Age Of Man
Age Of Man [1]
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 afterwards. God said to Adam "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." Genesis 1:28 . He also said the same to Noah after the flood. Genesis 9:1,7 . 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 90:10 , 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 labour 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," Deuteronomy 34:7; but the Psalms were prophetic both for our, and future times, and Moses leads short-lived man to the eternity of God. (Ver. 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. Isaiah 65:20-22 .
