The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 171

CHAPTER V. ity among men, and recording the Divine resolution to destroy man, the name .Jehovah The present section carries fonvard the is used, the reason being that in hi~ sin and inspired narrative another stage, in which in his punishment man is viewed in his rela- the onward progress or development of the tions to the God of redemption and grace. human race is traced, in the holy line of Seth, from the day of .A.dam's creation, Vers. 1, 2.-Thia is the book. Sepher, through ten successive generations, till the a register, a complete writing of any kinJ, point is reached when the first great experi- a book, whether consisting of a. pair of leaves or of only a single leaf (Deut. xx.iv. I, 3 ; "a. ment of attempting to save man by clemency bill of divorcement ; " LXX., {3 i/3Xo~ ; cf. rather than by punishment is brought to a Matt. i. 1 ; Luke iii. 36, 38). The expres- termination, and Jehovah, whose mercy has sion presupposes the invention of the art been spurned and l\bused, determines to of writing. If, therefore, we may conjecture destroy the impenitent transgressors. First, that the original compiler of this ancient document was Noah, than whom no one in brief and somewhat monotonous outline, would be more likely or better qualifie,l the lives of the ten patriarchs are sketched, than he to preserve some memorial of the scarcely more being recorded of them than lost race of which he aml his family were the simply that they were born, grew to man• sole survivors, it affords an additional corro- hood, married wives, begat children, and boration of the intelligence and culture of then died. In only two instances does the the antetliluvian men. It is too frequently taken for granted that the people who coul,l history diverge from this severely simple style build cities, invent musical instruments, anJ of biographical narration, namely, in the make songs were unacquainted with the cases of Enoch, who, as he eclipsed his art of writing; and though certainly we predecessors, contemporaries, and successors cannot affirm that the transmission of snch in the elevation of his piety during life, was e. family register as is here recorded was beyond the ea pa bilities of oral tracli tion, it honoured above them in the mode of his is obvious that its preservation would be departure from the earth; and of Noah, much more readily secured by some kind of whose birth was welcomed by his parents documentary notation. Of the generations as a happy omen in a time of social degener- -i. e. evolutions (to"f:doth; cf. eh. ii. 4)~f acy and religious declension, but who lived Adam. In the preceding section the tol' doth of the heavens and the earth were exhibited, to see the hopes of reform which his pious and accordingly the narrative commenced parents cherished disappointed, and the with the creative labow-s of the third day. world for its wickedness overwjielmed by Hero the historian designs to trace the a flood. Then, after sketching the unevent- fortunes of the holy seed, and finds the point ful lives of the patriarchs in e. few bold of his departure in the day that God (Elohim) created ma.n (.A.dam), i. e. the strokes, the sacred penman sets before us sixth of the creafo•e days. llfore particularly a vividly arresting end profoundly impressive ho calls attention to the great truths which picture of the wickedness of the human rnce had been previously incluJ.ed in his teaching on the eve of that appalling catastrophe, at concerning man; viz., the dignity of his once indicating the cause of the earth's nature, implied in the fact that in the like- ness of Elohim me.de he him ; his sezual degeneracy in morals, and representing that distinction-ma.le a.nd female created he degeneracy as a sufficient justificntion for them; their Divine benediction-a.nd blessed the threntened judgment. Throughout the them (cf. eh. i. 27, 28); a.t the same time genealogical register the name Elohim is ndding a fourth circumstance, which in the employed to designate the Deity, the subject first document was not narratctl, that their Maker gave to them a sui:able an,l spec-iji,c being the evolutions of the Ada.m who was app_ellation-a.nd called their name A.dam created in the image of Elohim. In the (vule eh. i. 20) 1 in the day when they wera paragraph depicting the growth of immoral- created.  94 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [CR, V. 1--32,