Genesis 5:4. Mediocre Multitudes Lost to History.

Genesis 5:4 “And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:” 

Adam’s eight hundred years after the birth of Seth adds up for a lot of children. If he and Eve only had kids during half of that span, they still could have easily had several hundred children. Even if we take a much more conservative estimate of say, fifty children, if the succeeding generations matched that same rate of multiplication on average, by the time Adam died he would have had millions, if not billions of descendants!¹ 

    We are not given the names of any of Adam’s other children, nor is there any mention made of anything they did, either good or bad. Who were these people anyway? Perhaps none of them rebelled or made a defiant stand against God like Cain, but it seems safe to say that none of them made a bold, decisive commitment to seek God and disciple their children either. If they had, Scripture would surely mention the fact, if not directly, then by the record of at least one name from among their descendants written among those who boarded the ark! Of course it is probable that the wives of Noah and his three sons could trace their lineage back to one or more of these other nameless children of Adam. Could that be why they too, remain nameless? Could the responsibility for the rapid moral decline of the post-diluvian population lie, at least in part, at the door of their own mediocrity?  What about us? How much is our indifferent and lackluster spiritual life to blame for today’s pervasive evil and corruption? As Christ said, the generations at the end of time are like the generations in the days of Noah, particularly in their pursuit of normal routine life, heedless of their real spiritual condition and destiny (Matthew 24:37-38.) The vast majority of us today are spiritually lukewarm. We claim to believe in and worship God, but in our humanity pandering we actually worship ourselves and take the easy, popular, group-thought "righteousness” that ends in death. May God help us to continually realize our danger, to watch and pray, and strive to rise above the mediocrity of the multitudes that have not only been lost to history, but will be lost to eternity and the future immortal life.

 

 1. Assuming that each couple averaged fifty children, that is approximately 25 new couples per generation, which means by the 7th generation there would already have been well over 6 billion people alive on the earth. (25⁷ = 6,103,515,625). The genealogical record of Genesis five shows that the predominant cause of death was old age, as mankind enjoyed exceptional health and stamina so close to creation, so the only depopulation would have been through crime, war and violence.