Genesis 5:8

Summary

Genesis 5:8 closes the record of Seth's lifespan, stating that all his days totaled nine hundred and twelve years, after which he died. The verse follows the formulaic pattern used throughout the genealogy of Genesis 5 to mark the end of a patriarch's life.

Key words

• va-yih.yu ("and they were", H1961) — qal verb with narrative vav, third person plural, opening the clause by referring back to "the days of Seth" as the grammatical subject.
• yemei ("days of", H3117G) — masculine plural noun in construct state, linking directly to Shet, forming "the days of Seth."
• she.Teim 'es.Reh ("two [plus] ten", H8147 + H6240) — dual cardinal number followed by a singular cardinal, together forming "twelve," modifying shanah ("year").
• te.Sha' me.'ot ("nine of hundreds", H8672 + H3967) — construct cardinal followed by a plural noun, forming "nine hundred," added to the previous number.
• va-ya.Mot ("and he died", H4191) — qal verb with narrative vav, third person singular, closing the verse with the same death formula used for other patriarchs in this chapter.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two main parts joined by narrative vav-forms, which is typical of Biblical Hebrew sequential narration. The first part, va-yih.yu kol-yemei-Shet ("and all the days of Seth were"), sets up the subject as "all the days of Seth" — a plural noun phrase in construct — followed by the numerical predicate. The number itself is expressed in two stages: she.Teim 'es.Reh shanah ("twelve years") uses a dual form of "two" combined with "ten," a common Hebrew construction for numbers between eleven and nineteen, while u-te.Sha' me.'ot shanah ("and nine hundred years") uses a construct singular "nine" governing the plural noun "hundreds." The repetition of shanah ("year") after each numerical block, rather than a single combined number, reflects standard Biblical Hebrew numerical syntax, where large numbers are often built by juxtaposing smaller units each attached to the noun being counted.

The second clause, va-yamot ("and he died"), is a short independent narrative statement using the same qal verb form and vav-narrative construction as the opening verb, creating a symmetrical frame: the verse begins and ends with narrative-vav verbs bracketing the numerical statement of Seth's lifespan.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the number as ἐννακόσια δώδεκα ("nine hundred twelve"), reversing the order found in the Hebrew, which states "twelve" before "nine hundred." The Vulgate follows a similar reversed order, "nongentorum duodecim" ("nine hundred twelve"). The Hebrew's two-stage construction (twelve, then nine hundred) is not preserved distinctly in either the LXX or Vulgate, both of which present the total as a single combined numeral in the more common "hundreds before units" order.