Genesis 5:1-32

The Book of the Generations of Adam, Genesis 5:1 to Genesis 6:8.

Here begins another of the main divisions of our volume. As observed in the Introduction, (p. 50,) it is not an account of the origin or creation of Adam, nor even of his oldest progeny, but of his posterity through the line of Seth, who is treated as having taken the place of Abel. Genesis 4:25. It is our author’s habit to unfold a series of events connected as in a chain of causes and effects, and then to return and take up one or another for further development and detail . So in the following genealogy, the age, offspring, and death of each patriarch are given, and then the record returns in every case to narrate events in the lives of his descendants which transpired before his death.