And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.
Methuselah literally lived nine hundred sixty-nine years and then died, as one of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah who with few exceptions lived nearly a thousand years. He was the son of Enoch and the grandfather of Noah, living while the ark was being built until the very year of the Flood, listening to Noah's warning and assisting him in the work with his sons and grandsons. His long life forms the middle link in an unbroken chain of direct teaching, for Adam was still alive when Methuselah was 243 years old and Methuselah lived on until Shem was 98, so what God taught Adam could pass through Methuselah and Shem to Abraham and Israel. Those nine generations before the Flood averaged 912 years of life, far above the generations after the Flood and the brief span now, proving the race was created with far greater vital force that has steadily decreased through violation of the laws of life. The centuries of life were given so men would serve God and gain and pass on knowledge with unimpaired memory, but that long-lived race gave loose rein to iniquity in proportion to its skill and wisdom, so the Lord destroyed it by a flood.
Long Life Before Flood
The 969 years ended by death are literal years, and the long ages are not from a different method of computing time. Methuselah stands as one of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah who with few exceptions, with one or two exceptions, lived nearly a thousand years, between nine hundred and a thousand years. His lifespan belongs to more than sixteen hundred years of vegetarian living from Adam to Noah. The record gives the length of life and its end without mentioning illness or prolonged suffering.
Life before the Flood followed the pattern of many hundreds of years with sound minds in sound bodies. Mental and physical strength and intellect, skill, art, and knowledge were far greater than now. At one hundred years old people were considered but youths, and they came upon the stage of action from sixty to one hundred years old. They had nearly one thousand years in which to acquire knowledge, so the present feeble generation bears no comparison and the claim that the present is an age of real progress beyond the past is a delusion.
Methuselah was the son of Enoch and the grandfather of Noah. He lived while the ark was being built, and his life reached to, and he lived until, the very year of the Flood. Instructed by his father about the coming flood, he lived at the time Noah his grandson faithfully warned the inhabitants of the old world that a flood of waters was coming upon the earth. He listened to Noah's preaching, received instruction from Noah, and with his sons and grandsons assisted Noah in building the ark and in his work. He was among those who with Noah and his family feared and obeyed God, though Noah himself was the most pious and holy person upon the earth.
His 969-year life is the middle link in an unbroken chain of direct personal teaching from Adam to Israel. Adam was still alive when Methuselah was 243 years old, so Adam could impart to Methuselah all that God had taught him. Methuselah lived on until Shem the son of Noah was 98 years old, so Methuselah could impart it to Shem. Through Shem it passed to Abraham and Isaac and through them to Jacob the father of the tribes of Israel.
Decline of Human Vitality
The nine generations before the flood averaged 912 years of life, far above the 332-year average of the nine generations after the flood, the seventy-year lifespan in the time of Moses, and the about thirty-five-year average at present. This steady decrease shows the great longevity mankind had at first and the high starting point from which physical life has deteriorated. The long ages are literal, not from a different method of computing time, and they prove the race was created with ten times more vital force than it now possesses, for otherwise its violations of all the laws of health and life would long ago have extinguished it. Violation cut down the years tapering gradually to between one and two hundred years at the time of the Egyptian bondage, to an average of threescore years and ten at the time of David about halfway from Adam to the present day, to an average of thirty years in Europe and the United States and twenty years in great cities now.
The patriarchs from Adam to Noah with few exceptions generally lived nearly a thousand years, while after Noah average human lifespan decreased, in contrast with the sickness and mortality prevalent in the present generation. Since the days of Noah the length of life has been tapering because of continued violation of the laws of life. Disease has been steadily on the increase through successive generations since that period, bringing mortality to a fearful extent by the time the diseased were brought for healing from every town, city, and village afflicted with all manner of diseases.
The antediluvians lived for unusually long periods because the life-giving power of the tree of life had been transmitted from Adam and Eve. In Noah's day the human race still kept much of its first vigor and measured life by centuries because only a few generations had passed since Adam had access to the tree that prolongs life. The dwindling from great length of life, nobility, size, and physical strength as first created in the image of God to the present brief period marked with disease, decrepitude, and imbecility was caused by the original curse with its accumulated weight of transgression and violation of natural law. The effects of corrupt appetites, passions, and violations of physical law took more than a thousand years to be felt across the human race. The decline was hastened after the Flood when Noah, who lived 950 years, and his sons of necessity ate flesh for a time, from which point the race rapidly declined in length of days.
Purpose and Moral Warning
The 969 years were an unrivaled advantage for gaining knowledge and passing it on unimpaired to posterity. Mental powers developed early, and for those living in harmony with God knowledge and wisdom kept increasing throughout life, leaving modern scholars greatly inferior in mental and physical strength. Though without books or written records, people of great physical and mental vigor had strong memories able to grasp and retain what was communicated. Adam himself imparted what he had learned from the Creator about the material world and creation and what he had witnessed across nine centuries, while seven generations living on the earth at the same time had opportunity to consult together so that each profited from the knowledge and experience of all.
Such centuries-long life carried rare power to plan and carry out great works. It was given so that men would serve God, make His name a praise in the earth, and fulfill the purpose for giving them life. Methuselah stood among the righteous men before the Flood who with Seth, Enoch, Noah and others presented truth and kept the knowledge of God continually before the world.
That purpose failed when men of great stature and strength, renowned for wisdom and skill in devising cunning and wonderful works, gave loose rein to iniquity with guilt in proportion to their skill and mental ability. The people despised that truth, the imaginations of their hearts being evil and only evil continually. Secret societies were formed to work in darkness to do violence, so the Lord destroyed that long-lived race to which Methuselah belonged by a Flood.
Methuselah literally lived nine hundred sixty-nine years and then died, as one of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah who with few exceptions lived nearly a thousand years. He was the son of Enoch and the grandfather of Noah, living while the ark was being built until the very year of the Flood, listening to Noah's warning and assisting him in the work with his sons and grandsons. His long life forms the middle link in an unbroken chain of direct teaching, for Adam was still alive when Methuselah was 243 years old and Methuselah lived on until Shem was 98, so what God taught Adam could pass through Methuselah and Shem to Abraham and Israel. Those nine generations before the Flood averaged 912 years of life, far above the generations after the Flood and the brief span now, proving the race was created with far greater vital force that has steadily decreased through violation of the laws of life. The centuries of life were given so men would serve God and gain and pass on knowledge with unimpaired memory, but that long-lived race gave loose rein to iniquity in proportion to its skill and wisdom, so the Lord destroyed it by a flood.
Long Life Before Flood
The 969 years ended by death are literal years, and the long ages are not from a different method of computing time. Methuselah stands as one of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah who with few exceptions, with one or two exceptions, lived nearly a thousand years, between nine hundred and a thousand years. His lifespan belongs to more than sixteen hundred years of vegetarian living from Adam to Noah. The record gives the length of life and its end without mentioning illness or prolonged suffering.
Life before the Flood followed the pattern of many hundreds of years with sound minds in sound bodies. Mental and physical strength and intellect, skill, art, and knowledge were far greater than now. At one hundred years old people were considered but youths, and they came upon the stage of action from sixty to one hundred years old. They had nearly one thousand years in which to acquire knowledge, so the present feeble generation bears no comparison and the claim that the present is an age of real progress beyond the past is a delusion.
Methuselah was the son of Enoch and the grandfather of Noah. He lived while the ark was being built, and his life reached to, and he lived until, the very year of the Flood. Instructed by his father about the coming flood, he lived at the time Noah his grandson faithfully warned the inhabitants of the old world that a flood of waters was coming upon the earth. He listened to Noah's preaching, received instruction from Noah, and with his sons and grandsons assisted Noah in building the ark and in his work. He was among those who with Noah and his family feared and obeyed God, though Noah himself was the most pious and holy person upon the earth.
His 969-year life is the middle link in an unbroken chain of direct personal teaching from Adam to Israel. Adam was still alive when Methuselah was 243 years old, so Adam could impart to Methuselah all that God had taught him. Methuselah lived on until Shem the son of Noah was 98 years old, so Methuselah could impart it to Shem. Through Shem it passed to Abraham and Isaac and through them to Jacob the father of the tribes of Israel.
Decline of Human Vitality
The nine generations before the flood averaged 912 years of life, far above the 332-year average of the nine generations after the flood, the seventy-year lifespan in the time of Moses, and the about thirty-five-year average at present. This steady decrease shows the great longevity mankind had at first and the high starting point from which physical life has deteriorated. The long ages are literal, not from a different method of computing time, and they prove the race was created with ten times more vital force than it now possesses, for otherwise its violations of all the laws of health and life would long ago have extinguished it. Violation cut down the years tapering gradually to between one and two hundred years at the time of the Egyptian bondage, to an average of threescore years and ten at the time of David about halfway from Adam to the present day, to an average of thirty years in Europe and the United States and twenty years in great cities now.
The patriarchs from Adam to Noah with few exceptions generally lived nearly a thousand years, while after Noah average human lifespan decreased, in contrast with the sickness and mortality prevalent in the present generation. Since the days of Noah the length of life has been tapering because of continued violation of the laws of life. Disease has been steadily on the increase through successive generations since that period, bringing mortality to a fearful extent by the time the diseased were brought for healing from every town, city, and village afflicted with all manner of diseases.
The antediluvians lived for unusually long periods because the life-giving power of the tree of life had been transmitted from Adam and Eve. In Noah's day the human race still kept much of its first vigor and measured life by centuries because only a few generations had passed since Adam had access to the tree that prolongs life. The dwindling from great length of life, nobility, size, and physical strength as first created in the image of God to the present brief period marked with disease, decrepitude, and imbecility was caused by the original curse with its accumulated weight of transgression and violation of natural law. The effects of corrupt appetites, passions, and violations of physical law took more than a thousand years to be felt across the human race. The decline was hastened after the Flood when Noah, who lived 950 years, and his sons of necessity ate flesh for a time, from which point the race rapidly declined in length of days.
Purpose and Moral Warning
The 969 years were an unrivaled advantage for gaining knowledge and passing it on unimpaired to posterity. Mental powers developed early, and for those living in harmony with God knowledge and wisdom kept increasing throughout life, leaving modern scholars greatly inferior in mental and physical strength. Though without books or written records, people of great physical and mental vigor had strong memories able to grasp and retain what was communicated. Adam himself imparted what he had learned from the Creator about the material world and creation and what he had witnessed across nine centuries, while seven generations living on the earth at the same time had opportunity to consult together so that each profited from the knowledge and experience of all.
Such centuries-long life carried rare power to plan and carry out great works. It was given so that men would serve God, make His name a praise in the earth, and fulfill the purpose for giving them life. Methuselah stood among the righteous men before the Flood who with Seth, Enoch, Noah and others presented truth and kept the knowledge of God continually before the world.
That purpose failed when men of great stature and strength, renowned for wisdom and skill in devising cunning and wonderful works, gave loose rein to iniquity with guilt in proportion to their skill and mental ability. The people despised that truth, the imaginations of their hearts being evil and only evil continually. Secret societies were formed to work in darkness to do violence, so the Lord destroyed that long-lived race to which Methuselah belonged by a Flood.