Skip to content
mannafest.faith

Genesis 5:27

in Genesis 5

So Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV

ASV

and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

KJV

And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

This verse in Genesis 5

Commentary

5 notes on this verse
And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years, and he died,.... This was the oldest man that ever lived, no man ever lived to a thousand years: the Jews give this as a reason for it, because a thousand years is God's day, according to Psa 90:4 and no man is suffered to arrive to that.

This site's exposition

When Methuselah was 187 years old

on Genesis 5:25-28

Methuselah reached 969 years, longer than any man in Scripture, and then he died. He became the father of Lamech, and the numbers put his death in the year of the flood, which Jamieson reads as a warning built into his name. The etymology is disputed.

The record, by era

The Medieval Church1 voice

A commentator

Bede

Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron) · Written before 735.

proposed

It should be noted that where our Codices, translated from the Hebrew source, say Adam lived for one hundred and thirty years and begot Seth, the ancient translation has, instead of one hundred and thirty, two hundred and thirty; where our Codices continue, "And the …

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

A commentator

John Gill

1697–1771

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

proposed

And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years, and he died,.... This was the oldest man that ever lived, no man ever lived to a thousand years: the Jews give this as a reason for it, because a thousand years is God's day, according to Psa 90:4 and no man is suffered to arrive to that.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

The days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years - This is the longest life mentioned in Scripture, and probably the longest ever lived; but we have not authority to say positively that it was the longest. Before the flood, and before artificial refinements were much known and cultivated, the life of man was greatly protracted, and yet of him who lived within thirty-one years of a thousand it is said he died; and the longest life is but as a moment when it is past.

The words behind it

11 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • וַיִּהְיוּ֙and they were

    vaiyihyuH19613559 times

  • כָּל־all

    kol-H36055413 times

  • יְמֵ֣י[the] days of

    yemeiH31172304 times

  • מְתוּשֶׁ֔לַחMethuselah

    metushelachH49686 times

  • תֵּ֤שַׁעnine

    tesha'H867258 times

  • וְשִׁשִּׁים֙and sixty

    veshishimH834659 times

  • שָׁנָ֔הyear[s]

    shanahH8141877 times

  • וּתְשַׁ֥עand nine

    utesha'H867258 times

  • מֵא֖וֹתhundred<s>

    meotH3967581 times

  • שָׁנָ֑הyear[s]

    shanahH8141877 times

  • וַיָּמֹֽת׃ פand he died

    vaiyamotH4191839 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Where this verse is studied

About Genesis

The Creation of Light, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
The Creation of Light, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Bede, Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron); Chuck Missler, The Book of Genesis; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763).