His Days Shall Be an Hundred and Twenty Years (Genesis 6:3)

2024-02-02

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. (Genesis 6:3)

Does this mean that after the Flood, people would stop living for more than 120 years? This does not mean that necessarily. The average age of people decreased, dropping rapidly after the Flood and again after Babel.

Moses was exactly that age when he died, probably in the late fifteenth century B.C.: “And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deuteronomy 34:7). This would be perhaps 800 years after the Flood.

However, centuries after Moses, Jehoiada the priest lived 130 years: “But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died” (2 Chronicles 24:15).

The more logical meaning in Genesis 6:3 is that this proclamation was 120 years before the Flood. The antecedent of “his days” would be “man,” which makes more sense meaning humankind, considering some people lived much longer than 120, even centuries after the Flood.