Enoch walked with God, two hundred years
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εὐηρέστησεν δὲ Ἑνὼχ τῷ θεῷ μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Μαθουσάλα διακόσια ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας.
The formula bends for the first time. Every other patriarch’s remaining years are simply years he “lived” (v.4, v.7, v.10 …); here the verb changes to εὐηρέστησεν, “was well-pleasing.” This is the Septuagint’s own rendering of the Hebrew’s more concrete idiom for this same stretch of Enoch’s life, “Enoch walked with God” (הִתְהַלֵּךְ אֶת־הָאֱלֹהִים) — a picture of companionable walking traded here for a verb of pleasing well. The same Greek verb is picked up almost as a proof-text by the New Testament: Hebrews 11:5-6 quotes Genesis on Enoch by name and adds, “without faith it is impossible to please him [εὐαρεστῆσαι]” — reading this verse as an early witness to faith itself. Two hundred years, not seven or eight hundred like every other patriarch’s second period, is also the shortest “second half” given to anyone in this chapter — length is already being handled differently for this one life.
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