Genesis 10: Another Genealogy?

“These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.” Genesis 10:32

Genealogies! Why is it that the Bible has so many genealogies? As modern western people they drive us crazy. Nothing could be more boring than a genealogy. It’s like reading through names of a phonebook. Or is it? We’ve already looked at Genesis 5 and the genealogy of Seth, and we saw some very significant truths embedded within the passage. Will Genesis 10 be a repeat of the same? No. Genesis 10 is a different kind of genealogy, and it has some similar but substantively different lessons to teach us. 

Genesis 5 was a very formulaic genealogy. It repeated the same pattern over and over again, and there were three significant breaks from the pattern that we looked at. Genesis  was also a linear genealogy in which it passed from one generation to the next following one family line from father to son. Genesis 10 is different. This chapter is not linear in progression. It first traces the line of Japheth; however, instead of just listing one son, it lists all of them and traces each of their lineages. Then, comes the lineage of Ham—again tracing through each of his sons. The chapter ends with a genealogy of Shem. There are two significant facts about this genealogy which help us to grasp its meaning. First, at the end of each section of the genealogy it mentions that they were listed by their land, language, clan, and nation. Also, the chapter ends by giving the main point. Each of the sons represented in this genealogy was the father of a nation as humanity spread out from Noah’s sons. In fact, many of the names represented are actual names of nations. For example, Egypt is listed as one of the sons of Ham. While some translations just transliterate the name as Mitzraim, this is the word used for Egypt throughout the rest of the Bible. Cush is another nation and we know it as Ethiopia. Canaan, of course is a nation that had many interactions with Israel. Not only are character names equivalent with the names of nations, but the text also explains that these men were fathers of specific nations that we read about throughout the Bible. We know that Israel had many dealings with peoples like the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites. We see that Nimrod built cities like Babylon, and Niniveh. Elam and Ashur are also listed as sons of Shem. From these names we get the Elamites and the Assyrians. Probably one of the most significant, but maybe not the most recognizable is the name of Eber. The name Eber is formed with the same letters as the word Hebrew, and that is the line which Abraham came from. It is likely that the Hebrews derive their name from this ancestor.

There are other names that could be linked to peoples known from within the Bible, but my aim isn't to meticulously point each of them out. Rather, I think we should see that the point the author is making is that "all the families of the earth" come from Noah and his sons. We are connected in a biological solidarity. This becomes even more significant just 2 chapters later. In Genesis 12:3, God promises Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." The families that are listed in Genesis 10 are the families that will be blessed in the seed of Abraham.

How Am I Going to Preach a Genealogy? Part 2

In the last blog post on this I treated how to interpret the text. What is the theological message that we should get from this genealogy in Genesis 5? In this post, I'm going to try to answer the question, "so what?"

Let's review the theological concepts of Genesis 5:

1. Humanity after Adam is still created in the image of God. Seth was created after the image and likeness of Adam who was created in the image of God.
2. Humanity has been broken and experiences death and the painful toil of labor. Every person listed in the genealogy except for Enoch experienced death, and Lamech acknowledges the desire for relief from the pain.
3. There is hope for eternal life and communion with God. Enoch was the grand exception to the pattern of death because he walked with God.
4. There is a Messiah who would reverse the curse, crush the Serpent, and bring relief to our pain. Lamech expected Noah to give rest to humanity from the curse upon the ground.

 Now how does that affect us today? I'll name two ways that affect us at Woburn Baptist Church this week. First, Dorothy, our piano player is in the hospital right now after having knee surgery. Second, another member, Jerry, lost his house to a fire this week. The concepts we see in this text connect to our current experience in this way. Why do human bodies wear out and experience pain? Because of the curse. We can do many things to try to relieve our pain. We can go to doctors. We can take pain pills. We can have surgery, but ultimately the curse of death that we have all inherited in Adam will take its toll. We will all one day die and after that face the judgement. This is one of the fundamental universal experiences of all humanity. We all want relief from this problem. The other problem is the futility of work. Solomon wrote of this experience. You work for a lifetime acquiring stuff, and you come to the end of your life and you leave it all to someone who didn't work for it. Jesus told a story of a man who horded wealth and didn't know that in that very night his life would be required. In an instant, we can loose everything. This is another consequence of the curse on the ground. Our labor will be futile. We can work and work all our lives, and in the end what we have can all be gone in a moment. This is another fundamental problem of human existence.

Lamech expected an answer to this problem. He was hoping in the promise that a seed of the woman would crush the head of our enemy and reverse this curse. He was trusting that God's provision would set all the wrong things right again. In this hope, he named his son Rest (Noah). In a sense, Lamech was right. Noah would be a man who saved the world. Noah was a type of Christ. Just as all those who were in the ark were saved from the flood waters, 1 Peter 3 says that all who are in Christ will be saved from death in Christ.

Jesus is relevant to our problem with sin's curse both in the next life and this one. We will be saved from death when we are resurrected at his coming, but we have hope in the midst of our painful toil now as well. We know that our labor is not in vain, in the LORD. God is working all things together for our good, so when our house burns down or when we are sitting in a hospital bed, we will know that our greatest treasure is Jesus, and while our outer man is wasting away our inner man is being renewed in Christ every day.

The message of the genealogy in Genesis 5 is a message of hope in the Messiah to bring healing to a broken world.

How Am I Going to Preach a Genealogy?

This is the book of the generations of Adam. (Genesis 5:1a)

I'm currently preaching through Genesis. We started with Genesis a few months ago and I felt like after completing chapter 3 we were at a good stopping point to do something different for a while. Last week I returned to Genesis 4 and I intend to preach up through chapter 11 before taking another excursion into something different. While I want to bring variety to the preaching diet, I also want to have the consistency of regularly systematically going through the biblical books. One of the reasons for this commitment is that I don't want to give into the temptation to skip over hard texts. This week is one of those weeks. In Genesis 5 we will look at the Genealogy of Adam through Seth's line. Genealogies are often looked at as boring and monotonous. However, because of my commitments, I'm not going to skip it. So, how will I preach it?

Options

There are basically three options I can think of for doing this. Two of these options are ones that I would not advocate, and one is the one I will be putting to practice. 

First, a preacher could preach through a genealogy going through and looking at the meaning of the names of each character presented. I would say that this is a mystical approach. The idea is that there is a hidden meaning in the names of the people in the genealogy and that knowledge of the original languages will reveal a hidden meaning of the text that isn't obvious to anyone else. While I'm definitely a proponent of the use of the biblical languages, I think this method falls short of faithfulness to the text. It falls into what is called the "word study fallacy." The problem with it is that texts have their meaning as words are put together into sentences. Looking at a word by itself will give you information about the language, but it's missing the forest for the trees! The meaning of the words is determined by the way that they are used, not their etymology, and not necessarily by combining all their lexical possibilities. While I've heard of people using this method before and church members being impressed, I think it misses the point. 

Second, a preacher could create a chart with all the lengths of the lives of all the people in the genealogy to try to show how old the world is. 

While I've seen this done before by people I love and respect, I think this misses the point as well. I am a six day young earth creationist, and I actually think there are a few things we can gain from this kind of exercise, but I don't believe this is the point. God didn't reveal these things to us to satisfy our curiosity about the age of the earth. I believe he had something much more deeply theological for us to understand. 

Finally, I advocate a literary approach. There are two principles that I will keep in mind as I describe this literary approach. First, the genealogies in the biblical text function as a bridge between narratives. Before this genealogy we see the narratives of creation, the Fall, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, and a brief story about Cain's descendant, Lamech. The next major story in the narrative will be the Flood. The genealogy functions as a literary bridge from what has happened already to what is coming next in the narrative. It is showing us that all of these things are happening are connected. It is giving us a framework for the Pauline theology that all human beings are all descended from Adam and that the events that happened in the Flood narrative are further consequences of the Fall that had happened earlier.  Second, if we want to know what is significant in the genealogy, then we must look for the items which break the normal pattern. The emphasized points will be found in the variations.

Variations

The genealogy of Genesis 5 follows a distinct pattern. It goes like this: 

When (X) had lived (Y) years, he fathered (Z). (X) lived after he fathered (Z) (W) years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of (X) were (V), and he died. 

 There are three significant variations from this pattern that I see. 

1. Adam varies from the pattern. Instead of saying "When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered Seth," it says "When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth." This is significant for a few reasons. It shows us that the image of God from the creation narrative was passed on through successive generations. It shows us that even though sin had drastic consequences for humanity and introduced death, human beings are still image bearers of God. This variation in the pattern also does one more thing. It links Seth to Noah. It says "he fathered a son...and named him...." This is something we don't see in any of the following generations until you get to Noah, and it will be mentioned again later. 
2. Enoch varies from the pattern as well. It says, "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he had fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.... Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." This break in the pattern does two things. It highlights an important part of the pattern. Everyone died! Every generation in the list ends with the words "and he died" except Enoch. From this we should see that the genealogy intends to show us that death came to all men through Adam--just as we read in Paul. However, Enoch is a significant break in this pattern. What does this mean? What does it mean that he walked with God? What does it mean that "he was not?" What does it mean that "God took him?" Each of those ideas are ambiguous in the text. It is hard to say with certainty. It has been traditionally understood that Enoch never physically died and that he was taken directly into Heaven just as Elijah was taken in a fiery chariot. Why didn't Enoch die? It can be assumed that it was because he walked with God. Enoch apparently had a close personal walk with God. We don't have any details telling us what this means. I do not think that it means that Enoch was sinless. Rather, Enoch walked in reliance on God. He trusted in God. I would guess that it means that he lived a life of faith in God. Unfortunately, we aren't given much information. Jewish apocalyptic literature abounded with curiosity and speculations as to what happened to Enoch, but as for the biblical record, we don't have much to go on. 
3. Lamech also varies from this pattern. Lamech was Noah's father, and he was also the last person in this genealogy to die. His record says "When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son, and called his name Noah, saying, "Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands." Just as I mentioned before, the only other person of which it is said, "he fathered a son, and [called his] name" was Adam. This begins and ends the genealogy with the same break in the pattern. Then it gives a reason for Noah's name. "He will give us relief." The word for "relief" or rest is built off the same word as Noah's name. So Lamech named his son "Rest." What would Noah give humanity rest from? Noah was expected to give relief from "our work" and from "the painful toil of our hands" because of "the ground which the LORD has cursed." These are all references to Genesis 3. The "painful toil" that Noah was to give relief from was the painful toil mentioned in the pain of childbearing from 3:16 and the pain of man's labor in 3:17-19. The vocabulary links these passages, but so does the author's explicit reference to the LORD's curse on the ground. In short, I believe that Lamech expected Noah to be the seed of the woman who would reverse the curse and crush the serpent's head. It is on this basis that I believe it is legitimate to preach Jesus from the genealogy here in Genesis 5.  

When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, "Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands." (Gen 5:28-29 ESV)