Enoch the Sage (Gen 5:23–24)

The Genealogy of Adam

²³ All the days of Enoch were 365 years.

וַיְהִ֖י כָּל־יְמֵ֣י חֲנ֑וֹךְ חָמֵ֤שׁ וְשִׁשִּׁים֙ שָׁנָ֔ה וּשְׁלֹ֥שׁ מֵא֖וֹת שָׁנָֽה׃

Gee, that’s not even half as long as his grandson Lemekh. All the other guys in our list lived at least 900 years, except for Mahalalel, a bargain at 895. Ya think “365” is about the number of days in a year? Everybody else certainly thinks so.

It’s worth pointing out that 365 is the number of whole days in a solar year. As far as the “whole” days go, we all know that the earth takes about a quarter of a day longer than 365 days to go around the sun — hence Leap Day in our secular calendars. But there are not 365 days in the 12 lunar months that the Jewish year uses, only 354 and change, demanding an additional leap month six times every 19 years. That’s the Metonic cycle, if you must know.

Is the biblical year lunar or solar? Does it have 365 days or 12 lunar months? The answer, of course, is: yes. Have no fear, we will be talking much more about this in an upcoming post. I’ll just mention here that if you are asked to name a biblical character who has something to do with the sun, you would not think of Enoch. You would think of Samson, “Sunman,” since his Hebrew name, שׁמשׁון Shimshon, so obviously connects with שׁמש shémesh ‘sun’.

We haven’t recently mentioned that Enoch is #7 in the Genealogy of Adam list of ancestors. John Day, in From Creation to Babel, comments: