The life of Man has been shortened by about a half several times, thus:—
Methuselah lived 969 years.
Heber lived 464 years.
Peleg lived 239 years.
Abraham lived 175 years.
An Israelite lived 70 years.
Christ lived 33 years.
METHUSELAH came short of the period allotted to man during the coming reign of the Lord Jesus over the earth. Then believing Jews and Gentiles, blest under the peaceful sway of the Lord of Glory, will live on the earth during the whole course of the Millennium— a thousand years. Death will then be the exception, in presence of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life.
HEBER, (or Eber) lived the longest of any born after the flood, and was the last of the Fathers, previous to the dispersion at Babel. He is regarded as the progenitor of the Hebrews or people of Israel.
PELEG was the father in whose days the earth was divided, as the meaning of the word, division imports. Then man’s daring independence of God in the attempted erection of the “tower” and “city” of Babel, called for marked and signal judgment; life was considerably shortened, and man worldwide dispersed.
ABRAHAM, an idolator, when called out by the word and glory of Jehovah, was again in his own person a witness that sin and long life could not go together. Hence God marked His sense of the growing corruption by further reducing the age of man.
ISRAEL. In the 90th Psalm, entitled “the funeral Psalm of the Wilderness,” the earliest, chronologically, and the only one of the 150 penned by Moses, 70 years are assigned as the limit of man’s life, perhaps 80 years where unusual vigor was found.
CHRIST, the suffering Messiah, thus pleads: “O, my God, take me not away in the midst of my days.” (Psalms 102:2424I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. (Psalm 102:24).) Jehovah answers by declaring the perpetuity of His Divine Being (compare Psalms 102 last clause of verse 24, with Hebrews 1:10-1210And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 11They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; 12And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. (Hebrews 1:10‑12)). Christ lived about 33 1/2 years, the present average of human life. Thus, in life and death amongst men there is the continual testimony to the guilt of the creation in crucifying the Lord of Glory.