Did Methuselah Die in the Flood? You decide

According to the Genesis in the Old Testament, the longest living man was Methuselah. Genesis 5:27 states, “Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died.” Genesis is full of people events like the Creation, Adam, Methuselah, Noah, the Flood, Abraham, and the Covenant, but how are they linked chronologically? This can be done by looking at genealogies in Genesis chapters 5 and 11. It will involve a lot of math, but it can be done.

First we can find out the time span between the biblical narrative of Creation to Abraham. This occurs in Genesis 5 and can be discovered by analyzing the times from the first born sons of the men listed in this chapter.

• 5:3: “When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son,” who was Seth.
• 5:6: “When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.”
• 5:9: “When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.”
• 5:9: “When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.”
• 5:12: “When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.”
• 5:15: “When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared.”
• 5:18: “When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch.”
• 5:21: “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.”
• 5:25: “When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech.”
• 5:28, 29a: “When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah.”
  7:6: “Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.”

Adding these years will determine the time span between the Creation (when Adam was created) and the flood: 130 + 105 + 90 + 70 + 65 + 162 + 65 + 187 + 182 + 600 = 1656. So the flood occurred 1656 years after creation. But this time line can be altered to reveal another interesting statistic: Methuselah died in the year of the Flood. So back to math.

• 5:25,27: “When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. . . . Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died.”
• 5:28, 29a: “When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah.”
• 7:6: “Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.”

First figure out how old Methuselah was when his grandson Noah was born: Methuselah was 187 years old when Lamech was born, and Lamech was 182 when Noah was born, so Methuselah was 369 years old when Noah was born. Noah was 600 years old when the Flood came, so add 600 to 369 and you get 969 years. So according to Genesis Methuselah was 969 years old when the flood came, and Methuselah died when he was 969 years old. Therefore, according to Genesis, Methuselah died in the year of the flood. But did he die in the flood? We don't know.

© 2011 Mark Nickens