Length of a Generation
I don’t believe Yahweh equates a generation with the length of a life.
Genesis 5, before the flood, generations were much longer in length. Noah didn’t begin having children until he was 500 years old!! Genesis 5:32 (NKJV) “And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
Immediately after the flood, men began to beget sons at a much younger age, Genesis 11:10 (NKJV) “This is the genealogy of Shem: Shem was one hundred years old, and begot Arphaxad two years after the flood.” Genesis 11:12 (NKJV) “Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Salah.” Read the rest of chapter 11 and you see young men having babies in their late twenties and early thirties. I believe that Yahweh wants us to understand that a generation is defined by our child-bearing years, our twenties, thirties, and forties. This has remained unchanged since the Flood, about 4,460 years.
Numbers 32:13 (NKJV) “So Yahweh’s anger was aroused against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of Yahweh was gone.” Granted, by the end of the 40 years in the wilderness, some of the guys dying at the end were anywhere from 60 to 200 years old, but they weren’t having babies anymore!
Deuteronomy 2:14 (NKJV) “And the time we took to come from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the Valley of the Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, just as Yahweh had sworn to them.”
Job 42:16 (NKJV) “After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations.” Notice Job saw 4 generations within a 140-year time span. And this was after he had already lost his first-round generation of children, born to him in his youth.
Psalm 95:10 (NKJV) “For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’“
Abraham and the other patriarchs lived to great ages, but read the whole story of the birth of Isaac. It was an on purpose miracle that Yahweh performed for Abe and Sarah. Genesis 21:5 (NKJV) “Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.” Abraham’s and Sarah’s ages at Isaac’s birth were outside of the norm for childbirth. Let’s not forget to include the Scripture reference for generations in Abraham’s day, Genesis 15:13-16 (NKJV) “Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. . . . 16But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Yahweh seems to indicate here that in Abraham’s day, one generation was 100 years. The four generations Genesis 15:16 refers to, in my opinion, was Levi, Moses’ Great-grandfather, who moved to Egypt with his father Jacob, Levi begat Kohath, Moses’ Grandfather, Kohath begat Amram, Moses’ father, Amram begat Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt. Exodus 12:40 (NKJV) “Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt [and Canaan] was four hundred and thirty years.” The Dead Sea Scrolls state that Levi was 48 when he moved to Egypt with Jacob and his brothers. That means Levi lived in Canaan and Egypt, thus fulfilling Exodus 12:40 exactly.
In Exodus 2 and Acts 7:23-24 we find out that Moses was 40 years old when he killed the Egyptian and escaped to the wilderness of Midian. There, he married and had his children, when he was between the ages of 40 – 80 years old. So Psalms 90:10 may relate in Moses’ case: (NKJV) “The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
Think now about our day, high school kids having babies. One generation now may be just 15 to 20 years. So now we have to figure out if generations are relative in general or is there a real biblical generation standard that we can use? This is why we keep looking into the perfect law of liberty.
I’ll keep looking at generations in the Scriptures, but it seems that Yahweh considers one generation as a father and his sons. So each set of fathers and sons is a generation. Look at the overview as humanity has more years in sin. Back in Adam’s day, a generation may have been 900 years. In Noah’s day, 500 years. In Abraham’s day, it may have been 100 years in length. In Moses’ day, 70 years. In David’s day, 40 years. It’s an interesting study and does affect our outlook on prophecy. We Americans just have to remember not to confuse the fall of America with the end times, centered in Israel and the Middle East. America is Mystery Babylon and will unfortunately fall rapidly, suddenly, and violently. As we go down the toilet, we suck most of the rest of the world down with us, setting the stage for the Antichrist to consolidate power in a new world order/one world order.
Gene Benjamin II
January 21, 2013 CE