Generations (Gen 5:1)

The Genealogy of Adam

¹ The Genealogy of Adam זֶ֣ה סֵ֔פֶר תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת אָדָ֑ם

I explained last time that this is the title of a separate work that has been included in the Bible from elsewhere, an independent séfer — the first time we had seen that word. But there’s another word here that we have seen before (besides adam, of course). That word is tol’dot ‘generations’. I discussed it at some length when we saw it in Gen 2:4.

I also discussed our verse there briefly. That’s because éileh tol’dot ‘these are the generations’ occurs ten times in Genesis, but the tol’dot of our verse is not one of them. These tol’dot are Adam’s genealogy. It’s the same word, but being used in a different way. We are hearing a different voice, and that’s what I want to talk about this time.

Way back when, we spent some time talking about the different voices in the biblical story of creation, voices that continue as we keep reading. You can find some of the most basic parts of that discussion here (and follow the links there if you want to go deeper).