The ordinary pattern is now interrupted. Enoch was an exceptional person. Something special happened to him, and therefore more is told about him now. The remarkable thing is that Enoch, after living on earth for 365 years without dying, was taken away from the earth by the Lord. Along with Elijah, he is the only one we know of, in Old Testament times, who did not die (about Elijah, see 2 Kings 2:11).
Another striking formulation used here for Enoch is that he walked with God.
The other instances in the Bible where we find a similar formulation concerns Noah and the tribe of Levi during the journey through the wilderness (see Genesis 6:9 and Malachi 2:6). We also read a number of times that people walked before God or were told to do so (e.g., Genesis 17:1; Genesis 24:40; Genesis 48:15; 2 Kings 20:3).
Walking with God means that a person wants to be close to God. He wants to live in such a way that God does not distance himself from him. For Enoch the most important thing in his life was that the Lord was with him. Someone who lives before God is someone who does not try to hide from God; he does not want to keep anything of his life hidden from God. One wants to live in such a way that there is no reason to be afraid of God. One seeks to live in such a way that things are right in God’s eyes.
Why exactly is Enoch said to have walked with God? The time in which he lived plays a big role in this. It is a time in which life apart from God was beginning to take on more and more brutal forms. More and more people were turning away from God. Enoch lived in a world where the believers were surrounded by wickedness and apostasy from God.
We know this from the New Testament. We read in Jude 1:14–16, It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.
Enoch’s walking with God
also means that he acted as a prophet in the world, that he called the world to repentance in God’s name. The reason that God took Enoch up from this world to heaven was his living very close to him (see Hebrews 11:5). The world did not get the chance to kill this prophet. The act of taking Enoch away was a sign from God to the people then that Enoch was his prophet. His taking away served as a strong warning for the people to heed Enoch’s call to repentance.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah.