Man's Shrinking Life-Span (MP 14)

Righteous, Adam would have lived forever,
As God’s first man created on earth.
When he sinned, God did his life-span sever—
He died nine hundred thirty years from birth!
When his quintuple-great grandson came,
God foreknew man’s life-length would have to fall,
Else earth could not long men’s huge host sustain,
So He decreed six-score years for them all!
Despite wars, famines, plagues, earth’s numbers grew,
Until Moses wrote, “three-score years and ten”
Man has to serve God, or evil pursue,
Or four-score, if added strength extend!
Adam, you brought us death, and so much more—
Fewer years life’s adventures to explore!

Scripture Quoted: (NIV) [Brackets added]
Genesis 5:5—“Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, then he died.”

Genesis 6:3—“Then the Lord [God] said, ‘My Spirit [God] will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.’ “

Psalm 90:3—“You [God] turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’ “

Psalm 90:9-10—“All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, but they quickly pass, and we fly away.”

Commentary
We do not know how many sons and daughters were born to Adam and Eve. The Bible reveals the names of three—Cain, Abel, and Seth; since Adam lived 930 years, and Seth was born when he was 130, while Cain and Abel were born earlier; we cam reasonably deduce that these years were not very much different in length than years today. We know that later in the Old Testament, the Jews used 30 days for every month, 360 for a year. Adam and Eve had other children (See Genesis 5:3); they could have sired as many as 100 children, and so could have each of them in those early days. Hence, in ten generations, the total population of the earth could have been in the millions. Well, God knew all of this in advance, and He planned to reduce the length of man’s life to only 120 years. Since Adam’s sin of eating forbidden fruit had brought death for him and all his descendants, it also bequeathed to us all a sinful nature. After just ten generations, wickedness pervaded all the people, except for Noah. In God’s pre-made plan, it called for Him to bring a deluge of water on the earth that drowned everyone but Noah and his family, who numbered eight people total. The newborns after the flood were limited to 120-year life-spans, after a winding-down span of ten additional generations..

Even this relatively short length didn’t curtail population totals. A number of generations later, Moses, the prophet who under God’s guidance brought the descendants of Jacob (Israel) out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land (Caanan), wrote that man’s life-span, because of God’s wrath, was down to seventy years. Despite millions killed by wars, famines, and plagues, that is still the number of days that people can expect to live today. The average in America now is slightly more than seventy. Population of the earth is still increasing; it is now more than six billion. God’s Master Plan will not let it grow much more, I don’t believe.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)