Age of Man

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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From Adam to Noah men lived much longer than in the period that followed. Adam lived 930 years, Noah 950, and Methuselah 969, the longest recorded. After the flood, Shem lived 600 years, but no one after him reached 500. In Peleg is another decline, he lived 239 years; Abraham only 175 years. We can easily understand why God caused people in the early age of the earth to live so much longer than afterward. God said to Adam “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth” (Gen. 1:2828And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)). He also said the same to Noah after the flood (Gen. 9:1, 71And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. (Genesis 9:1)
7And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. (Genesis 9:7)). When the earth became more and more peopled the life of man was shortened. The only intimation of what may perhaps now be called the normal longevity of man is in Psalm 90:1010The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. (Psalm 90:10), and yet it is a lament for his short and troubled life: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow: for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” This is remarkable as being, according to the heading, “A prayer of Moses the man of God,” for of Moses we read that he lived 120 years, and “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deut. 34:77And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. (Deuteronomy 34:7)); but the Psalm was prophetic both for ours and future times, and Moses leads short-lived man to the eternity of God (Psa. 90:22Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. (Psalm 90:2)). In the thousand years of the millennium apparently no one will die but the wicked, and one at a hundred years of age will be called a child: the days of God’s people will be as the days of a tree, and they will, when the curse is removed, long enjoy the work of their hands (Isa. 65:20-2220There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. 21And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 22They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. (Isaiah 65:20‑22)).