When Did Methuselah Die?

(This is the first of two. The second follows.)

We all know that Methuselah was the oldest man ever to live. He made it to 969 years. Genesis 5 gives the genealogical history of men from Adam on. It is really quite boring, isn’t it? Why is all of that stuff in there?

Methuselah was the son of Enoch, who was an extraordinarily godly man. We do not know all of the details and whys and wherefores, but suffice it to say that God took him home without a natural death. Elijah and Jesus were the only two other men who ever walked the earth to experience that. And Jesus ascended after He had given His life as a sacrifice for us and was resurrected. So Enoch and Elijah are pretty unique among the billions who have ever lived here.

Well the story is a little more interesting. What next? Methuselah then had a son, Lamech. Now the numbers get interesting. Methuselah was 187 when Lamech was born. Lamech had a son, Noah, at the age of 182 and died at 767. Methuselah was 369 years young when Noah was born. Noah started having his sons at the age of 500 or 869 for Methuselah. Lamech was 682.

Now the story becomes fascinating. Noah built an ark, took his family and a few “family pets” into the ark at the age of 600 or 100 years after our last accounting. The flood came. Lamech would have been 782 at the flood, but died at 767. So he missed the shindig by 15 years.

But Methuselah was 869 when Noah began his family and the flood was 100 years later. Methuselah was 969 the year of the flood. Enoch had been translated 669 years before the flood, Lamech was dead, but what happened to Methuselah? Was his death caused by the flood, or was it the trip wire to release the flood?

For help in this let’s look back, or in this instance forward, to Abraham. In Genesis 18:23 Abraham responds to the news that Sodom is about to be destroyed.
Abraham came near and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
Then Abraham answers his own question in verse 25.
Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” 

And the answer is, “Yes, the Lord is just.” So it seems just and right to infer that the Lord was “waiting” for Methuselah to die before unleashing the judgment. This is interesting to me. There are three scenarios here. One was Lamech and Methuselah, who died natural deaths before the “coming” of the Judgment. Enoch was translated before it occurred. And Noah rode it out in the Ark.

There has to be a picture there. This is a forecast of Jesus’ second coming. Some will, and already have, died. Some, like Noah are given “passage” through the test. And others, like Enoch, are saved from the test. They get an early pass home.

Paul and John give us a pretty detailed description of the last times. Some are saved from the coming test like Enoch. Paul’s description of the rapture is in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5,and 2 Thessalonians 2. The third group, in my understanding, is the group who are saved after the Rapture by the teaching of the 144,000 (Revelation 7) who, themselves believed immediately after the Rapture.

So the story of Genesis 5 is a prophetic view of the end times. And it is another view of God’s grace and care for mankind. He is waving a flag, warning that the “bridge is out” up ahead. Keep going the way you are at your own peril. Turn around and go the other way.

He has shown us how in His Book, the Bible.