p. 244 | Notes on Genesis

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 30, 1867

Notes on Genesis.

CHAPTER IV, verse 15. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

ADAM and Eve had very many more children than are mentioned in this brief narrative; principally intended to record a few important particulars, and to trace the history, from the beginning to the time of Moses. And if, as is generally thought, Abel was murdered but a short time before the birth of Seth; the human race might be exceedingly increased in the space of 130 years.—Scott.

Patrick mentions a couple in England, from whom sprung, in the course of 80 years, 367 children. Dodd says, if Adam and Eve were married A. M. 19, they might easily have had eight children, in the 25th year; in the fiftieth year there might proceed from them, in a direct line, 64 persons; in the 74th, there would be 572; in the 98th, 4,096; in the 122d, 32,768. If we add the other children descended from Cain and Abel, their children and their children's children, we should have in 128 years, 421,164 men, without reckoning the women, or any under the age of seventeen. But Dr. A. Clarke thinks the accuracy of this calculation may be disputed, and adds: If, at the age of 130, Adam had 130 children, which is quite possible, and each of these a child at 65 years of age, and one in each successive year, the whole in the 130th year of the world would amount to 1,219 persons; a number sufficient to found several villages, as extensive as Cain's city.—Jenks.

CHAPTER V, verse 5. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

'Josephus well observes, The patriarchs being men much beloved of God, and newly made by him, with a strong constitution, and excellent temper of body, and using better diet, the vigor of the earth serving at the first for the production of better fruits: all these things, joined with their temperance, constant exercise and labor, a sweet temper of air, their knowledge in the nature of herbs and plants, &c., might well contribute very much to as long a life as is here mentioned; for the sooner peopling of the world, and more certain propagation of religion and knowledge, arts and sciences. Herein Moses hath the testimony of all the Greeks and Barbarians also, who have wrote about ancient affairs; Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian history, Berosus, who wrote the Chaldean; Mochus, Hestiaeus, &c., who wrote the Phoenician; with a great number of Greek writers whom he mentions: who all say men anciently lived a thousand years. None indeed came up to that full sum, but some so near it, that they, who were not exactly acquainted with the sacred story, might well speak in that manner.' Patrick ‘The Brahmins have a tradition that human life once lasted a thousand years.’ Burder. Many would attribute the shortness of life since the flood to ‘a change in the hygrometric character of the circumfused atmosphere:’ others to a change in the quantity of oxygen contained in the atmosphere, and its corruption by the mephitic exhalations of decayed animal and vegetable substances, since these were destroyed by the flood.—Jenks.

Verse 24. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him.

God took him.] ‘The Kalmucks,’ says Von Strahlenberg, ‘worship the idol Xacamuni, who, they say, was only a sovereign prince of India 4000 years ago: but, on account of his unparalleled sanctity, God had taken him up to Heaven alive.’—Burder.