The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 177

Adam in particular it mnst have come with much surprise to find that life, which had been forfeited by sin, :prolonged to well-nigh a millennium of years ; atid this impres- sion, though perhaps 1t might become less as patriarch succeeded patriarch, wonl<I not, we think, entirely disappear. And eo let ns hope they came to recoguise it as (3) a gracious privilege, clue not to any secondary cause whatsoever, but primarily cmcl solely to the infinite mercy of Goel, who had given them the promise of a woman's seed to sustain their faith and hope. And as such also (4) a suggestive privilege, emblematic of the immortality they had lost by sin, but received again through grace. 3. A dying race. Though a sinful, they were yet a pardoned race ; but though a pardoned, they were yet a m<>_rtal race. A portion of the original penalty remains to remind man of hie past history and present condition; and so although the Sethites "lived many hundred yeares, yet none of them filled up a thousand, lest they should have too much flattered themselves in long life; and seeing a 'lhoueand is a. number of perfection, God would have none of them to attain to a fuousand that we might know that nothing is perfect here" (Willet). II. ME~BERS OF' TIIE CnuncH OIJ' Goo. Great as was the former distinction, it is completely eclipsed bf this. It is a great thing to be born, but a greater to be born again. To be in Gode 'Yorld is.much, to be in God's Church i? ~ore. To be ?f the line of Adam by nature 1e questionable honour, to be of Adams line by grace 1s un- questionable glory, These ten names from Adam to Noah represent the leaders of the Church of God in the primeval age of the world. Whether distinguished by rare talent, great wealth, or high position, whether they invented arts, built cities, and composed hymns like the Cainites, is not said. Their chief distinction lay in- 1. Tlieir possessicn of faith in God. Not perhaps all with the ea~e tenacity,_ b~t all with tlie same reality, they clung to the pronuse of the woman s seed. This 1t was which made them members of the antediluvian Church. Wituout faith it is impossible to please God (Heh. xi. 6). 2. Their observance. of religious wor- shi:p- From the beginning of the world the practice of sacrificial worship was mamtained by believers. For two generations it appears to have been privato rather than public in its character. In the days of Enos, according to one of the interpretations of eh. iv. 26, the Sethites began to worship God in social assemblies, as a mea.ns at once of foBtering their own piety and of defending themselves against the rising tide of ungodliness; and we cannot doubt the godly practice would continue -till the number of believers became eo small that Noah could discover no one of like heart and spirit with himself to participate in his devo- tions. 3. Their nonconformity to the world. According to another reading of eh. iv. 26, in the third generation the holy seed began to make clearer and more distinct the lines of demarcation between themselves and the Cainites by calling themselves by the name of Jehovah, i. e. by adopting to themselves the appellation of the wor- shippers of the Lord. The fact tha.t «the sons of God " are mentioned in eh. vi. 1 lends a ~anction to this view. If it was so, doubtless the assumption of this par- ticular title was o:r;ily a sign or symptom of a great religious movement that began to effect the age,:...:.:a nioveinent of eepaiation in heart and life from the unbelievers of the time,-and that with a greater or. lesser intensity perpetuated itself through each successive generation, not even dying away when there was only one man to be aifocted by it, 4. Tlieir witness-bearing against the widcedness of the imgodly world. This comes out not indeed here, but in other Scriptures, in connection with two patria.rche, Enoch and Noah; the first of whom prophesied of the coming of the Lord (Jude 14), and the secorid of whom was a preacher of righteousness to the men of hie generation (2 Pet. ii. 5); and what was true of them was doubtless charac- te:rietic in a measure of them all. They were unquestionably prophets, priests, and kings in their families and in relation to their contemporaries, 5. Tlieir eminently godly lives. As much as this is implied in what has been nlready said. But of two of them it is distinctly stated that they walked with God: of Enoch, that before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God; and of Noah, that he was a. perfect man and an upright; and though not perhaps entitled to say that all of them lived nt the same spiritual elevation as did those two fathers, yet we are fairly war- ranted to conclude that all of them maintained n holy Wl\lk and conversation in r,. rapidly degenerating age. 11 2  100 THE BOOK OP GENESIS. [err. v. 1-32.