Gen 5:24 Walking with God

Gen 5:24   Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. (ESV)

While we can marvel at the longevity of some of the first men, each one of them eventually does die. The expression "and then he died" tolls like a death bell though the whole chapter. There is one exception though. Right in the middle (well, it's not right in the middle, Enoch is seventh but that's an even more significant position in Hebraic thought) of all the "then he died...BONG" verses is verse 24 we read "he was not. God took him."

It must be significant that instead of the "he lived" that sums up the other lives, we read he "walked with God". The same is said of Noah, a (Gen 6:9), who is described as a righteous and blameless man, and of Abraham (Gen 48:15, Gen 17:1, Gen 24:40) who knew God as his Shepherd, and of Levi  (Mal 2:6)  who spoke truth and walked with God "in peace and uprightness" turning from "iniquity". We find this phrase again in an instruction (Micah 6:8) to do what is good, obey God, "do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God".

Walking with God is an incredibly rich expression describing a close relationship worked out in the thoughts and actions of one's life. It's hinted at in the Garden of Eden, physically paced out by Jesus' disciples and available to us now by the Spirit. As we go through the day we can walk with God. Keeping in step with him, worshiping him, talking with him, listening to him, obeying him, watching him, being with him. 

I love walking and talking with friends. Going somewhere together is often better than being somewhere together. You are sharing a goal and a journey. At each step you decide to be together. At each junction you discuses your route. You navigate obstacles together. Conversation can ebb and flow without awkwardness as the scenery changes and events happen around you. I want to walk with God. That's why I took up a friend's invite this week to go into a residential home, talk to the people there about Jesus and pray for them. I figured that's where Jesus is going so I'll walk along with him.  

     

And so in taking Enoch in this way, God chooses to show his hand even in the shadows of death. The same expression "was not" occurs in other places signifying death (Job 7:21, Ps 39:13) but here it seems Enoch, like Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) is taken up in to God's presence without tasting death. The main idea here is of the absence of death as a final full stop to life. God will one day take me to be with him through the same faith that Enoch had (Heb 11:5) and that pleases God so much.