Genesis Deeper ㉔ Walking with God · Why Was Enoch Not Recorded as Dying Like the Others? (Genesis 5:6~24)
This series takes one Bible passage at a time and looks at it a little more closely. The images are free to use in worship, class, and on social media.
Seth lived one hundred five years, then became the father of Enosh. Seth lived after he became the father of Enosh eight hundred seven years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. All of the days of Seth were nine hundred twelve years, then he died. … Jared lived one hundred sixty-two years, then became the father of Enoch. Jared lived after he became the father of Enoch eight hundred years, and became the father of other sons and daughters. All of the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty-two years, then he died. Enoch lived sixty-five years, then became the father of Methuselah. After Methuselah’s birth, Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and became the father of more sons and daughters. All the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him.
Genesis 5:6~8, 18~24 (World English Bible)
1. A Sentence Repeated Five Times
Genesis 5 is a list of names and ages. Adam, at the head of the list (verses 3~5), is written a little differently, with the words ‘in his own likeness, after his image.’ The five people who follow him, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared, are recorded in almost the same sentences.
The pattern goes like this. Someone lived so many years and became the father of a son. He lived so many more years after that and became the father of other sons and daughters. All his days were so many years, then he died. Only the names and numbers change. The sentences stay the same. Read it aloud, and by the third time the next words come out on their own.
But with Enoch, who comes after Jared, the pattern breaks. Where the other five records say he ‘lived’ so many more years after his son was born, Enoch’s record has different words. And his record does not end with ‘then he died.’ That raises a question. Why was Enoch not recorded as dying like the others?
2. Where Our Eyes Go First
When we read this passage, our eyes go first to the end of verse 24: “…and he was not found, for God took him.” God took a person? How did he take him? Did Enoch go up into the sky? Did he simply disappear one day?
But Genesis does not say a single word about how. If we read with our attention fixed on how God took him, Enoch becomes someone very far from us. He remains only a special person who went where no one else could go.
Read that way, we pass over words the text writes twice. They are ‘Enoch walked with God,’ repeated in verse 22 and again in verse 24. So the reason, ‘for God took him,’ needs to be read together with those words.
3. Going Deeper · The Two Places Where the Pattern Changes
Here is the answer first. The text itself gives the reason: ‘for God took him.’ And before that, it says twice that Enoch walked with God. The list records Enoch’s age too, but what it remembers him by is not how long he lived. It is whom he walked with.
Set Enoch’s record beside the five before him, and the pattern changes in only two places.
The first place is verse 22. Seth “lived after he became the father of Enosh eight hundred seven years,” and Jared “lived after he became the father of Enoch eight hundred years.” But of Enoch it says, “After Methuselah’s birth, Enoch walked with God for three hundred years.” The time after the son’s birth is still there, and the ‘sons and daughters’ that follow are still there. What changed is the one word ‘lived.’ The Hebrew makes this even clearer. For all five earlier people, that place has ‘and he lived’ (vayechi). Only for Enoch does that place have ‘and he walked’ (vayyithallekh).
The second place is the end. The five earlier records all end with ‘then he died.’ Enoch’s record gives his age in verse 23, “All the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years.” Then, in verse 24, instead of ‘then he died,’ it closes like this.
“Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him.”
Verse 24 begins by repeating the words of verse 22. At the end of the record of a man who walked with God for three hundred years comes the statement that God, who walked with him, took him.
Genesis writes the walking before the taking. In the same way, when the New Testament letter to the Hebrews reads this passage, it also writes about Enoch’s life before he was taken. Hebrews calls his being taken his “translation.”
“…he has had testimony given to him that before his translation he had been well pleasing to God.” (Hebrews 11:5)
4. Word Study · Walked · With God · He Was Not · Took
① Walked · vayyithallekh (וַיִּתְהַלֵּךְ). This takes the common verb ‘to walk’ (halakh) and puts it in a form that means walking about, going here and there. In Genesis this form appears in eight places. The first is 3:8, where the man and the woman heard “Yahweh God’s voice walking in the garden.” The word ‘walking’ there is this same form (mithallekh). With the very form first used when God walked in the garden, Genesis says that Enoch walked with God.
② With God · et ha’elohim (אֶת־הָאֱלֹהִים). A word meaning ‘with’ is placed before God. In all 39 books of the Hebrew Bible, the phrase ‘walked with God’ appears three times: twice for Enoch (5:22, 24) and once for Noah (6:9). With Abram, the same verb is joined to ‘before me’: “…Walk before me, and be blameless.” (17:1) Walking not ‘before’ God but ‘with’ God is said only of two people, Enoch and Noah.
③ He was not · ve’enennu (וְאֵינֶנּוּ). In Hebrew this is a single word meaning ‘and he was not.’ The word ‘found’ in the World English Bible is added to bring out the sense. The word itself does not say where he went. It only states, briefly, that he was no longer there.
④ Took · laqach (לָקַח). A very common verb meaning ‘to take, to seize, to bring.’ It is the same verb in 2:15: “Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden…”
5. One More Thing · The Same Two Words, a Different Ending
‘He was not’ and ‘take’ appear together again in a single verse later in Genesis. Jacob, who has lost Joseph, says this to his sons.
“…Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin away…” (Genesis 42:36)
Here ‘is no more’ is the same word as in 5:24 (enennu), and ‘take’ is the same verb (laqach). In Jacob’s mouth, these two words are words of loss. They are the words of a father who has lost Joseph, whose son Simeon has not come back, and who is afraid that even Benjamin, the one left, will be taken from him.
The same two words are used in 5:24. The difference is that here both words are used of one person. In Jacob’s words, the son who is no more and the son who would be taken are different sons, and Joseph’s disappearance and the plan to take Benjamin are different events. In 5:24, the reason Enoch was no longer there is written right beside it: ‘for God took him.’ And the one who took him is the very God Enoch had walked with for three hundred years. So here the same two words do not end in loss. They end with the One he walked with taking him.
6. For Us Today
This passage leaves us with one message. The Bible remembers Enoch by whom he walked with.
Genesis does not record a single thing Enoch achieved. Nothing he built and nothing he said is written down. What is written is “…Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and became the father of more sons and daughters.” The three hundred years he walked with God were the very same three hundred years in which he had children and raised them. Enoch’s walk with God was not separate from the life he lived every day.
On Sunday morning in the classroom, calling the children by name, sharing snacks, and sitting two children back down after a quarrel can also be time spent walking with God. As today comes to an end, along with ‘What did I do?’, you might also ask yourself, ‘Where did I walk with God today?’
“God who walked with Enoch, let us walk with you in our ordinary days too. In the time we spend with children and the time we spend at home, help us not to forget that you are beside us. Let our days be remembered not by what we achieved but by whom we walked with. Amen.”
🕊 How to Use This in Ministry
Opening question
Ask, “Who did you come to church with today?” Let each child share one thing they talked about with that person on the way. For a child who came alone, ask what they saw or whom they met on the way. Then say, “The Bible has a man who walked with God for three hundred years,” and move into the passage.
Activity
Draw five lines on the board and write Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, one name on each line. Next to every name write the same three steps, ‘became the father · lived and had sons and daughters · then he died,’ and read them aloud together with the children. On a sixth line write Enoch, and read Genesis 5:22~24 together. First tell the children that the names and ages differ on every line, so they do not need to look for those. Then ask, “Where the other lines say ‘lived’ and ‘then he died,’ what does Enoch’s line say?” If a child answers with verse 23, “All the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years,” show that in the other records that sentence goes on to ‘then he died’ (verses 8 and 20). Enoch’s record does not stop there but continues into verse 24, so have them read to the end of verse 24 again. In a different color of chalk, write what the children find, ‘walked with God’ and ‘he was not found, for God took him,’ in those two places on Enoch’s line. Then show the image captioned ‘Walked with God for three hundred years’ and ask the children what the people in the picture are doing.
Application
On a small card, each child writes their own name in “____ walks with God,” for example, “Mia walks with God.” In verse 22, ‘walked with God for three hundred years’ is followed by ‘became the father of more sons and daughters.’ In the same way, each child adds one thing they do every day this week, such as “while going to school” or “while playing with my little brother.” Next week, take the cards out again and share a moment when God was with them while they were doing that.
🖼️ Today’s Four Images · Press and hold or right click to save
Walked with God for three hundred years |
Lived and had other sons and daughters |
Enoch walked with God |
Yahweh God’s voice walking in the garden |
📄 Image license CC0 (public domain) · Free to use, modify, and redistribute without attribution.
🤖 These images were created with AI (Grok).
📖 Genesis Deeper ⑭ Where Are You · how the man and woman hid when God was walking in the garden
Origin Bible · Mission Zedero
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✍️ This article was written with the help of AI and reviewed by a person.
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