Abraham Lived With Noah and Shem for 39 Years?
Have you ever wondered about the passage where God called Abram in Genesis 12? God told Abram to drop everything and head to this new land far away. It’s the first time we meet Abram and we have no clue if Abram has ever talked to God or God had talked to him? What would possess a man to hear a voice for the first time and pick up his entire family along with a nephew and his entire family, and drag them all hundreds of miles away?
As we have pointed out in a recent blog, a simple reading of Genesis 5 and 11 along with a calculator will make you conclude that Abraham was alive for 58 years before Noah died and Shem actually outlived Abraham by 35 years! So maybe Abraham was hanging out with Noah and Shem and actually KNEW God very well before he got the call? The extra-biblical book of Jasher casts some light on this and makes one wonder if this isn’t “the rest of the story”. It sure makes the story of Abram make a lot more sense!
I will encourage you to do your own research on the Book of Jasher. Of course it’s not in the Bible but is referenced by the Bible. I’m not saying that we can take it as fact that Abram lived with Noah but it’s another potential clue to Genesis that makes you say, “hmmmmm?”
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From the birth of Arphaxad, two years after the flood, until the birth of Abram it was only 292 years. Noah lived 350 years after the flood and Shem 500 years. Abram’s life overlapped Noah’s life by 58 years.
This is the sum of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived: one hundred and seventy-five years. (Gen 25:7)
Ha – check that – Abraham only lived to be 175, so Shem outlived Abraham by 35 years. So interesting – that means that both Isaac and Jacob were taught by Shem, and Eber!
Noah was Abraham’s great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great-grandfather!
Did they know each other? Where else would Abram have learned Yehovah’s statutes judgments, and ordinances? Does Israel’s Elohim (lawmaker and judge) ever change? Does His word endure forever?
Of all the people who were alive at the end of the antediluvian (pre-flood)Â world it was Noah who was chosen by Yehovah to repopulate the next world. Why? Because He walked with God/Elohim, his only lawmaker and judge!
Then Yehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Gen 6:5)
This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with Elohim. (Gen 6:9)
Noah And Abraham Lived Together For 39 Years
And concerning Abram we read in Jasher chapter 9.
4 Haran [Abram’s oldest brother] was forty-two years old when he begat Sarai, which was in the tenth year of the life of Abram; and in those days Abram and his mother and nurse went out from the cave, as the king and his subjects had forgotten the affair of Abram.
5 And when Abram came out from the cave, he went to Noah and his son Shem, and he remained with them to learn the instruction of the Elohim and His ways, and no man knew where Abram was, and Abram served Noah and Shem his son for a long time.
6 Abram was in Noah’s house thirty-nine years, and Abram knew Yehovah from three years old, and he went in the ways of Yehovah until the day of his death, as Noah and his son Shem had taught him; and all the sons of the earth in those days greatly transgressed against Yehovah, and they rebelled against him and they served other elohim (lawmakers and judges), and they forgot Yehovah who had created them in the earth; and the inhabitants of the earth made unto themselves, at that time, every man his elohim; elohim of wood and stone which could neither speak, hear, nor deliver, and the sons of men served them and they became their elohim.