The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 21

Vers. 1-4.-The two great race-heads. It is a significant thing that Scripture so distinctly affirms a double beginning for the human rac~, and sets before UR two great human fathers. It is usual to speak of our" father Adam," but it would be at least as truthful to speak of our "father Noah." The period from Adam to Noah iR given us very briefly, and it is scarcely more than a record of names. 'fhe one fact that comes out so prominently is that the first descendants of Adam lived lives that were so pro- longed as to be almost inconceivable to us. And it is equally evident that the new race born of Noah was a race of short-livers, their allotted time on earth not being greatly in excess of our own. Here are facts so important as to be a fitting subject for consideration. I. THE HE~D OF THE LONG-LIVERS . .Adam was himself a long-lived man. We know that physical death was not the judgment on his sin, though the embittering of death by a smiting conscience, and by tbe tsufferings of disease engendered by sin, un- doubtedly was. How long men's earthly lives might have been if they had preserved the purity of Eden, we may only imagine, but some hint of it is given in the experiment God made of permitting even the banished ones to live for a thousand years. Can we conceive the Divine thought in permitting for a time these prolonged lives 1 l. The earth was to be won by the human race; its stores were to be discovered, and their uses shown. This beginning of the arts of civilized life would make more rapid progress if one man could carry his experience over several generations, getting full time for the outworking of his thoughts and plans. We know too often now how sadly invention and discovery are stopped by the early death of the workers. 2. It might be expected that man would have a fuller and fairer moral trial if his time on earth were thus prolonged, and it might reasonably be hoped that the C?ntinu_ous experi~nc~ of God's goodness would lead him to repentance and restor~d relat10ns with God. fh1s ex~ecta- tion however was not fulfilled, but man's self-will took advantage of tho secunty ot life,'and grew'into an a;vful majesty and pride of power, that necessitated the Divine interlerence in an overwhelming judgment. And it became declared for all the ages that too proloncred life is not the best thing for sinful and self-willed human creatures. J t is a trust to~ great. It is better for man'B highest welfare that upon him should constantly rest the sense of the brevity of life. He only perverted to his uttermost ruin the k,ncrer trust. So Adam is the father of a race that is passed and done with, We are not his children in the sense of being placed under the same time-conditions. II. THE HEAD OF THE SHORT-LIVERS. 'l'his is the first and chief distinction between the races ul.':·ore and after the Flood. Noah had a cleansed earth to possesN, but he carried o,·er into it some relics of tho older evil in his family, and so commenced the new trial under disability. Before, the race had kept in one stream; under the new OH, J, 1-54.] 'l'HE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 11