This is the book of the generations of Adam. On the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
Genesis 5:1 (NASB)
Genesis 5 starts out mentioning “the book of the generations of Adam.”
It’s the first time we see this word “book.”
It means “book” or “writing,” but it also means “missive” or “instructions.” Like a decree… or a Promise.
What I’m going to share next is only conjecture.
This is the list: Cain, Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methushael, Lamech, Adah, Zillah, Jabel, Jubal, Tubal-Cain, Na’amah.
Each name is a Hebrew word that carries multiple meanings. If you translate each, you can end up with nonsense, but you can also end up with a message of hope.
If I follow the meaning as below, I get this message:
Our ACQUISITIONS and works TEACH us that we’ll WANDER and be STRUCK DOWN. But there’s hope: LIFE. If we SEEK GOD, there is STRENGTH, BEAUTY & PROTECTION, and a FLOW of MUSIC AND JOY.
CAIN’S OFFSPRING can find GRACE.
Again, this is conjecture. I have no idea if this is the intended message, or if I’m merely seeing hope everywhere in the text.
But shouldn’t we? Isn’t that the point? Shouldn’t we hear the echo of the God of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 ringing loudly and clearly throughout the text?
5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 10:32, 11:10, 11:27, 25:12, 25:19, etc, etc. SO MANY!
They appear linked to blessings. It shows the blessed ones receiving blessings: their offspring.
This is the book of the generations of Adam. On the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
Genesis 5:1 (NASB)These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
Genesis 6:9 (NASB)Now these are the records of the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and sons were born to them after the flood.
Genesis 10:1 (NASB)
But the FIRST time this word “generations” (tôlḏôṯ) is used, it’s in an odd place, used in an odd way. It doesn’t appear to describe a blessed people at all.
It’s here, in Genesis 2:
[a] This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.
Genesis 2:4 (NASB)
The footnote for [a] says: “Literally: These are the generations”
It’s a “genealogy of the heavens and the earth.”
In the same way the blessing of a generation show the blessed (the parent) and the blessings (the children), perhaps we humans are meant to be a blessing to the heavens and earth God created.