Genesis 5:30-31 “And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died”
Yet again the patriarchs’ lives, names and even ages witness to the power and character of God. When Methuselah’s son Lamech died five years before he did, Methuselah was 964 years old (777+187= 964. See Genesis 5:25), already two years older than his grandfather Jared who held the title of the oldest man who ever died up to that date (5:20). Remember that Methuselah’s name means “when he dies then comes the forsaking,” so each extra year for Methuselah was an extension of God’s gracious mercy to the world, and a powerful tribute to the Divine forbearance.
How fitting, then, that Methuselah, that man of ancient days, gave up his son, in a way, when Lamech preceded him in death. Lamech is the least-lived antediluvian patriarch whose age we have on record: 777. Due to the high strength and vitality of the human race so close to creation, it is quite probable that Lamech gave his life as a martyr for the truth. Either way, his seemingly untimely death by its very timing served as solid proof for the coming judgment. The number seven in Scripture is both the number of Creation and Redemption. In the Sanctuary service it is most often associated with purification, cleansing and completion. In Leviticus 26, seven becomes the symbol of full retributive judgment against the sins of God’s rebellious, unrepentant people (vs 18, 21, 24, and 28). Thus, as time went on, the number of Lamech’s years came to tell the whole story of this world in a succinct snapshot of the everlasting gospel, and his life cast a foreshadowing of Christ’s. Lamech gave the world a comforter who ushered in the world’s baptism by water and its first real rest since the entrance of sin (5:28-29, 1 Peter 3:20-21). Jesus, through, and by virtue of His perfect and complete life and sacrifice brings forth the Comforter and the baptism of fire, and ultimate rest for a restless planet (John 14:16, 26, Luke 3:16, Matt 11:28, Rev 14:11,12).
If we reverse-engineer Genesis 5:30-31 further through the lens of the last book of the Bible, Lamech’s age of 777, compares and contrasts to the number 666, and corresponds to the triple warning of the three angels given right before Christ’s return and the destruction of the world by fire: Fear God and worship the Creator who made the heavens, earth and seas in six days and rested on the seventh, because the hour of his judgment has come to warn the people from their false worship before the coming torment of fire and brimstone (Rev 14:6-12).
One last solemn thought from these verses: the text says that “after he begat Noah [… Lamech] begat sons and daughters:” So, whatever happened to Noah’s brothers and sisters? Perhaps some of them, like their father, died in the faith before the flood came. The remainder of them must have perished in the flood. What a tragedy! Yet a similar choice is brought to us by the story of Lamech and the three angels’ messages. So what will it be? Like Methuselah and Lamech, are we not part of the final generations that are to see the coming of the Comforter and the baptism of fire with its resulting cleansing and rest?
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