Many ask, “If Adam and Eve had only three sons, where did we come from?” They ask questions like this because they skip over many parts of the scriptures, especially “the begats.” Genesis 5 and its complement in Yasher has some real surprises for those who read carefully.
After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons (benim) and daughters (benot). (Gen 5:4)
The men and the women of the antediluvian world appear to be having children during a large part of their life. Noah took a woman whose name was Naamah (582 years old) when he was 498 years old and she bore him three sons. Genesis says they were born when he was 500 years old, but here is what Yasher says,
Yasher 5:16 And Noah was four hundred and ninety-eight years old, when he took Naamah for a wife.
17 And Naamah [582 years old] conceived and bare a son, and he called his name Japheth, saying, God has enlarged me in the earth; and she conceived again and bare a son, and he called his name Shem, saying, God has made me a remnant, to raise up seed in the midst of the earth.
18 And Noah was five hundred and two years old when Naamah bare Shem, and the boys grew up and went in the ways of the Lord, in all that Methuselah and Noah their father taught them.And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Gen 5:32)
Ham is not mentioned in Yasher. Is it possible that all these patriarchs had many more sons and daughters who were not recorded because they were, well women, and wicked men who were not part of the righteous line of men who led the people of Elohim.
Yehovah commanded Adam to “be fruitful and multiply.” But would you believe that even the men of the antediluvian world were so wicked that they started using birth control? Oh ouch, that hits a bit close to home.
Jasher 2:19 For in those days the sons of men began to trespass against Elohim, and to transgress the commandments which he had commanded to Adam, to be fruitful and multiply in the earth.
20 And some of the sons of men caused their women to drink a draught that would render them barren, in order that they might retain their figures and whereby their beautiful appearance might not fade.
21 And when the sons of men caused some of their women to drink, Zillah drank with them.
22 And the child-bearing women appeared abominable in the sight of their men as widows, whilst their men lived, for to the barren ones only they were attached.
From the last verse of Numbers chapter 19 to the first verse of chapter 20, thirty-eight years have passed for the Israelites in the wilderness. The chapter begins with the death and burial of Miriam in the 1st month of the 40th year. Why 40th year? You’ll have to listen to find out.
In our second year in the wilderness Korah leads a revolt against Moses and Aaron.
There is a reason why men who know, understand and obey Yehovah’s word “sigh and cry over all the abominations” that are committed in Jerusalem, the holy city, Zion, Yehovah’s set-apart people. This is the story of the red heifer.