FIRST PERIOD: SIXTY-FIVE YEARS
And Enoch lived SIXTY AND FIVE YEARS, and begat Methuselah:
SECOND PERIOD: THREE HUNDRED YEARS
And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah
THREE HUNDRED YEARS,
and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were
THREE HUNDRED SIXTY AND FIVE YEARS:
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
THE history of Enoch presents the path of the saint, or elect one, in two stages or periods; namely, before, and after, his conversion to God; the birth of Methuselah, when Enoch his father was sixty and five years old, being the turning point in the patriarch's history.
Again, it presents him, during the second period, in two distinct phases or aspects. In the FIRST of these we behold him walking with God, but in the world, amid the domestic circumstances and associations of life; sons and daughters, as we read, being born to him. And here, observe, were we told nothing more of him than this, we might conclude that there was nothing peculiar as to his exit; that instead of being translated to heaven without seeing death, as we read of him in Heb. 11:55By 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), he, after having lived three hundred and sixty-five years upon earth, died like the rest of the patriarchs. As to the SECOND aspect, we still see him walking with God, but in a higher way altogether; namely, as a heavenly stranger, above and apart from the world and its interests; alone with God in the sanctuary: the act being one and the same as before, but the aspect different: in harmony with which we find that he did not die, like the other patriarchs; but that he, a wondrous exception to the general order of men, was translated to heaven without tasting of death; that, as we read, 44 HE WAS NOT; FOR GOD TOOK HIM." And here, observe, that in this second view of the subject, his age is not noticed; TIME, as in the case of the Church, of which Enoch we believe to be the type, being in this instance made no account of in the life of this heavenly stranger.