Genesis 5:27

Summary

Genesis 5:27 closes the genealogical notice for Methuselah by totaling his lifespan and recording his death. The verse states that "all the days of Methuselah" amounted to nine and sixty years and nine hundred years, and then he died.

Key words

• va-yihyu ("and they were", H1961) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive) marking the next event in the genealogical chain; plural because the subject is "days" (a plural noun).
• yemei ("days of", H3117G) — construct plural of "day," linking to Metushelach; the construct chain "days of Methuselah" is the standard idiom for expressing a lifespan in these genealogies.
• tesha' ve-shishim ("nine and sixty", H8672/H8346) — the number is built by stating the smaller unit (nine) before the larger (sixty), joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002), a common Hebrew numeral pattern.
• u-tesha' me'ot ("and nine hundred", H9002/H8672/H3967) — a second numeral block, again smaller-before-larger, added to the first to form the full total of 969.
• va-yamot ("and he died", H4191) — qal narrative form closing the formula; this same verb closes each patriarch's notice in the chapter.

What the text says

The verse is built from two coordinated narrative clauses joined by the vav-consecutive (va, H9001): the first reports the total years of Methuselah's life, the second reports his death. The subject of the first clause is kol yemei Metushelach ("all the days of Methuselah," H3605 + H3117G + H4968), a construct phrase meaning literally "all-of days-of Methuselah," which functions as the grammatical subject of the plural verb va-yihyu ("and they were," H1961) — the days themselves "were" a certain number, rather than Methuselah "living" a certain number, as some translations render it.

The number itself is expressed in two numeral blocks rather than a single figure: first tesha' ve-shishim shanah ("nine and sixty year[s]," H8672 + H8346 + H8141) giving 69, then u-tesha' me'ot shanah ("and nine hundred year[s]," H8672 + H3967 + H8141) giving 900, together yielding 969. This additive, smaller-unit-first structure is typical of the numeral system in this chapter's genealogies. The final clause, va-yamot ("and he died," H4191), is a short qal narrative verb identical in form to the one closing every other patriarch's notice in Genesis 5.

Differences between versions

The LXX (ἃς ἔζησεν, "which he lived") and several modern translations (BSB "Methuselah lived") render the sense as Methuselah living a number of years, whereas the Hebrew subject of the verb "were" is the days themselves, not Methuselah as the one who "lived" them. The Vulgate (facti sunt omnes dies... anni, "all the days... became years") follows the Hebrew construction more closely, keeping "days" as the grammatical subject. The numeral totals (969) agree across the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate.