זה ספר תולדות אדם, “this is the book recording the history of mankind;” the Torah refers to the history of the strain of human beings that survived the deluge, i.e. the descendants of Sheth, through Noach and his children. It therefore commences once more with the founding member of mankind, Adam.

ויקרא את שמם אדם, He named them: “Adam.” G-d called them by the name by which Adam had described himself when asked by G-d how he would name himself. (Compare Torah Sh’leymah for source) In the Midrash socher tov, a conversation during which G-d asks Adam how he would like to be named, he answered that he would like to be called אדם to reflect the fact that the raw material his body was made of was the earth. When G-d continued by asking him how he viewed Him, he answered that He should be refereed to as “Master, Lord” (אדון) as He is the Master of the universe. G-d accepted this suggestion when He declared in Isaiah 42,8: אני ה',הוא שמי, “I am the Lord, this is My name as Adam called Me thus.” [He added there that this is the reason why no other phenomenon must ever be called by His name; Ed.]. The reason why this paragraph has been inserted here is in order to teach us the origins of some names.

ויולד בדמותו כצלמו, “he begot a son in his likeness in his image;” the emphasis on this is to show us that anything he begot during the previous 129 years were only creatures that did not reflect his likeness or image, i.e. disembodied spirits, mostly מזיקים, injurious, destructive spirits. (Compare 3,20)

ויהיו כל ימי אדם תשע מאות שנה ושלשים שנה, “Adam lived for a total of 930 years.” This is not a precise number, i.e. that he lived 930 years to the day after his creation, but that he lived longer than 929 years. This rule applied to all the numbers given in the Torah for the number of years that people lived prior to the deluge.

וימת, “he died;” this is the standard formula used by the Torah for the death of anyone who died before Noach. It is to tell us that this death occurred not due to sickness, etc., but due to the curse of mortality that man became subject to after having been seduced by the serpent. From Noach’s time onward, the Torah did not always add the fact that a person died, once it had informed us about how many years they lived. [The author’s problem appears to have been that the words: “he died,” were superfluous once we knew how old they became. Ed.]

ויולד את חנוך, “he begat Chanoch.” This was the seventh generation, a number that was predestined for holiness and sanctity. David is also mentioned as having been the seventh son of his father Yishai, although that had been obvious from the way Samuel had been looking for the man to replace King Shaul. (Chronicles I 2,15) The number “seven” is special in the seven “heavens,” the seven deserts the Jewish people traversed, i.e. the desert of Sinai, in the seven seas, i.e. Lake Tiberias. [The subject has been expanded upon in Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 18. Ed.] The seventh universe (which according to our tradition, will be the last and perfect universe), as well as the seventh day of Creation, are all examples of the significance of the number “seven.”

ואיננו, “and suddenly he had disappeared;” his “death” is described as if he had never lived, as he died so much younger than all the other people named in the Bible so far [except for Hevel who had been murdered. Ed.]

ואיננו כי לקח אותו אלוקים, “he had disappeared as G-d had taken him.” [In the Torah commentary of Samuel DavidLuzatto, (translated recently by this editor) this formulation is understood as definite proof that there is an afterlife of the soul in heavenly region. Ed.] According to our author, Onkelos [not in our editions, Ed,] translates the word איננו here as meaning: “he still exists,” meaning that seeing that G-d had not let him die, he will return at the time before the Messiah comes, with Elijah. He claims that this contrasts with Onkelos in all other places where the word: אין appears where he translated it as that the phenomenon described no longer existed. According to the Zohar, Chanoch died a natural death, G-d removing him from the temptation to fall victim to the wicked ways of his contemporaries. [This would explain why so many outstanding Jewish Rabbis died before reaching the age of 40, G-d rewarding them before they would succumb to more temptations on this earth. Ed.] The prophet Jonah had asked G-d to be treated thus. (Jonah 4,3) Compare also Psalms: 49,16.

ויולד בן, “he begat a son;” the Torah did not write: “he sired Noach,” as it did in similar situations, i.e. Genesis 5,6; 5,9; Judges 11,1; Chronicles I 1,34, et al. The reason is that Noach warranted an extra verse seeing that the whole human race today exists thanks to him. The entire human race was destroyed during his lifetime; only he, his wife and his children and their wives, having been saved. A different interpretation: Metushelach, Lemech’s father, advised his son not to immediately name him as his contemporaries who were worshipping all kinds of idols, and who would curse and kill people who were monotheists, would try and kill him by telling their idols his name. After Noach had married and had sired a son, his father turned to his father again and was told then to call him Noach, as he had the potential to save all of mankind if they would follow his lifestyle. If not, they would all perish before they could harm him. (Compare Torah sh’leymah item 71 on this verse)

זה ינחמנו מן האדמה, “this one will bring us consolation regarding the condition of the earth. Seeing that he had been born after the death of Adam, the curse decreed on earth as being effective during Adam’s lifetime could now be lifted. [According to my calculation Noach was born in the year 1056 after Adam had been created. Seeing that theTorah did not report anyone being born after Lemech, Noach’s father, who was born when Adam was still alive, there is no contradiction here. Ed.]

ויהי נח בן חמש מאות שנה ויולד, “When Noach was five hundred years old, he begat;” people knew that the deluge was about to occur, as explained by Rashi already in connection with the attitudes displayed by the wives of Lemech (the descendant of Kayin); he therefore delayed becoming a father until G-d had promised him that he and his children would survive. [Up until then, the Torah had reported of people beginning to father children around the age of 100. Ed.] (based on an ancient version of Tanchuma)