The question “How old was Noah when he died?” is next to “how old was Methuselah?” as one of the most popular Bible trivia questions. While it would be easy to give the basic answer, there is a lot of background information that is valuable to know. Knowing not only how old Noah was when he died, but also whether his generation lived unusually long, gives us a glimpse of life before and after the Flood.
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How old was Noah when he died?
Genesis 5–10 provides a timeline of Noah’s family, allowing us to determine both Noah’s age at death and his age at critical points in his life.
Noah was born to Lamech, son of Methuselah, and grandson of Enoch, according to Genesis 5:28-30. Lamech was 128 years old when he fathered Noah, and his name is believed to be derived from the Hebrew word for “comfort” (Genesis 5:29). Lamech died at the age of 777, therefore Noah would have been 595 years old.
At the age of 500, Noah had his first of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth (5:32). Ham was apparently the youngest (Genesis 9:24), and Genesis 10:21 seems to indicate that Japheth was Shem’s older sibling, but the translations differ. Shem was 98 years old when the flood happened and 100 years old when he had his first son (Genesis 11:11), so Noah must have been 502 years old when Shem was born. So Japheth was the eldest son and Shem was born two years later.
Noah survived the Flood for 350 years and died at the age of 950 (Genesis 9:28-29). This indicates that he lived long enough to not only see the land recover after the flood, but all three of his sons start families and procreate. His son Shem started the family line that went to Abraham, from whom the term “Semite” is derived (descendants of Shem).
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How old was Noah when he built the ark?
People sometimes claim that it took Noah 120 years to build the ark. In fact, this appears to be an error based on a number in Genesis 6:3. (more on that later). Genesis 7:6 indicates that Noah was 600 years old when the Flood occurred.
However, the Bible does not specify how old Noah was when God ordered the construction of the ark. After describing the birth of the sons of Noah (Genesis 6:5-8), it is said that God became sick with the wickedness of men. Assuming these events happened in chronological order, God decided to wipe out humanity sometime after Noah reached the age of 500.
There is one telling element in the story of God commissioning Noah. God tells Noah that he will destroy the majority of mankind and gives him instructions on how to build the ark. When the ark is completed, God instructs Noah to board the ship with his family (Genesis 6:18). Therefore, Noah must not only have had sons at that time, but those sons must also have been married.
We do not know whether Japheth and Ham began having children before or after the Flood, which might indicate how long they were married at the time of the Flood. Noah’s sons may have ranged in age from adolescence to ninety years of age during the beginning of the Ark building process, given that civilizations in the Ancient Near East tended to marry young and men were able to produce offspring up to well into their 100th.
Numerous academics estimate that Noah’s sons were in their twenties when they married, which would have made him at least 520 years old when he began building the ark.
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Why did everyone have a shorter lifespan after the time of Noah?
Genesis 5 offers Adam’s lineage through his son Seth and on to Noah. the next chapter begins, “then men multiplied,” and God’s response is, “my spirit will not tolerate the mortal body so long. in the future their average lifespan will not exceed 120 years” (Genesis 6:2). Therefore, sometime during the generations of Noah or his sons, God determined that 120 years was the maximum lifespan for humans.
Several Israelite patriarchs, of course, lived longer than this. Abraham (Genesis 25:7) and his son Isaac (Genesis 25:18) both lived to be 175 years old (Genesis 35:28). Moses reached the age of 120, “but his eyesight was clear, and he was more robust than ever” (Deuteronomy 34:7).
The fact that the Bible felt the need to emphasize how healthy Moses was when he died may indicate that such longevity and good health were uncommon in Moses’ time. No such remarks are made about Abraham or Isaac; in fact, we know that Isaac’s son Jacob famously took advantage of Isaac’s failing eyesight in old age to deceive him (Genesis 27).
Therefore, in the case of Moses at least, this could refer to God granting a person long life and great health so that he can fulfill the responsibilities that God intended for him.
However, these signs of aging may also indicate that the age limit of 120 years did not come into force immediately. There may have been a steady genetic decline, with each generation having a shorter lifespan than the last. Some biblical scholars have suggested that the first few generations of humans must have had perfect genetics, as Genesis indicates a certain level of inbreeding that did not appear to generate genetic defects.
Adam’s three sons probably married their sisters. Abraham married his half-sister Sarah (Genesis 20:11-13), but their son Jacob is not pictured with the genetic problems experienced by today’s inbred descendants. If God created humans with perfect genetics and then, like the rest of creation after the Fall (Genesis 3:17-19), something in humanity was broken and corrupted, it may have taken several generations for the changes to become apparent .
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