What Does Genesis 5:25 Mean?
And Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and brought forth Lamech.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech:THE KEY
Here a life is counted not only by its years but by the next life it brings into the line.
THE MEANING
The verse holds Methuselah’s 187 years beside Lamech’s birth: the long span and the next generation belong in the same account. Life appears as both what is sustained and what arrives through it.
THE ROOT
יָלַד
yalad
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, bring forth, or beget.
“brought forth” in this verse is yalad. The verb translated “begat” shares its root with words for a child and for birth. The Hebrew connects the act of bringing forth with the child who continues the line.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child
יֶלֶד
The child is named by the same root as the act of begetting; Lamech is the continuation contained in the verb.
moledet: Birth, kindred, or birthplace
מוֹלֶדֶת
This branch extends the root from bringing forth to birth and belonging, giving the genealogy a sense of life entering a continuing line.
חָיָה
chayah
GROWS FROM
חיה
To live or be alive.
The root behind “lived” also forms words for the living and for life. English gives the verse a count of years; the Hebrew root keeps the focus on life itself, held alongside the birth that follows.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Alive, living
חַי
This branch names the state Methuselah’s years describe: being alive.
chayyim: Life, living
חַיִּים
The plural form carries the broader sense of life, linking Methuselah’s span to the continuing life represented by Lamech’s birth.
THE PATTERN
A life is held within generations, with each generation carrying life forward.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.The same roots appear together here: חיה (chayah, “live”) and ילד (yalad, “beget”). Their repeated pairing makes Methuselah’s entry part of a cadence in which a life is named by its span and by the child through whom the line continues.
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