Genesis 5 Part 4: Messianic Prophecy
A popular idea amongst churches is that the names of these Patriarchs are a prophecy pointing to the coming Christ.
Adam = Man
Seth = Appointed
Enosh = Mortal
Kenan = Sorrow
Mage lapel = the Blessed God
Jared = Shall come down
Enoch = Teaching
Methulusah = the death shall bring
Lamech = Despairing
Noah = Comfort
This implies that the Genesis 5 genealogy is prophecy about Jesus. We can see from the meaning of the names, we get the following text:
Man appointed mortal sorrow the Blessed God shall come down teaching the death shall bring despairing comfort.
Or you could read it as;
Man was appointed to be mortal and die. So he was sorrowful. But the Blessed God shall come down and give teaching. The death shall bring despair to Him. But it will be man’s comfort.
Translation Issues
This is poor translation work. Adam does means ‘man’, but Seth means ‘compensation’. Obviously, for the loss of Abel.
Enosh doesn’t really mean mortal, but ‘man’. Kenan relates to the name Cain, the murderer or a spear.
Mahalalel means ‘praise of El’ not the ‘Blessed God’. Jared could be translated as ‘shall come down’, but the more direct translation would be ‘descend’.
Enoch means ‘mouth or palate’, not ‘teaching’ My preferred translation is ‘word’. Though I would be happy to lose the argument if pushed. (There is another reason why, which I will tell you in later post 🤫).
Methuselah is difficult to translate, and probably means ‘man of the dart or missile’. Though it could mean a ‘devotee of God’.
No one is 100% sure what Lamech means. Though my gut reaction is that it’s something to do with ‘wild or changing wind’. You will see why in a later post.
Finally Noah does mean ‘rest’ or ‘comfort’.
What about Noah’s Son?
Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. For some strange reason, they are not included in the above ‘prophecy’. So what do their names mean?
Genesis 5 v 32
After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Shem means ‘name’. We see this same word appear in Genesis 4, in the last verse.
Genesis 4 v 26
Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name (Shem) of the Lord.
We can see the writer of Genesis is linking these two chapters.
Ham means ‘hot’. It has been suggested it is because his descendents come from tropical climates.
Japheth means simple and open to being deceived. It also can be translated as entices and seduces.
In the context of the beginning of chapter 6, where:
Genesis 6 v 1-2
When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
It could be suggested that Shem relates to the faithful, the ones who call on the ‘Name of the Lord’. The ‘sons of God’ could relate to Ham. His name means ‘hot’ or ‘bright’. ‘Sons of God’ was a phrase used by ancient Israelites to describe angelic beings.
Japheth’s name means to entice or seduce, just like the ‘daughters of men’ tempted the sons of God.
This is an interesting interpretation of the names of Shem, Ham and Japheth and fits in with the following verses. But I would urge caution using my translation work. Bad translations, particularly when translations name, can sometimes mislead and create bad theology. Unless it’s obvious, we need to take any translations of names with a pinch of salt.
The next post in this series will look at the symbolic meaning of the numbers.
The typo "mage lapel" made me chuckle.
I do think there's enough evidence to call this Messianic prophesy, it also lends credence to the idea that these names are not as they seem to us 3500 years later. It further and properly breaks down the idea that you cannot take this passage at face value. Again, how obvious to the ancients would this have been knowing the meaning of the names?
Regarding Kenan's name meaning 'spear' recall that Jesus was pierced with a spear, which was foretold elsewhere and confirmed in the Gospels.
I'd ultimately want to see a deeper discussion of the names and translations, carefully laid out. I did not search for further resources, though.
The exclusion of Noah's sons seems natural considering they would be re-populating the post-flood Earth. This is old vs new. They'd logically require a new genealogy. On a side note if their genetics had degraded they'd need more material to avoid resultant genetic problems that Adam and Eve's immediate progeny avoided - thus the need for 8 instead of 2.