Methuselah

God must have been very pleased with Methuselah as He allowed him to live 969 years. All respected Bible scholars agree that the Old Testament considered a year to be made up of 360 days. The ancients throughout the world all kept time according to the 30-day cycle of the moon. So, methuselah actually lived 969 years making him the oldest man in recorded history. Scripture does not tell us if all the people of the earth originally lived this long, or if this blessing of longevity was reserved for only the patriarchs in the lineage of Christ. The Bible also tells us these ancient patriarchs did not start having children until they were one hundred to two hundred years of age (Genesis 5:3-32). Therefore, while they were long lived, they also experienced a long maturation period.

Methuselah’s father Enoch lived to the age of 365 and then. "he walked with God … and he was not as God took him" meaning he was raptured from the earth (Genesis 5:22-24). This would be the first of a series or recorded raptures that will peak with the great rapture of the Church before the 7 year tribulation period of the earth. Enoch’s father was Jarrad who lived to the age of 962 which makes him the second oldest of the patriarchs before the flood. God not only raptured Enoch but he also gave him the gift of prophecy. He named his son Methuselah which comes from two roots: muth, a root that means death; and from shalach, which means to bring or to send forth. Thus the name Methuselah means, his death shall bring or when he dies the deluge shall come.

His grandson Noah built the famous ark over an 80-year period. When it was completed, God caused certain animals to migrate and enter the ark. Noah was aware that the death of his grandfather would signal the start of the flood. When Methuselah died, Noah left the ramp of the ark down for 7 days in order to mourn the passing of this great man. During this time, He continued to preach to the people who came to see this enormous supposed folly built by what was thought to be a mentally unstable old man in a Middle Eastern and arid landscape. He continued to invite anyone who wanted to be saved from the coming flood to come aboard the ark. Sadly, not a single person took him up on his offer. Noah must have had siblings, aunts and uncles as well as cousins in the area. Still, no one believed that Noah was a messenger of God, that God would personally destroy the wicked and that a flood in the dry lands of the Middle East was remotely possible.

On the 7th day after the passing of Methuselah, the rain began to fall and God told Noah and his family to come inside (Genesis 7:10-11). The phrase, “.…come…into the ark” implies that God was already inside the ark and would remain there throughout the duration of the flood to ensure Noah, his family and the animals were safely floating above this great tribulation period (Genesis 7:1). God then personally closed and sealed the ramp as the rain continued to fall (Genesis 7:16). But more importantly than the falling rain, scripture tells us that the fountains or water tables of the deep broke up (Genesis 7:11). This means that the ground became super saturated with water to a point where it liquified causing the people, their houses, animals, trees and all vegetation to be swallowed up in the mud. This soil liquification process is commonly referred to as quick sand. We know today that if all the ground water under the earth was to be suddenly pushed to the surface, it would be 60 feet deep. It was a total of 365 days from the start of the flood until the day Noah once again stood on dry land (Genesis Chapter 8). All life affected by the flood was destroyed.

Genesis Chapter One verse 1 suggests to many respected scholars that the Bible’s creation story does not begin with the actual creation of the Earth as the Earth had already been created by God, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth”. The word created in the Hebrew implies created from nothing. Instead, verse 1 tells us the earth was created by God and then in verse 2, the story picks up with the regeneration of the earth from a previous catastrophic worldwide flood. This understanding is known as the Gap Theory in that there was an unknown amount of time that the earth lay dark and void before God decided it was time to bring back light and life. This theory was first suggested by an early church theorists Origen of Alexandria (184 A.D.-253 A.D.) and later by St. Jerome (347 A.D.- 420 A.D.) Over the past 2,000 years it has been accepted by countless Biblical scholars. Even the Scofield Reference Bible of 1917 discusses the possibilities of this idea. Scripture is silent as to why God may have allowed the earth to exist then become dark, chaotic, without form and void of life. Some scholars surmise that there was a pre-Adamic race of beings that were destroyed by God as a judgment for their sins.

Others believe that the original earth was destroyed when Satan rebelled against God and was cast down from Heaven to the earth. But because Satan is a spiritual being as are his angelic followers, their confinement in the earth’s atmosphere would have had no effect on a physical Earth. Satan was allowed by God to have certain powers on the Earth in order to test the virtue of mankind but never the power to destroy the Earth. In fact, the Bible repeatedly states that the Earth will never be destroyed. Thus life on the Earth was decimated but not annihilated by the apparent flood of Genesis Chapter 1 nor was it annihilated by the second flood of Noah.

The Gap Theory believes that when God lifted the original flood curse, He gave a command each day for 6 days. With each command, the power of the Holy Spirit caused the Earth to respond and brought about the change necessary to fulfill the command. The change may have occurred instantaneously or may have taken months or even years to complete. The point being, God gave the command and the Holy Spirit saw to it that the command was obeyed. Scripture plainly tells us that each day “God said let there be…” and not that God created the commands each day. The word create is used only one time in verse 1 to inform us that it was God who created all things. God does not need to recreate something once it has been created. All things created by God are good and perfect and cannot be annihilated. Therefore, while the life that was once on earth was under a curse and destroyed by God for some reason, it was likewise brought fully back to being by the Creator. God was once again bringing order out of chaos. He brought back light and life to a world that had become without form, dark and void of life. Scripture tells us that the earth will be regenerated a third and final time at the end of the millennial reign of Christ. This will be a purification process caused by the fire of the Holy Spirit and will be necessary in order to make the earth Holy and acceptable as the eternal dwelling place of the Triune Godhead (II Peter 3:1-10; Revelation 21:1-5).

Methuselah’s incredible age may be an indication of how long God originally would have allowed man to live. Adam lived to be 930 and his third son Seth lived to be 912. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, they may have lived to be at least 1,000 years of age. If at that time they needed rejuvenating, they apparently could simply have eaten from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden and have extended their existence indefinitely (Genesis 2:9). It also may have been that at some point, God would have rewarded them for their faith and obedience by giving them immortality. We know God will do this for believers in Christ at the resurrection. But because they sinned, we will never know God’s original plans for mankind. However, we now know His plans for mankind concerning eternal life through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. And this plan was composed out of love for humanity and agreed upon by the Triune Godhead before the foundations of the earth (John 17:24; Ephesians 1:3-5; I Peter 1:18-20; Revelation 13:8; Titus 1:1-2)

Methuselah was an incredible wealth of firsthand knowledge concerning the creation of the earth and the creation of men all the way to the birth of his grandson Noah and his three great grandsons. Methuselah personally knew Adam and Eve, their sons Cain, Abel and Seth as well as all their other descendants for 969 years. For example, he was born after Adam but personally knew him for 243 years. He was told by Adam the story of the creation of the world as it was personally told to him by God. He was also told of the Garden of Eden, how Adam and Eve were created, their fall into sin and the birth of Cain and Abel. Methuselah may not have been born when Cain killed Abel but he did know Cain and he was alive when Cain was killed by his great, great grandson.

Who Killed Cain

The death of Cain was the world’s first perfect crime. In fact, it was so well done that even today, most Biblical scholars read the passages concerning his death but never notice the clues given as to why and how he died and who killed him. In order to

Bible Mysteries RevealedLarkin Brown

The 7 patriarchs born before Methuselah all died of old age with the exception of Enoch who was raptured. Methuselah died by the mercy and grace of God one week before the flood came. The flood killed his son Lamech at the age of 777.This was not the same Lamech that fought and killed Cain. Noah along with his wife, his three sons Shem, Japheth and Ham and their wives were all saved from the flood by way of the ark. Shem who received the spiritual blessing from His father Noah would reestablish the world’s first monotheistic religion based on faith in the one true creator God. Japheth was the father of the European race who would excel in the arts and sciences. Ham was the father of the people of color who were intrepid explores founding great civilization throughout the earth. The three sons and their lineage were created by God to complement each other. Working together, they founded and grew all the modern civilizations of the world. The descendants of Ham would first establish a city. Then the descendants of Japheth would bring the knowledge of science and the arts to help make life easier and more pleasant. The descendants of Shem would establish the sacrificial worship of the creator God as passed down by the patriarchs.

Shem was 100 years old when the flood came. Shem lived to be 600 years old and outlived Abraham by 35 years. He knew Isaac and Jacob for 45 years. In fact, if he had lived another 40 years, he would have known Joseph! The first 2,160 years from the creation of Adam to the death of Shem were contained in the overlapping lives of Adam, Methuselah and Shem. Noah had six direct ancestors that personally knew Adam and his recollections of the beginning of what we call today modern man and civilization. Please see Age Chart of the Patriarchs.

Methuselah was allowed to live an extended life for three reasons. First, he was obviously loved by God and was rewarded for his faith in God by living a long full life. Second, he served as a human countdown clock as to when the flood would begin. Third, and perhaps most importantly, he was able to pass down to Noah and his children, firsthand knowledge of the creation of the earth, Adam and the fall of man.

The biblical timeline of the creation story as cited in the Book of Genesis, turns out to be the exact same timeline of modern evolutionary theory. They are both in compete agreement that first there was the creation of the planet Earth lit by the sun. Then there was the creation of the atmosphere followed by the creation of the oceans and dry land. Next there was the creation of plant life followed by life in the waters of the earth followed by the creation of animals and finally man. The only difference is, the Bible is clear that God commanded the creation of the Earth and life. While the evolutionist theorize that because all life consist of biological genetics or enzymes, these genetics must have continually responded or adapted to changes in their surroundings. Thus, over very long periods of time, they chemically mutate or evolve so as to survive in our dynamic planetary environment. This theory also goes by the name Evolution by Natural Selection or survival of the fittest. However, evolutionists continue to be genuinely perplexed as to how Genesis was able to list the correct evolution of life on the Earth in the exact right order. The odds of this happening by random chance are literally more than a million to one. No other world religion contains a scientifically correct timeline order of how the Earth and life began. The Bible is crystal clear that life on the Earth did not evolve, it was created by an intelligent Being (Genesis 1:24-25). And while quantum theorists now agree that the Universe must have been created from nothing just as the Bible states, it still flies in the face of science as you cannot get something from nothing.

The Bible tells us that the Word of God or Christ spoke creation into existence (John 1:1-4). In other words, the power of God’s command caused the creation of physical space, matter and life to exist from nothing. It may very well be that God spoke the command for creation and the power of the Holy Spirit caused the actualization of this command using a tremendous explosion of power that has been termed the Big Bang Theory. The Science of Cosmology believes that this initial creation of matter was the loudest, brightest and most powerful event in the history of the universe. In fact, while space is expanding at an ever increasing speed, it is none the less contained within a confined area, such that the echoes of this detonation can still be heard rumbling back and forth from one end of space to the other (James Dacey, “Listen to the sound of the Big Bang”, PhysicsWorld.com., April 9, 2013). Even Richard Hawking, a devoted atheist, theorized just before his death that the universe must have begun from nothing but could not explain how this was possible. He stated that one day we would learn how this was possible and, according the Bible, he was right again (Jeremiah 33:3; Isaiah 55: 8-9; James 1:5-6; 1 Corinthians 13:12).

When Noah left the ark, he and his sons faithfully pass down the creation stories as told to them by Methuselah, to their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Actually, Noah’s great, great, great grandchildren all heard these stories directly from Noah and his sons who had heard them directly from Methuselah who heard them directly from Adam. Just imagine, a 2,000-year time span of history that involves only two major eyewitness sources, Methuselah and Noah. These stories were carefully memorized to the last detail and orally passed down through the intervening generations. Then, according to Jewish tradition, they were finally written down by Moses around 1,500 B.C. while he was wandering in the wilderness 40 years with the children of Israel.

On a closing note, here is a modern day example of how a single families lineage can span centuries of time. John Tyler was born in 1790 only fourteen years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He became the 10th President of the United States. He fathered his last son in his late seventies, and that son also fathered two sons in his seventies. Those two sons, or John Tyler's grandsons are, as of 2022, still alive. Incredible!