Genesis 5:21

Summary

The verse states that Enoch lived a certain number of years and then fathered Methuselah. The Hebrew sentence follows the standard genealogical pattern of Genesis 5, combining a lifespan notice with a fatherhood notice through two narrative verb forms.

Key words

• va-yechi ("and he lived", H2421) — qal narrative form of "to live," opening the clause with the classic wayyiqtol pattern that advances the genealogical account.
• chamesh ("five", H2568) and shishim ("sixty", H8346) — cardinal numbers joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002), together forming "five and sixty," i.e., the number is expressed with the smaller unit first.
• shanah ("year", H8141) — feminine singular noun used collectively after the compound number to specify the unit of time.
• va-yyoled ("and he fathered", H3205) — hiphil (causative) narrative form of the root for "to bear/beget," indicating that Enoch caused the birth of a son, continuing the wayyiqtol chain.
• 'et (H0853) — the direct object marker, syntactically flagging Methushelach as the object of va-yyoled, with no independent meaning of its own.

What the text says

The verse is built on two sequential clauses linked by the narrative vav (H9001), which in Biblical Hebrew narrative prose signals consecutive action ("and then…"). The first clause, va-yechi Chanokh chamesh ve-shishim shanah, states the number of years Enoch lived before the event that follows; the number is expressed as "five and sixty," with the unit shanah ("year", H8141) appearing in the singular even though the quantity is plural, a common pattern in Biblical Hebrew numerical constructions. The second clause, va-yyoled et-Metushalach, uses the hiphil form ya-yyoled (from H3205) to indicate that Enoch begot Methuselah, with the object marker 'et (H0853) marking Methuselah as the direct object rather than the subject. The two clauses are grammatically parallel to other entries in the Genesis 5 genealogy, following a fixed formula: "X lived N years and fathered Y."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text (TAHOT) gives Enoch's age at Methuselah's birth as chamesh ve-shishim shanah, "five and sixty years" (65). The Vulgate matches this with "sexaginta quinque annis" (65). The LXX (Swete), however, reads ἑκατὸν καὶ ἑξήκοντα πέντε ἔτη, "a hundred and sixty-five years" (165) — a numerical divergence of one hundred years between the Greek text and the Hebrew/Vulgate tradition. The modern translations provided (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) follow the Hebrew figure of 65 rather than the LXX's 165.