Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Lamech lived one hundred eighty-two years, then became the father of a son. 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.” Lamech lived after he became the father of Noah five hundred ninety-five years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. All the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy-seven years, then he died. Noah was five hundred years old, then Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.“
(Genesis 5:28-32)

Noah means ‘rest from the verb נוח (nuah) ‘to rest’. He is the tenth (10) generation. Noah is mentioned in the New Covenant eight (8) times. Among those appearances, he’s listed as an ancestor of Christ (Luke 3:36). He’s listed as one of those who are heroes in trusting in God (Hebrews 11:7). And Peter refers to Noah as a ‘preacher of righteousness’ (2 Peter 2:5). Noah was born 65 years after Enoch was translated and he was still alive when Abram was born 292 years after the Flood – meaning that Noah and his family lived through such early events as the Tower of Babel. Adam died 126 years before Noah was born.

Lamech is uniquely listed as having ‘become’ a father. A set apart verse with an odd choice of words when you compare it to all the other listings in this genealogy. The sage Da’at Zekenim writes about this: ‘ויולד בן, “he begot a son.” Note that the Torah did not write “he begot Noach,” as it had done when listing the nine generations previous to Noach. This is already a hint that the future of mankind would be descended from this son of Lemech after the deluge. Noach and his three sons and their wives were the only survivors of the deluge. An alternate interpretation. Metushelach, Noach’s grandfather, a G–d fearing person, advised his son Lemech not to name his firstborn son immediately after he was born, as all the other people of that time were idolaters and sorcerers, and if they had known why his father had called him Noach they would have tried to harm him had they known his name, by applying their sorcerers’ formulas.’

Lamech died five years before his father, Methuselah, and five years before the Flood. He died 118 years younger than any other human listed so far. Lamech, prophesied that Noah would bring comfort to humanity – and he did in the sense that Noah obeyed God which enabled the saving of the human race. About this the sage Rashi writes: ‘ויולד בן AND HE BEGOT A SON (בן “son”, connected with the root בנה ‘‘to build”) — from whom the world was built up (peopled)’.

Noah was 502 years old when Shem was born – Shem being 100 years old two years after the Flood when he fathered his own firstborn son. Noah’s age here is an approximate age simply showing that all three of his sons were born relatively close together, certainly nor centuries apart – which was a possibility, since Noah was 600 years old when the Flood happened. His sons were born about 1,550 years after the Fall (give or take a decade).

In the entire genealogy, the years of the people are clearly listed. Rashbam writes about why we see such carefully recorded numbers: ‘Their purpose in doing so was to tell us how many years had elapsed since the creation of Adam, the first human being until the time when the events recorded by the prophets occurred. When we add up the numbers provided by the Torah both here, and in the chapters after the deluge, we have a continuous historical record of the history of mankind, and more especially, that of the Jewish people. The prophets spell out specifically the number of years that had elapsed between the Exodus from Egypt and the building of the Temple by Solomon, the high point of Jewish history. Daniel augments the record by providing information about how many years elapsed between the destruction of the first Temple and that of the second Temple.’

Noah had his children pretty late in life compared to the other patriarchs. On this the sage Radak teaches: ‘Their purpose in doing so was to tell us how many years had elapsed since the creation of Adam, the first human being until the time when the events recorded by the prophets occurred. When we add up the numbers provided by the Torah both here, and in the chapters after the deluge, we have a continuous historical record of the history of mankind, and more especially, that of the Jewish people. The prophets spell out specifically the number of years that had elapsed between the Exodus from Egypt and the building of the Temple by Solomon, the high point of Jewish history. Daniel augments the record by providing information about how many years elapsed between the destruction of the first Temple and that of the second Temple. . . According to the view of Rabbi Eleazar, son of Rabbi Yossi Haglili, even Yaphet, Noach’s eldest, was not quite 100 years old when the deluge began and people under 100 years of age were not considered culpable for their deeds in those times.’

Noah had only sons, and only three. It is generally believed that Japheth was the eldest and yet he is listed last. One school of thought is that Seth was mentioned first since he was the father of the Semitic peoples (Ham of the Africans and Japheth of the Greeks). Others believe their names order is their birth order. There is no consensus. But the sage Steinsaltz wrote about them saying: ‘Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Yefet. The Sages debate whether this listing reflects the order of their births. The verse marks the conclusion of the book of the descendants of Adam, which contains the names of representatives of the ten generations from Adam to Noah, but it provides almost no information about them. This “book of the legacy of Adam” concludes in a generation that underwent a great transformation. For this reason, the Torah goes into detail with regard to Noah and notes that already at his birth he was made a locus for humanity’s hope, by a prophecy that through him the world would be rectified. A new world would indeed begin with him, albeit in an unexpected manner.’