
On Genesis, Part 8: The Giants and the Sons of God
The opening verse of Genesis chapter 5 announces that “This is the book of the generations, or race, of Adam”, and here that book continues. However since there is no explicit break in the context, nor do we see any other reference which may indicate the start of another new book, then this book continues all the way through to the very end of Genesis. While it seems that there should be a logical break in the narrative between the enumeration of the families of the sons of Noah and the time of the call of Abraham, there is not any explicit indication that this book has any further divisions. So in spite of the brevity of the first two books of Genesis, the first being from chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 3, and the second being from chapter 2 verse 4 through to the end of chapter 4, this book is comparatively quite lengthy.
The very construction of this book is also a statement, as the description of the tribes of the sons of Noah is historically relevant to the time of the call of Abraham, and also to the time of Moses when this book was written, but soon after that description the focus of the narrative of the race of Adam quickly narrows to the family of Abraham, and then to the children of Jacob exclusively. From that time, and throughout the subsequent books of the Bible, other Adamic families are mentioned only when they come into contact with the children of Israel, or when they are subjects of prophecy in relation to Israel. In the meantime, here in Genesis chapter 6, there are explicit references to the presence of another race of people, who are not of Adam but who had evidently been on the earth for a long time.
The word for book in that opening verse of Genesis chapter 5 is ספר or sepher, a word which was borrowed into English in the form of the modern word cipher. A ספר or sepher (Strong’s # 5612) is a book, missive or document, but also, as it is used in Scripture as a verb in Genesis chapter 15, an accounting, counting or numbering. The English word account also has all of the same general uses, and to cipher in Medieval English was to do arithmetic, although that word now has different uses in modern English. So this is the account of the race of Adam, and beginning with this sixth chapter of Genesis, any other people who are mentioned in this book, who are not of Adam, are interlopers who are only mentioned in this book as it becomes necessary in order to give an account of Adam, because they had come into contact with and had some impact on the history of people of the race of Adam. They are interlopers because they are not mentioned in the creation account of Genesis, and therefore they must have some other origin. Then, by the end of this book of Genesis, it becomes wholly apparent that the only portion of the race of Adam which is the direct concern of Yahweh God and the subjects of his further promises are the children of Israel. The last promises made to the Adamic race in general are found in the account of Noah in Genesis chapter 9.