luke 3:36-38), and serves to show that Christ was the "seed of the woman" that was promised.

• v1-2: God created man, made in His own likeness, male and female, blessed them, and named them.
• v3: Adam was created in the image of God, but when he was fallen and corrupt, he bore a son in his own image: sinful, defiled, mortal and corrupt.
• v3-32: The generations of the chosen were recorded expressly, in contrast to the recording of Cain's generation.
• Each one of them ended with "and then he died" with the exception of Enoch, to show that death is passed upon all men.
• v21-24: The accounts run on for several generations without anything remarkable, except for Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, who "walked with God". This must not be in the literal sense, as in Exodus God makes it clear that in Old Testament times no one could see His face and live. It had to hence refer to Enoch's godliness and his constant communion with God. Enoch persevered and fought the good fight until the end, and was taken up to heaven with God fifty-seven years after Adam died, and sixty-nine years before Noah was born. This event also provided the basis for the hope of redemption (Ps 49:15 - But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself), and implies that humans are capable of inhabiting immortal realms.
• v25-27: Methuselah signifies he dies, a warning that death will come to all (despite Methuselah living 969 years).
• v28-32: Noah signifies rest. Lamech complained about the calamitous state of human life and placed hope upon Noah.