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21

ENOCH

Contributed by A. J. Gaskin

Genesis 5: 21–24; Hebrews 11: 5, 6; Jude 14, 15

God delights in letting us know the things that are for His

pleasure and He also gives us practical examples of how

these are secured in men like ourselves, and this for our

encouragement. Enoch, whose name means ‘disciplined’, is a

wonderful exemplification of this and one from whom we can

learn. In the scripture in Genesis we are given his place in

history. While there seem to have been sizeable families in

those early days, there is a direct line of descent running

through, into which Enoch comes, and this shows that, in spite

of men’s downfall, God will yet secure in man what is to be for

His pleasure. In 1 Chronicles 1

Enoch comes into the generation of David, a man after God’s

heart and who, in both his life and his writings, exhibited in a

wonderful way the spirit of Christ. In Luke’s gospel Enoch

comes into the generation of the Lord Jesus Himself, the Man

in whom God’s pleasure has been eternally secured.

Now in Genesis we have a brief resume of Enoch’s life, and it

is refreshing to find, in .a line of men of whom it is said, “and

he died”, one who in contrast “was not, for God took him”.

There would seem to have been a period of soul formation

with Enoch during the first sixty-five years of his life, after

which it appears that he married and Methushelah was born,

who lived the longest life that man has had on the earth, for he

did not die until the year of the flood. But then the scripture

says that Enoch walked with God after he had begotten

Methushelah three hundred years. What those years must

have been for the heart of