Bible Strands
Genesis 5:32
After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator records this entry immediately after Lamech’s death, marking the chronological shift to the flood generation. It states plainly that Noah reached five hundred years of age before fathering his three sons.
The words — The phrase בֶּן־ (ben-) combined with five hundred years establishes a precise chronological threshold, followed by וַ/יּ֣וֹלֶד (va/i.Yo.led) meaning “and he fathered” to denote the birth of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
The thread — This specific family unit reappears in Genesis 6:10 as the designated ark builders, Genesis 7:13 as those who enter the vessel on the flood day, and Genesis 10:21 as the ancestral line through Shem.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to track human lineage through exact ages and named individuals rather than vague generations. It establishes Noah’s paternal role as the necessary historical anchor for the coming judgment and the preservation of the post-flood world.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Cross-references
- Genesis 6:10 And Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
- Genesis 10:21 And sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth; Shem was the forefather of all the sons of Eber.
- Genesis 7:13 On that very day Noah entered the ark, along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and his wife, and the three wives of his sons—
- Genesis 9:18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan.
- Genesis 9:22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside.
- Genesis 10:1 This is the account of Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who also had sons after the flood.
- Genesis 10:32 All these are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their generations and nations. From these the nations of the earth spread out after the flood.
- 1 Chronicles 1:4 The sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
- Luke 3:36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,