I feel the need to interrupt my study of Joseph for a moment and speak about something I accidently uncovered as I was looking for the ages of the people I used in yesterday’s post. In order to present some semblance of understanding, please allow me to give brief introductions of just a few people.
Adam – the first man God created. Adam lived 930 years (Genesis 1:27, 2:20b, 5:5)
Seth – Adam and Eve’s third son, born to Adam at 130 years of age, lived to 912 (Genesis 4:25, 5:3, 5:8)
Enoch – five generations after Seth, he ‘only’ lived 365 years and fathered Methuselah at 65 (Genesis 5:21, 23)
Methuselah – the oldest man to ever live, died at 969. His son, Lamech, who was born when he was 187, was the father of Noah, making Methuselah Noah’s grandfather (Genesis 5:25, 28-29)
Noah – built the ark and fathered Shem when he was 500. Noah lived to 950 (Genesis 5:29, 32, 6:14, 9:29)
Shem – the line the Jews came from (think Semites/anti-Semitism). Shem lived 500 years. (Genesis 11:11)
Terah – eight generations and 390 years after Shem, he was the father of Abraham and lived 205 years (Genesis 11:24-26, 32)
Abraham – the patriarch of the Hebrews and eventually all Believers, he fathered Isaac at 100 and lived to be 147 (Genesis 21:5, 47:28)
Isaac – the second of the three patriarchs, fathered Jacob at age 60 and lived 180 years (Genesis 25:26, 35:28)
Jacob – the third patriarch and the father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joseph was born when he was 91 (based on his age when he went before Pharaoh) and lived to be 147 (Genesis 47:9, 28)
Joseph – Jacob’s eleventh son (Genesis 35:24) (Joseph isn’t part of the point I’m trying to share)
Levi – Jacob’s third son. He and his family and descendants became the Levites, eventually becoming the God-ordained second-level priests of God during the time of Moses. Levi had three sons, one of whom was Kohath. Levi lived 137 years (Genesis 35:23, Exodus 6:16, Numbers 3:5)
Amram – son of Kohath and grandson of Levi who lived to be 137. He was the father of Moses. (Exodus 6:20)
Moses – the man God used to emancipate the Israelites from Egypt and deliver the Ten Commandments, among many other things. He died at age 127 (Exodus 3:10, 20:1-17, Deuteronomy 34:7)
As I mentioned in the beginning, as I was looking up the ages of people for yesterday’s post, I ran across some incredible information! Things we’ve never been taught, let alone heard of!
We know that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. But did you ever wonder where his information came from? Sure it was God-breathed as II Timothy 3:16 (and others) tells us; which means that God guided them about what to write, but the initial information had to come from somewhere, right? Because God didn’t dictate these books – or any of the sixty-six books in the Bible.
Well, glory be! Moses received the information through a direct line of oral history! And then God made sure he wrote it down correctly.
Take a look at the graph I made below.
Adam was still living when Methuselah was born. Methuselah was still alive when Noah was born, but died just before The Flood. Noah was still alive when Abraham’s father, Terah was living, and Noah’s son, Shem lived until the time of Isaac. The oral history from Isaac to Moses was passed from generation to generation, until Moses wrote it all down.
Isn’t that amazing?!?!? Our God is an awesome God! He’s Omniscient and His Plans are perfect – even through thousands of years!