Gênesis 5:5

The days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years. — The numbers in the Bible are involved in great difficulty, owing to the Hebrew method of numeration being to attach numerical values to letters, and add them together; and as the words thus formed are unmeaning, they easily become corrupted. Hence there is a great discrepancy in the numbers as specified by the three main authorities, the Hebrew text making the length of time from the expulsion from Paradise to the flood 1656 years, the Samaritan text only 1307, and the LXX. 2262, while in almost all cases they agree in the duration of the lives of the several patriarchs. There is, however, an appearance of untrustworthiness about the calculations in the LXX., while the Samaritan transcript must rank as of almost equal authority with the Hebrew text itself. St. Jerome, however, says that the best Samaritan MSS. in his days agreed with the Hebrew, but none such have come down to us.

Not only is there no doubt that the Bible represents human life as vastly prolonged before the flood, while afterwards it grew rapidly briefer, but it teaches us that in the Messianic age life is to be prolonged again, so that a century shall be the duration of childhood, and a grown man’s ordinary age shall be as the age of a tree (Isa. Ixv. 20, 22). On the other hand, we may accept the assertion of physiologists that such as man is now, a period of from 120 to 150 years is the utmost possible duration of human life, and that no strength of constitution, nor temperance, nor vegetable diet could add many years to this limit. Hence many have supposed that in the early Biblical genealogies races or dynasties were meant, or that at a time when there were only engraved cylinders or marks scratched on stones or impressed on bricks as modes of writing, a few names only were selected, each one of whom, by the length of years assigned to him, represented an indefinitely protracted period. In proof that there was something artificial in these genealogies, they point to the fact that the tôldôth of Adam are arranged in ten generations, and that the same number of generations composes the tôldôth of Shem (Gênesis 11:10).; while in our Lord’s genealogy names are confessedly omitted in order to produce three series, each of fourteen names. It is also undeniable that in Hebrew genealogies it was the rule to omit names. Thus the genealogy of Moses contains only four individuals: Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses (1 Crônicas 6:1); while for the same period there are eleven descents given in the genealogy of Jehoshuah (1 Crônicas 7:23). All this is sufficient to convince every thoughtful person that we must not use these genealogies for chronological purposes. They were not drawn up with any such intention, but to trace the line of primogeniture, and show whose was the birthright. But the longevity of the antediluvian race does not depend upon these genealogies alone, but is part of the very substance of the narrative. It has too the evidence in its favour of all ancient tradition; but it is one of the mysteries of the Bible. We learn, however, from Gênesis 6:3 that it did not prove a blessing, and we possibly are to understand that a change took place at the time of the flood in man’s physical constitution, by which the duration of his fife was gradually limited to 120 years.

We ought to add that modern scholarship has proved the identity of the names of the numbers up to ten in the three great families of human speech. Above ten they have nothing in common. It seems, therefore, to follow that primæval man before the confusion of tongues had no power of expressing large numbers. Hence in these lists the generations are limited to ten, and hence too the need of caution in dealing with the mystery which underlies the protracted duration of the lives of the patriarchs.