10s and 100s

Something important is happening with the ages listed in Genesis 5.

With Adam, the Hebrew language descdribes his age as 900, and 30 years.

But for everyone else in the list of ages, the 10s and 100s are reversed: Seth lived 12, and 900 years. Enosh lived 5 and 900.

The next time we see the person’s age listed with the 100s first, it’s with Abraham.

One rabbinical teaching is that when an age is written 100s and then 10s, it means the last years of their lives were good and productive. So we seem to be told that God has redeemed Adam.

That doesn’t mean the rest are not redeemed, but specifically that God has compassion on Adam, the first of the lineage to die from the curse (from dust, to dust).