Passage

Genesis 5

Genesis 5 traces the ten generations from Adam to Noah through the line of Seth, giving for each patriarch a fathering age, a remaining lifespan, and a death notice. The chapter shifts the narrative focus from the Cain line of Genesis 4 (which culminates in Lamech's revenge poem) to the Seth line through which the promised seed of Genesis 3:15 will pass. Apologetically the chapter is contested on two fronts: the extreme longevities (Methuselah at 969, Adam at 930) and the messianic significance of the Seth-not-Cain line.

Book: Genesis · NASB95

Key verses

"When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created." (Genesis 5:1b-2, NASB95)

"Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." (Genesis 5:24, NASB95)

"Now he called his name Noah, saying, 'This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed.'" (Genesis 5:29, NASB95)

Immediate context (4 public-domain translations)

ASV (ASV)

"1. This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2. male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: 4. and the days of Adam after he begat Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters. 5. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. 6. And Seth lived a hundred and five years, and begat Enosh: 7. and Seth lived after he begat Enosh eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: 8. and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died. 9. And Enosh lived ninety years, and begat Kenan: 10. and Enosh lived after he begat Kenan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters: 11. and all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years: and he died. 12. And Kenan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalalel: 13. and Kenan lived after he begat Mahalalel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters: 14. and all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died. 15. And Mahalalel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared: 16. And Mahalalel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters: 17. and all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died. 18. And Jared lived a hundred sixty and two years, and begat Enoch: 19. and Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died. 21. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: 22. and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23. and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: 24. and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. 25. And Methuselah lived a hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: 26. and Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: 27. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. 28. And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: 29. and he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed. 30. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: 31. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. 32. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth." (Genesis 5:1-32, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"1. This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in God’s likeness. 2. He created them male and female, and blessed them. On the day they were created, he named them “Adam”. 3. Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4. The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 5. All the days that Adam lived were nine hundred thirty years, then he died. 6. Seth lived one hundred five years, then became the father of Enosh. 7. Seth lived after he became the father of Enosh eight hundred seven years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. 8. All of the days of Seth were nine hundred twelve years, then he died. 9. Enosh lived ninety years, and became the father of Kenan. 10. Enosh lived after he became the father of Kenan, eight hundred fifteen years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. 11. All of the days of Enosh were nine hundred five years, then he died. 12. Kenan lived seventy years, then became the father of Mahalalel. 13. Kenan lived after he became the father of Mahalalel eight hundred forty years, and became the father of other sons and daughters 14. and all of the days of Kenan were nine hundred ten years, then he died. 15. Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, then became the father of Jared. 16. Mahalalel lived after he became the father of Jared eight hundred thirty years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. 17. All of the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred ninety-five years, then he died. 18. Jared lived one hundred sixty-two years, then became the father of Enoch. 19. Jared lived after he became the father of Enoch eight hundred years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. 20. All of the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty-two years, then he died. 21. Enoch lived sixty-five years, then became the father of Methuselah. 22. After Methuselah’s birth, Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 23. All the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. 24. Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him. 25. Methuselah lived one hundred eighty-seven years, then became the father of Lamech. 26. Methuselah lived after he became the father of Lamech seven hundred eighty-two years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. 27. All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years, then he died. 28. Lamech lived one hundred eighty-two years, then became the father of a son. 29. He named him Noah, saying, “This one will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, caused by the ground which Yahweh has cursed.” 30. Lamech lived after he became the father of Noah five hundred ninety-five years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. 31. All the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy-seven years, then he died. 32. Noah was five hundred years old, then Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth." (Genesis 5:1-32, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"1. This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2. Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: 4. And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. 6. And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: ^{Enos: Heb. Enosh} 7. And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: 8. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died. 9. And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan: ^{Cainan: Heb. Kenan} 10. And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters: 11. And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died. 12. And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel: ^{Mahalaleel: Gr. Maleleel} 13. And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters: 14. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died. 15. And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared: ^{Jared: Heb. Jered} 16. And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters: 17. And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died. 18. And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch: 19. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died. 21. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: ^{Methuselah: Gr. Mathusala} 22. And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: 24. And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. 25. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: 26. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: ^{Lamech: Heb. Lemech} 27. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. 28. And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: 29. And 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. ^{Noah: Gr. Noe: that is Rest, or, Comfort} 30. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: 31. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. 32. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth." (Genesis 5:1-32, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"1. This [is] an account of the births of Adam: In the day of God's preparing man, in the likeness of God He hath made him; 2. a male and a female He hath prepared them, and He blesseth them, and calleth their name Man, in the day of their being prepared. 3. And Adam liveth an hundred and thirty years, and begetteth [a son] in his likeness, according to his image, and calleth his name Seth. 4. And the days of Adam after his begetting Seth are eight hundred years, and he begetteth sons and daughters. 5. And all the days of Adam which he lived are nine hundred and thirty years, and he dieth. 6. And Seth liveth an hundred and five years, and begetteth Enos. 7. And Seth liveth after his begetting Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 8. And all the days of Seth are nine hundred and twelve years, and he dieth. 9. And Enos liveth ninety years, and begetteth Cainan. 10. And Enos liveth after his begetting Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 11. And all the days of Enos are nine hundred and five years, and he dieth. 12. And Cainan liveth seventy years, and begetteth Mahalaleel. 13. And Cainan liveth after his begetting Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 14. And all the days of Cainan are nine hundred and ten years, and he dieth. 15. And Mahalaleel liveth five and sixty years, and begetteth Jared. 16. And Mahalaleel liveth after his begetting Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 17. And all the days of Mahalaleel are eight hundred and ninety and five years, and he dieth. 18. And Jared liveth an hundred and sixty and two years, and begetteth Enoch. 19. And Jared liveth after his begetting Enoch eight hundred years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 20. And all the days of Jared are nine hundred and sixty and two years, and he dieth. 21. And Enoch liveth five and sixty years, and begetteth Methuselah. 22. And Enoch walketh habitually with God after his begetting Methuselah three hundred years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 23. And all the days of Enoch are three hundred and sixty and five years. 24. And Enoch walketh habitually with God, and he is not, for God hath taken him. 25. And Methuselah liveth an hundred and eighty and seven years, and begetteth Lamech. 26. And Methuselah liveth after his begetting Lamech seven hundred and eighty and two years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 27. And all the days of Methuselah are nine hundred and sixty and nine years, and he dieth. 28. And Lamech liveth an hundred and eighty and two years, and begetteth a son, 29. and calleth his name Noah, saying, 'This [one] doth comfort us concerning our work, and concerning the labour of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed.' 30. And Lamech liveth after his begetting Noah five hundred and ninety and five years, and begetteth sons and daughters. 31. And all the days of Lamech are seven hundred and seventy and seven years, and he dieth. 32. And Noah is a son of five hundred years, and Noah begetteth Shem, Ham, and Japheth." (Genesis 5:1-32, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: the Genesis narrator (traditionally Moses, by Mosaic authorship)
Audience: Israel after the Exodus, learning its prehistory from Adam through the Flood to Abraham
Location: the chapter is set in the antediluvian world; whether and how this world maps to known archaeology is itself contested
Time period: narrative-internal date depending on chronology, Masoretic-text counting puts Adam's creation c. 4000 BC (Ussher) while Septuagint-text counting yields a much longer chronology (c. 5500 BC); Genesis composed traditionally during the 15th-13th centuries BC

Theological reading

The chapter functions as the genealogical bridge from the primeval narrative (Genesis 1-4) to the Flood narrative (Genesis 6-9). Its opening verses repeat the image-of-God language from Genesis 1:26-27 and apply it to Adam's son Seth ("Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image," v. 3), tying the image of God to actual generational transmission rather than to Adam alone. The closing verse introduces Noah at five hundred fathering Shem, Ham, and Japheth, setting up the Flood. The structure is deliberate: God's image, passed by procreation through a specific line, survives the corruption of the Cain line and arrives at the Flood remnant.

The Seth-not-Cain emphasis is messianic. Genesis 4 closes with the line of Cain culminating in Lamech the murderer-boaster (Genesis 4:23-24); Genesis 5 immediately resets to Seth, with Adam's restored hope embedded in Seth's name and the explicit statement that "men began to call upon the name of the LORD" in Seth's son Enosh's day (Genesis 4:26). The Seth line then carries the promised seed of Genesis 3:15 forward, through Noah, then Shem, then Abraham (Genesis 11:10-26), then David, then ultimately to Christ in Luke's genealogy (Luke 3.23-38 traces Christ back through Seth to Adam to God). The chapter is not a dry list; it is the messianic line tracking forward.

The Enoch translation (vv. 21-24) breaks the chapter's recurring "and he died" cadence with a striking exception. Eight times the formula "and he died" closes a generation; in the seventh slot, Enoch is described as having "walked with God" and "was not, for God took him." This is the only non-death exit in the chapter, and (with Elijah in 2 Kings 2) one of only two recorded translations to heaven without dying in the OT. The Methuselah connection is calendrically suggestive: Methuselah's death year, computed from the chapter, coincides exactly with the Flood year, leading many traditional commentators to read Methuselah's lifespan as a measure of antediluvian patience (the longest-living human in Scripture is precisely the patience-clock running before the judgment falls).

The longevity question is the chapter's most-debated apologetic surface. Three reading strategies have been proposed. (1) Plain reading: the lifespans are literal years and reflect either pre-Flood environmental conditions, pre-Flood genetic vitality, or both, a position defended by Henry Morris and Ken Ham in the YEC tradition. (2) Symbolic / numerological reading: the numbers encode sabbatical patterns, Sumerian-king-list parallels (some Mesopotamian king lists assign tens of thousands of years), or theological emphases rather than chronology, a position taken by some old-earth and concordist readers. (3) Honorific / dynastic reading: each named patriarch represents a dynastic line whose collective span is given as the "lifespan," not an individual's biological age. The apologetically conservative position takes the literal reading, treats parallel ANE longevity claims as corrupted memory of the same antediluvian phenomenon, and notes that subsequent biblical genealogies treat these figures as historical (1 Chronicles 1:1-4 lists them; Christ's Lukan genealogy includes them; Jude 14 calls Enoch "the seventh from Adam" with chronological precision).

The Adam-and-Eve historicity question is partially settled here. Whatever Genesis 1-2 is doing literarily, Genesis 5 opens with "this is the book of the generations of Adam," uses image-of-God language for both Adam and Seth, and proceeds to attach specific ages and explicit father-son linkage. The chapter's plain reading treats Adam as the first individual of a real lineage that culminates in a real Noah and proceeds (via Genesis 11) to a real Abraham. NT writers (Paul in Romans 5:12-21, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 and 45-49) treat this Adam as the historical first man whose disobedience grounds the universal need for Christ's representative obedience. Genesis 5 is therefore one of the structural texts the historical-Adam apologetic returns to whenever the question is pressed.

Key words

H0120 - adam, adam (Strong's H120), "man, Adam, humanity"; the name doubles as the proper noun and the species term throughout the chapter.
H4191 - mut, mut (Strong's H4191), "to die"; the chapter's drumbeat formula "and he died" interrupted only at Enoch.
chayah, chayah (Strong's H2421), "to live"; paired with mut as the chapter's life-death rhythm.
yalad, yalad (Strong's H3205), "to beget, to bear"; the verb that drives the generational succession.

Theological themes

Image of God by generation. The image is not limited to Adam but is passed through Seth and his descendants.
Messianic line preserved. The Seth line carries Genesis 3:15's promised seed forward through Noah, Shem, Abraham, David, to Christ.
Death as the wage of the Fall. Eight recurrences of "and he died" enforce Genesis 2:17 and 3:19 by repetition.
Enoch's exception. A righteous man's translation prefigures resurrection hope; "walked with God" becomes the OT idiom for covenant life.
Antediluvian longevity. Whether literal or stylized, the chapter portrays pre-Flood humanity as fundamentally different in vital duration.

Cross-references

Genesis 1.26-27, the image-of-God language Genesis 5:1-3 repeats and extends through Seth.
Genesis 3.15, the proto-evangelium whose promised seed the Seth line carries forward.
Genesis 4:25-26, Seth's birth and the beginning of calling on the name of the LORD; the immediate prequel.
Genesis 6-9, the Flood narrative the chapter's closing verses set up.
Genesis 11:10-26, the parallel Shem-to-Abraham genealogy that continues the Seth line.
Luke 3.23-38, Christ's genealogy traced back through Seth and Adam to God.
1 Chronicles 1:1-4, the chronicler's recapitulation of the Genesis 5 patriarchs.
Jude 14-15, "Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied"; NT confirmation of the chapter's chronology.
Hebrews 11.5, Enoch's faith-translation rehearsed in the NT faith-roll.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.