How old was Methuselah?
Methuselah was 969 years old when he died, the longest life recorded in the Bible. Genesis 5:27 says "all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died." By the Bible's own numbers he died in the year of the flood. He was 187 when his son Lamech was born, Lamech was 182 when Noah was born, and Noah was 600 when the flood came: 187 + 182 + 600 = 969.
Updated October 25, 2026. Every age on this page is read from the verse in both the King James Version and the World English Bible, and the two must agree. Name counts cover the full text of both.
The verse: Genesis 5:27
Methuselah's age is given once, in the genealogy from Adam to Noah. Both translations give the same number.
And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. (Genesis 5:27, KJV)
All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years, then he died. (Genesis 5:27, WEB)
The two verses before it give the same total in two parts. "Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech" (Genesis 5:25), then lived "after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years" (Genesis 5:26). That is 187 + 782 = 969. His name appears in 7 verses of the King James Version. It is spelled 6 times as "Methuselah" (Genesis 5 and 1 Chronicles 1:3) and once as "Mathusala", the King James spelling in Luke's list of the ancestors of Jesus (Luke 3:37). The World English Bible spells it "Methuselah" all 7 times.
Did Methuselah die in the flood?
The Bible never says how Methuselah died. Its numbers do say when.
| Step | Years | Verse |
|---|---|---|
| Methuselah's age when Lamech was born | 187 | Genesis 5:25 |
| Lamech's age when Noah was born | + 182 | Genesis 5:28-29 |
| Noah's age when the flood came | + 600 | Genesis 7:6, 7:11 |
| Methuselah's age in the year of the flood | = 969 | his full age, Genesis 5:27 |
So Methuselah was 369 when his grandson Noah was born, and he reached 969 in the year Noah reached 600, the year "the flood of waters was upon the earth" (Genesis 7:6). The ages are given in whole years, so the text cannot tell us whether he died before the rain began or in it. He was not on the ark. Genesis 7:13 names who went in: Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons, "eight souls" in 1 Peter 3:20.
His son died first. Lamech lived 595 years after Noah was born (Genesis 5:30), so he died 5 years before the flood, at 777 (Genesis 5:31). Methuselah outlived his son and lived into the year of the flood.
How old was everyone in the Bible when they died?
These are the 33 people the Bible gives an age at death or a whole lifespan for, longest first. For 25 of them a verse states it. For the 8 men of Genesis 11, from Shem to Nahor, the Bible gives their age when a son was born and the years they lived after, and the table adds the two.
| # | Person | Age | Verse | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Methuselah | 969 | Genesis 5:27 | the longest life in the Bible |
| 2 | Jared | 962 | Genesis 5:20 | |
| 3 | Noah | 950 | Genesis 9:29 | 600 at the flood (7:6) |
| 4 | Adam | 930 | Genesis 5:5 | |
| 5 | Seth | 912 | Genesis 5:8 | |
| 6 | CainanWEB: Kenan | 910 | Genesis 5:14 | |
| 7 | EnosWEB: Enosh | 905 | Genesis 5:11 | |
| 8 | MahalaleelWEB: Mahalalel | 895 | Genesis 5:17 | |
| 9 | Lamech | 777 | Genesis 5:31 | Noah's father |
| 10 | Shem | 600 | Genesis 11:10-11 | 100 + 500, computed |
| 11 | Eber | 464 | Genesis 11:16-17 | 34 + 430, computed |
| 12 | ArphaxadWEB: Arpachshad | 438 | Genesis 11:12-13 | 35 + 403, computed |
| 13 | SalahWEB: Shelah | 433 | Genesis 11:14-15 | 30 + 403, computed |
| 14 | Enoch | 365 | Genesis 5:23 | did not die: "God took him" (5:24) |
| 15 | Peleg | 239 | Genesis 11:18-19 | 30 + 209, computed |
| 16 | Reu | 239 | Genesis 11:20-21 | 32 + 207, computed |
| 17 | Serug | 230 | Genesis 11:22-23 | 30 + 200, computed |
| 18 | Terah | 205 | Genesis 11:32 | Abraham's father |
| 19 | Isaac | 180 | Genesis 35:28 | |
| 20 | Abraham | 175 | Genesis 25:7 | |
| 21 | Nahor | 148 | Genesis 11:24-25 | 29 + 119, computed |
| 22 | Jacob | 147 | Genesis 47:28 | |
| 23 | Ishmael | 137 | Genesis 25:17 | |
| 24 | Levi | 137 | Exodus 6:16 | |
| 25 | Amram | 137 | Exodus 6:20 | father of Moses and Aaron |
| 26 | Kohath | 133 | Exodus 6:18 | |
| 27 | Jehoiada | 130 | 2 Chronicles 24:15 | the priest |
| 28 | Sarah | 127 | Genesis 23:1 | the only woman in this list |
| 29 | Aaron | 123 | Numbers 33:39 | |
| 30 | Moses | 120 | Deuteronomy 34:7 | |
| 31 | Joseph | 110 | Genesis 50:26 | |
| 32 | Joshua | 110 | Joshua 24:29 | also Judges 2:8 |
| 33 | Eli | 98 | 1 Samuel 4:15 | died the same day (4:18) |
Job is not in the table because his full age is never given. After his trials "lived Job an hundred and forty years" (Job 42:16), and then he "died, being old and full of days" (Job 42:17). Sarah is the only woman on the list. Enoch's 365 years are his time on earth: Genesis 5:24 says "God took him", not that he died.
How the list was made: a search of the full King James text for the phrases the Bible uses for a lifespan ("the days of ... were", "the years of the life of", "the whole age of", "old when he died", "died, being", "was he when he died") plus the Genesis 11 genealogy. "All the days of ... were" alone appears 9 times, all in Genesis 5 and 9. The kings of Israel and Judah are left out: the Bible gives a king's age when he began to reign and the length of his reign, and the sum is an estimate, not a stated age.
How long did people live in the Bible?
The nine men of Genesis 5 who died (Enoch left out) lived 912 years on average. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph averaged 153, about a sixth as long.
The bars follow the family line from Adam to Joseph in order. From Adam to Noah, 7 of the ten lives pass 900 years. After the flood the numbers fall step by step: Noah's son Shem lived 600, and seven generations later Nahor, Abraham's grandfather, lived 148. By the time of Jacob, the old man tells Pharaoh that his 130 years "have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers" (Genesis 47:9).
Two verses speak of a limit. Before the flood God says of man "his days shall be an hundred and twenty years" (Genesis 6:3); the verse does not say whether that is the length of a life or the time left before the flood. Moses died at exactly 120 (Deuteronomy 34:7). Of the 33 people in the table, 30 lived 120 years or more; only Joseph (110), Joshua (110) and Eli (98) fell short. Psalm 90:10 sets the ordinary span lower: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years", that is 70 or 80.
Enoch, the father who did not die
Methuselah's father Enoch was 65 when Methuselah was born (Genesis 5:21), and "walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years" (Genesis 5:22). His whole time on earth was 365 years, and then: "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). The World English Bible reads "he was not found". Hebrews 11:5 explains it: "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death." Jude 14 calls him "the seventh from Adam", which makes Methuselah the eighth.
So the man with the longest life in the Bible was the son of a man the Bible says did not see death. Later Elijah is taken up too: he "went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings 2:11). Adding the ages in Genesis 5 from Adam to Enoch, Methuselah was born 687 years after Adam's creation, was 243 years old when Adam died at 930, and died 1656 years after Adam's creation, the year of the flood.
Genesis 4 has a different family with similar names. Cain's son was also called Enoch (Genesis 4:17), and Cain's line runs to "Methusael" and his son Lamech, the first man the Bible says took two wives (Genesis 4:18-19). Methuselah, son of Enoch and grandfather of Noah, comes from Seth's line in Genesis 5.
Questions about Methuselah's age
How old was Methuselah when he died?
He was 969 years old (Genesis 5:27). He was 187 when his son Lamech was born (Genesis 5:25) and lived 782 more years after that (Genesis 5:26). The King James Version and the World English Bible give the same number.
Who was the oldest person in the Bible?
Methuselah, at 969. Next is his grandfather Jared at 962 (Genesis 5:20), 7 years short, then Noah at 950 (Genesis 9:29). All 7 people who passed 900 were born before the flood.
Did Methuselah die in the flood?
The Bible does not say how he died. Its numbers put his death in the year of the flood: 187 (Genesis 5:25) + 182 (5:28) + 600 (7:6) = 969, his full age. He is not among the eight people who entered the ark: Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives (Genesis 7:13, 1 Peter 3:20).
How old was Noah?
Noah was 500 when his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth are named (Genesis 5:32), 600 when the flood came (Genesis 7:6), and lived 350 years after it (Genesis 9:28). "All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died" (Genesis 9:29).
Who was Methuselah's father, and who was his grandson?
His father was Enoch, who "walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). His son was Lamech and his grandson was Noah (Genesis 5:25-29). This is a different line from Cain's family in Genesis 4:17-18, which also has an Enoch, a Methusael and a Lamech.
How old was Adam when he died?
Adam was 930: "all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died" (Genesis 5:5). Adding up the ages in Genesis 5, Methuselah was 243 when Adam died.
Sources
- The King James Version (1769) and the World English Bible, both public domain: every verse quoted, every age in the table and every count on this page, read and added up by scripts/lists/how-old-was-methuselah.mjs from the text at github.com/seven1m/open-bibles (read and counted 2026-10-25). Each age is parsed from the number words in both translations, and the build stops if they disagree.
Read about Genesis, where every age before Moses is given. Word counts: Methuselah, Enoch, Noah and flood. Sarah is one of the women of the Bible, and Levi heads one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Lamech of Genesis 4 appears on how many wives Solomon had. More counts are on the Bible by the numbers.
Counted by Bible Says About from the full public-domain text of the King James Version (1769 edition) and the World English Bible. Verse text only: headings and psalm titles are left out. A word is a run of letters: a hyphenated name like Beer-sheba counts as two, and an apostrophe stays inside its word (LORD'S is one). Matching ignores capital letters. Data compiled 2026-10-25.