And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:
Reu was thirty-two years old when he fathered Serug. The verse belongs to the post-Flood patriarchal genealogy after Noah. That genealogy runs from Shem to Abraham and records the age at fatherhood and the length of life. Together with the genealogy from Adam onward, it shows overlapping lifetimes by which the knowledge God taught Adam could be passed directly to Jacob: Adam lived until Methuselah was 243 years old, Methuselah lived until Shem the son of Noah was 98 years old, Shem lived 150 years after the birth of Abraham and 50 years after the birth of Isaac, Abraham lived until Jacob and Esau were 15 years old, and Isaac lived until they were 120, so Adam imparted it to Methuselah, Methuselah to Shem, Shem to Abraham and Isaac, and Abraham and Isaac to Jacob the father of the tribes of Israel.
As part of that genealogy, the verse belongs to the period in which human lifespans were decreasing from the nearly one thousand years commonly lived before the Flood. Together with Genesis 5, it quantifies that decline as an average of about 912 years across nine generations before the Flood compared with about 332 years across nine generations after the Flood. The verse therefore proves that man has woefully deteriorated physically. It stands within the first 2000 years in which no death of children is recorded. The decrease in longevity shown by the verse continued downward to seventy years in Moses' time and to about thirty-five years at present.
Reu was thirty-two years old when he fathered Serug. The verse belongs to the post-Flood patriarchal genealogy after Noah. That genealogy runs from Shem to Abraham and records the age at fatherhood and the length of life. Together with the genealogy from Adam onward, it shows overlapping lifetimes by which the knowledge God taught Adam could be passed directly to Jacob: Adam lived until Methuselah was 243 years old, Methuselah lived until Shem the son of Noah was 98 years old, Shem lived 150 years after the birth of Abraham and 50 years after the birth of Isaac, Abraham lived until Jacob and Esau were 15 years old, and Isaac lived until they were 120, so Adam imparted it to Methuselah, Methuselah to Shem, Shem to Abraham and Isaac, and Abraham and Isaac to Jacob the father of the tribes of Israel.
As part of that genealogy, the verse belongs to the period in which human lifespans were decreasing from the nearly one thousand years commonly lived before the Flood. Together with Genesis 5, it quantifies that decline as an average of about 912 years across nine generations before the Flood compared with about 332 years across nine generations after the Flood. The verse therefore proves that man has woefully deteriorated physically. It stands within the first 2000 years in which no death of children is recorded. The decrease in longevity shown by the verse continued downward to seventy years in Moses' time and to about thirty-five years at present.