whom Cain called his city, we have the Sethite Enoch, "who walked with God, and was not; for God took

him;" and in contradistinction to the Cainite Lamech, with his boastful ode to his sword, we have the other

Lamech, who called his son Noah, "saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our

hands, because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed." Thus the similarity of their names only brings

out the more clearly the contrast of their character.

Finally, as the wickedness of the one race comes out most fully in Lamech, who stands seventh in the

genealogy of the Cainites, so does the godliness of the other in Enoch, who equally stands seventh in that

of the Sethites. Passing from this comparison of the two genealogies to the table of the Sethites, we are

reminded of the saying, that these primeval genealogies are "monuments alike of the faithfulness of God in

the fulfillment of His promise, and of the faith and patience of the fathers." Every generation lived its

appointed time; they transmitted the promise to their sons; and then, having finished their course, they all

"died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them,

and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." That is absolutely

all we know of the majority of them. But the emphatic and seemingly needless repetition in each case of the

words, "And he died," with which every genealogy closes, tells us that "death reigned from Adam unto

Moses," (Romans 5:14) with all the lessons which it conveyed of its origin in sin, and of its conquest by the

second Adam. Only one exception occurs to this general rule - in the case of Enoch; when, instead of the

usual brief notice how many years he "lived" after the birth of his son, we read that "he walked with God

after he begat Methuselah three hundred years;" and instead of the simple closing statement that "he died,"

we are not only a second time told that "Enoch walked with God," but also that "he was not; for God took

him." Thus both his life and his translation are connected with his "walk with God." This expression is

unique in Scripture, and except in reference to Noah (Genesis 6:9) only occurs again in connection with the

priest's intercourse with God in the holy place. (Malachi 2:6) Thus it indicates a peculiarly intimate, close,

and pers onal converse with Jehovah. Alike the life, the work, and the removal of Enoch are thus explained in

the Epistle to the Hebrews: "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found,

because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."

(Hebrews 11:5)

His translation was like that of Elijah (2 Kings 2:10), and like what that of the saints shall be at the second

coming of our blessed Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:51, 52) In this connectio n it is very remarkable that Enoch

"prophesied" of the very thing which was manifested in his own case, "saying, Behold, the Lord cometh

with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among

them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which

ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."  12

When Enoch was "translated" only Adam had as yet died: Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were

still alive. On the other hand, not only Methuselah, the son of Enoch, but also his grandson Lamech, who at

the time was one hundred and thirteen years old, must have witnessed his removal. Noah was not yet born.

But how deep on the godly men of that period was the impression produced by the prophecy of Enoch, and

by what we may call its anticipatory and typical fulfillment in his translation, appears from the circumstance

that Lamech gave to his son, who was born sixty-nine years after the translation of Enoch, the name of Noah

- "rest" or "comfort" - "saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands,

because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed."

Evidently Lamech felt the burden of toil upon an earth which God had cursed, and looked forward to a

gracious deliverance from the misery and corruption existing in consequence of it, by the fulfillment of the

Divine promise concerning the Deliverer. In longing hope of this he called his son Noah. A change, indeed,

did come; but it was by the destruction of that sinful generation, and by the commencement of a new period

in the covenant-history. We mark that, in the case of Noah, Scripture no longer mentions, as before, only

one son; but it gives us the names of the three sons of Noah, to show that henceforth the one line was to

divide into three, which were to become the founders of human history.