What Does Genesis 5:31 Mean?
And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.
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 all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.THE KEY
The verse lets an extraordinary number pass by, then gives death the final verb.
THE MEANING
Lamech’s years are counted in detail, yet the sentence ends with the same boundary that marks every life in this genealogy: he dies. A long life remains finite; its measure does not erase its ending.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A life that lasts longer is not a life beyond death.
THE ROOT
וַיָּמֹת
wayyāmōṯ
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; death.
“died” in this verse is wayyāmōṯ. The Hebrew verb וַיָּמֹת and the noun מָוֶת (māveṯ, death) grow from the same root: death is not separate from the act of dying. After the years are counted, the root’s final verb gives the count its boundary.
ALSO GROWS
māveṯ: Death
מָוֶת
The noun names the same ending that the verse gives as an action: Lamech dies.
mēṯ: Dead; a dead person
מֵת
This branch names the state that follows the verb וַיָּמֹת.
hēmîṯ: To cause to die; put to death
הֵמִית
The causative form shows another branch of the same root: bringing about death.
THE PATTERN
A life may be counted by its length, but every human measure still meets mortality.
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died.Therefore, as through one man falling short entered into the world, and death through it; and so death passed through to all people, because all have missed the mark.THE THREAD
A time to bear, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.The Hebrew word translated “die” comes from מות (m-w-t), the same root as Lamech’s “he died.” Genesis closes the count with that verb; Ecclesiastes places the same ending among life’s appointed times.
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