Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (July-Sept. 1991) 288-97
Copyright © 1991 by
Enoch, a Man Who Walked
with God
Timothy J. Cole
Senior Pastor,
The account of Enoch, the seventh from
Adam, is placed in the
third
section of Genesis1 and is announced by the major structural
word of
the book tOdl;OT, generally expressed as "these are the gener-
ations of. . . ." However, as Woudstra
has demonstrated,2 the tOdl;OT
structure
announces the historical development from the ancestor
mentioned and
should be understood as, "this is what became of
(person's
name)," or "this is what happened to the line of (person's
name)." Genesis 5:1 would then read, "This is
the book of what be-
came of
the family tree of Adam."
What did become of Adam's family
tree? Whatever happened
to the
human race? Did God's promise of death (
Whatever
became of the curse (
lion, die
after all? Before 5:1 no one had died
(though Abel was
murdered by
his brother and Lamech killed a man for wounding him
and a
boy for striking him,
The theme of chapter 5 is the end of life.
"No reader of Genesis
5 . . . fails to be impressed by the recurrent phrase 'And he died;'
which
baldly and emphatically concludes the entry for each of
these
antediluvians. The whole movement of the
regular form of
these
notices is toward death."3 In other words the answer to the
1 The first section is 1:1-2:3 and the second is 2:4-4:26.
2 M. H. Woudstra, "The Toledot of the Book of Genesis and Their Redemptive-His-
torical Significance," Concordia
Theological Journal 5 (1970): 185.
3 David J. A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch (Sheffield:
sity Press, 1978), p. 66.
288
Enoch, a Man Who Walked with God 289
questions,
Whatever happened to Adam's family tree? or Whatever
happened to
the human race? is that they all died. Did God's prom-
ise of death ("in the day that you eat from
it you shall surely die,"
became of
the curse? "The answer is that, in
spite of human
achievements (the achievements of chapter 4), the curse of death
reigned as
king from Adam's time on through the generations."4
The account of Enoch, then, the one who
walked with God, is
placed in
the midst of the reign of death. This
theme of death har-
monizes well with the author's overall theme in
Genesis 1-11, the
spread of
sin and the spread of grace.5
"Thus Genesis chapter 5 de-
scribes
something like a transitional period, during which death
caused by
sin only slowly broke the powerful physical resistance of
primitive
human nature."6 In other words in spite of human
progress,
civilization, and prosperity, in spite of mankind's aspirations, he
died.7 So the setting of Enoch's walk with God is
the spread of sin,
ending with
death.
The two chief components of narrative are
characters (people)
and
events.8 Events make up the
plot, and the characters are the ac-
tors who carry out the plot. The plot of Genesis 5, a plot whose struc-
ture is carried along with the monotonous
phrase "and he died" (re-
peated eight times) and whose actors are Adam's
family tree (10
men), is
a masterful backdrop against which is recorded this re-
markable sentence, "Enoch walked with
God." In a plot where a fu-
neral bell continually tolls out its mournful
drone there is a disjunc-
tive ray of hope, another example of the
spread-of-sin, spread-of-
grace
theme. The plot unfolds in the following
way.
The prologue (5:1-2) of this
"Genealogy of Death" recalls the
creation of
Adam. Moses wrote that man, created male
and female,
made in
God's likeness, was blessed by God and named "Man" (this
naming here
mentioned for the first time in Genesis).
Adam also be-
came the
father of a son in his own likeness (mentioned for the first
time in
Genesis), a son made according to Adam's image, a son whom
Adam named
Seth (v. 3).
4 Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
House, 1988), p.
171.
5 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, pp. 64-73.
6 Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary,
rev. ed., trans. John H. Marks (Phila-
delphia:
7 Allen P. Ross, "The Exegetical Exposition of the Pentateuch:
Genesis" (class notes
in 117
Exegesis in the Pentateuch,
8 Shimon Bar-Efrat, "Some Observations on
the Analysis of Structure in Biblical
Narrative,"
Vetus Testamentum
30 (1980): 155-73.
290 Bibliotheca Sacra /
July-September 1991
The effect of the prologue, as Sailhamer points out, is to cast
God in the
role of a father.9
He made a son in His own likeness. He
named His
son. He blessed His son. He is like the Genesis patri-
archs who also did the same for their
children. This same pattern is
duplicated by
Adam. One important point emerges in the
genealogi-
callist in chapter 5: God is shown to be the Father of all mankind.
The plot continues with a lengthy
genealogical list (vv. 3-32)
and
concludes in 9:28-29 (with the account of the Flood spliced into
the
record of man from Adam to Noah). The
list in Genesis 5 follows
this
pattern:
Component 1: Person A lived X years and then became the fa-
ther of B.
Component 2: Person A lived Y years after he fathered B, fa-
thering other sons and daughters.
Component 3: Person A's entire life lasted X and Y years;
then
he
died.
The same pattern is followed again in
Shem (Noah's son). However, in the record of
Enoch, the third com-
ponent is missing. No mention is made of death. But with the
other
patriarchs in
chapter 5 death is emphasized. Why, for
instance,
add
"and he died" when that fact is understood? If a person's entire
life
consists of X number of years, it is assumed (logically) that he
died. Yet the writer underscores each man's death
by repeating the
words
"and he died." The purpose is
to highlight by contrast the
account of
Enoch. Enoch, seventh in the line from
Adam, breaks the
structural
pattern--he did not live (Component 1), he walked with
God; he did
not die (Component 3), he walked with God and God
took
him. The reversal is stark and bursting
with theological truth.
Obviously
the author crafted the genealogy in this way to make it a
theological
commentary.10 Theological
truth about life and death
(under the curse) is being taught by means of this recurring
literary
pattern and
the subsequent break from it. The pattern expresses the
author's
value system.11
The prologue (vv. 1-2) followed by the
monotonous genealogical
list of
death (vv. 3-32) juxtaposes two opposing themes. The sons and
daughters of
God the Creator, children made in His own likeness,
children
designed to be blessed, as a father blesses the children he
loves and
cares for, fall prey instead to a curse.
Those who were once
9 John Sailhamer, Genesis, 2 vols., The
Expositor's Bible Commentary (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 2:70.
10 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical
Narrative (
University
Press, 1985), p. 120.
11 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic
Books, 1981), p. 95.
Enoch, a Man Who Walked with God 291
blessed are
now cursed. Those made in His likeness,
those made to
live are
now destined to die, returning to dust, thereby also falling
prey to
the serpent who will eat dust (
the
Father die.
The spread-of-sin motif is evident. But where is the accompa-
nying spread-of-grace motif? Where is the sense of hope in the
midst of
all this death?
The Account of Enoch, Seventh from Adam
The account of Enoch (
in
Genesis 5. In contrast to the smooth,
repetitious sequence of the
rest of
the genealogy, there is an abrupt disjuncture at
of
"And Enoch lived" (which would be the regular pattern up to this
point),
Moses wrote, "Enoch walked with God three hundred years."
Also in
verse 24 the author dropped the regular phrase "and he
died,"
replacing it with, "And Enoch walked with God; and he was
not, for
God took him."
The effect of this abrupt change at verses
22 and 24 is to place
Enoch's life outside the regular sequence of the chapter.
"A study of
the
author's style in Genesis shows that when he wants to begin a
specific
topic much narrower than the preceding subject matter, he
uses such
a technique of disjuncture."12 The change in structure re-
veals an exception to the accounts of the
others. In contrast to the
formulae of
the others, who lived and died, Enoch walked with God.
He did not
simply "live"; he walked with God.
This suggests that
walking with
God was a step above mere living.13
Furthermore
Enoch did
not die; he walked with God (stated for the second time),
and God
took him.
The hithpael
stem of the verb j`lahA (waw plus Hithpael pret-
erite) recalls the Lord God walking in the
garden (Hithpael partici-
ple, 3:8)14 and in some way
corresponds to it.15 Whenever
the author
of Genesis
(and of the Pentateuch) used the Hithpael stem of j`lahA,
one of
the subjects of the narratives is God. (The only exception is Ex-
odus 21:19.)
Like Enoch, Noah also walked with God (Gen. 6:9).
When Abram
arrived in the land, the author picked up the thought
12 John Sailhamer, "Exegetical Notes:
Genesis 1:1-2:4a," Trinity Journal n.s. 5
(1984): 76.
13 Ross, Creation and Blessing, p. 175.
14 Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary (
Books
Publishers, 1987), p. 127.
15 A. Dillmann, Genesis, trans.
William B. Stevenson, 2 vols. (
292 Bibliotheca Sacra /
July-September 1991
of
walking once again: "Arise, walk about the land" (
before
Me" (17:1; cf. 24:40; 48:15).
Walking with God involves the
idea of
continuity or habitual manner of life, and all these examples
employ the Hithpael stem (cf. Deut.
The mention of the longevity of Enoch's
walk-300 years-adds
to the
force of the verb. So the expression
"walked with God" was
the
author's summary of Enoch's life. Bullinger notes that "walk" is
"used of one's continued course of action and life: i.e., the
habitual
habit and
manner of life."16 Today one might say that walking with
God was
Enoch's lifestyle.
Why did Moses state twice that Enoch
walked with God? Why
underline the
death of the preceding and succeeding patriarchs?
Sailhamer
cogently answers these questions:
Why does the author want to point to Enoch
so specifically as an excep-
tion? It is not merely because he did not die. That in itself is reason
enough to merit
special attention, but it does not sufficiently explain
the purpose of
the author in this case. The author's
purpose can be
better seen in
the way he has emphasized, through repetition, that
Enoch "walked with God" (vv. 22,
24). The phrase "walked with
God". . .
clearly means
something to the author, for he uses the same expres-
sion
to describe Noah as "a righteous man, blameless among the peo-
ple
of his time" (6:9), and Abraham and Isaac as faithful servants of
God (17:1; 24:40; 48:15). Its use here shows that the author views it
as the
reason why Enoch
did not die. Enoch is pictured as one who did not
suffer the fate
of Adam ("you will die") because, unlike the others, he
"walked with
God."17
Here then is a glimpse of grace in the
midst of the spread of sin
(death being a result of sin). Here the funeral bell stops tolling. One
man
walked with God and God took him.18
He escaped the clutches
of
death. Clearly the pathway to life, the
road one is to travel to
escape the
sting of death, is the one of the pilgrim, in which a person
walks with
God.
At this point Moses did not explain what
it means to walk with
God. He
cited no method or formula. Though he
held Enoch up as a
model for
others to follow, he communicated no descriptive explana-
tion of this "walk." Moses held that explanation until later in
the
narrative. He uncovered an inherent relationship between
the past
and the
future, using the lives of God's people.
"That which hap-
16 E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech
Used in the Bible (
woode, 1898; reprint,
Speiser,
"The Durative Hithpael: A Tan-Form," Journal
of the American Oriental
Society 75 (1955): 118-21,
17 Sailhamer, Genesis, p. 74.
18 The same terminology, "God took him," is used of Elijah's
transport to glory in
which he
escaped death (2 Kings 2:1, 5, 9-10).
Enoch, a Man Who Walked with God 293
pened to God's people in the past portends
events that still lie in the
future. Or, to say it another way, the past is seen
as a lesson of the
future."19 Enoch's
walk, then, though yet unexplained theologi-
cally, is a lesson the author will present at a
later time, a lesson
(from the past) designed to be learned by future generations
of God's
people, for
they too will live under the curse.
Walking with God, then, incorporates
several theological
ideas. First, the one who walks with God is a
creature made in God's
likeness and
linked to the Creator in a Father-son relationship. Sec-
ond, walking with God occurred during the
reign of death, thereby
making the
walk an exception to the normal pattern of living and
dying. Thus simply living and dying is portrayed as
below the norm
in
quality. And conversely, walking with
God is a step above mere
living. It is the way to overcome the curse. Third, the walk is de-
scriptive of a lifestyle, a pattern of life with
continuity and dura-
tion.
Fourth, this walk or way of life is designed to be a lesson for
God's people in the future.
In writing of Enoch's life Moses' aim was
to communicate hope.
Death is not
the final answer; for Enoch God overruled death. The
black
cloud of death, hovering over the human race, a cloud
promised by
God Himself, a dark cloud expressing the essence of the
curse, is
split wide open with the brilliant rays of Enoch's life.
There is
rescue from death. There is rescue from
the effects of the
curse. There is hope. There is a road back into the garden; there
is a
method of
bypassing the guardian cherubim and flaming sword-
there is
access to the tree of life. One can
indeed live forever. It is
possible
after all once again to fellowship with and worship the
Lord God in the garden. How? By walking with God; thus the lesson
of
Enoch (placed in the genealogy of death) is this: Life comes
through
walking with God.
A Pastoral Response
Israelites approaching
Etched in
their own history was the tragic account of an entire gener-
ation lost (to death) in the wilderness (cf.
the Book of Numbers; 1
Cor.
10:1-13), a generation that overlooked or ignored the lesson that
life with
God (eternal life) comes by walking with God.
Enoch's life is also a model for the
people of God's New
Covenant to
follow in their earthly pilgrimage.20 The
finality of
19 John H. Sailhamer, "The Canonical
Approach to the OT: Its Effect on Under-
standing
Prophecy," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 30
(September
1987): 311.
20 Ross, Creation and Blessing, p.
174.
294 Bibliotheca Sacra /
July-September 1991
death
caused by sin, and so powerfully demonstrated in the geneal-
ogy of Genesis, is in fact not so final. Man was not born to die; he was
born to
live and that life comes by walking with God.
The tentacles
of the
curse, reaching over the entire scope of Genesis 1-11 (except for
1:1-2:3) and
causing unrelieved gloom21 are thwarted at the seventh
from
Adam. Walking with God is the key to the
chains of the curse.
Furthermore
walking with God is a step above mere living; it is also
the
answer to man's deepest need and greatest fear (death).
The New Testament gives a theological
commentary on Enoch's
life.
WALKING WITH
GOD INVOLVES FAITH IN HIM
The writer of Hebrews bolstered the
hearts of his readers by
communicating the concept that faith is the key to perseverance in
the
furnace of suffering (Heb.
tion of faith (11:1), he cited an impressive
list of people who gained
God's
approval (v. 2) and won spiritual victories by means of faith.
Faith
enables believers to understand creation (v. 3, referring to Gen.
1-2). Abel gained a
righteous standing with God by means of faith
(Heb. 11:4,
referring to Gen. 4). And next is Enoch,
who by faith "was
taken up
so that he should not see death; and he was not found be-
cause God
took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his
being
taken up he was pleasing to God" (Heb. 11:5). The next verse
(tucked between references to Enoch and Noah, both of whom
are
said in
Genesis to have walked with God) is critically placed and
theologically significant: "And without faith it is impossible to
please Him,
for he who comes to God must believe that He is and
that He
is a rewarder of those who seek Him" (v. 6).
Hebrews 11:5-6 is a divinely inspired
commentary on Genesis
5:22-24. The analysis of
Enoch's walk with God focuses on his faith
in
God. Faith then was the theological
description of his walk and
the
instrumental cause of his pleasing God.
Two features of Enoch's
faith are
stressed: his faith in the reality of God ("for he who comes
to God
must believe that He is," v. 6), and his faith in the respon-
siveness of God ("and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him,"
v. 6). Walking with God requires faith in Him, faith
in the reality
of His
existence, and faith in the reality of His responsiveness (to
one's
faith). Walking with God inspires
believers to look to God's
future
rewards based on their present faith and life.
The writer of Hebrews did not say that
Enoch thought about God
or
speculated about Him. He did not read
about God or talk about
God and
thereby gain His favor. Rather, Enoch
believed God and
thereby
pleased God.
21 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, p. 66.