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April 9, 2026 |
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The number 120 appears in the Bible many more times than you would expect, but not in random ways. It appears as:
An AI, probably quoting some person, says that the meaning of the number 120 is: divinely appointed period of waiting, preparation, or judgment, as well as completeness and fulfillment of God's plan. (his bolding)
With four unrelated concepts as its meaning, this sounds like someone trying unsuccessfully to find a single unifying concept to all of the Bible's uses of "120", while discarding many of the uses. He also mixes in the meaning of the number 7, perfection / completeness.
It seems to me that there is a unifying concept. It could be stated as, "A given time (lifetime) to be productive", or as "accomplishments of a lifetime." Therefore the gift giving of 120 items of gold that we see in the verses above would be wishes for a lifetime of productivity. It's interesting that non-Jews like Hiram, the Queen of Sheba, and others understand this meaning … or at least subconsciously choose this number.
As mentioned above, this study will focus on one particular usage of the number 120. The usage comes in a verse that seems dislocated from the others in its context. Even so, I'm including the context. If you know me, you know why.
Now it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good in appearance; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3 Then Yahweh said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever because he indeed is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be 120 years." 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
5 Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And Yahweh regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 And Yahweh said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I regret that I have made them." (Genesis 6:1-7)
Bible teachers usually focus on the "sons of God" and "Nephilim" aspect of these verses. That's interesting, but not our focus.
First notice verse 5. God reaches the point where he decides that things have become so bad that he must address them. Given that, we expect that the cause of that decision would be described in either of two places: chronologically before the decision and culminating in the decision, or the cause would be given after the decision as a justification for the decision.
There is no description of the cause in the text that follows the decision. We see there an introduction to Noah and God's instruction to Noah on how to survive the flood. Therefore we have to say that the cause for the decision comes before the decision, as history. Therefore this "sons of God" activity is the problem, or at least part of the problem.
So let's look at this "sons of God" activity in detail. With "they took wives […], whomever they chose," it sounds like the "sons of God" swept the women off their feet, and they never had a choice. But God is saddened by it, and it seems to be the final straw that causes him to act. Because of it, he limits mankind, not the "sons of God". We always have free will, but we are accountable for our choices. Therefore we know the women made a choice.
We also have to ask where the men were. There is no hint that they were trying to teach and discourage the women from doing this? Why weren't they trying to drive off these interlopers? Why weren't they calling on God to get rid of them?
I think we are seeing a replay of the Garden of Eden event, but this time with a larger cast. "Eve" is trying to get a better deal for herself and her children to be. If that's the pattern here, then "Eve" has done something to trick "Adam" into going along with it or not reacting to it. Perhaps the women have arranged for the men to get something from the "sons of God".
Verse 3 is the disjointed verse. Verses 1 and 2 talk about the sons of God, then after verse 3, verse 4 also talks about the sons of God, but verse 3 has God speaking about the future. He is speaking about the weakness of mankind and how the Spirit strives to guide man, but that won't continue after some point in the future.
What he says sounds like a judgment, or at least a consequence of the judgment he is about to make. He is saying there will be a limit on "the days of man." This is most commonly interpreted as a limit of 120 years on the lifespan of an individual "man." We will come back to this and look at other interpretations.
So we must conclude that the cause of this limitation is the failure of the "Eve" characters and "Adam" characters in this test.
So, what exactly was their failure? And how does a lifespan reduction address that problem? They didn't have the Ten Commandments at that time, but they had their consciences, which are better, as long as they haven't become seared. We relate better to the Ten Commandments though, so from that perspective, their failure was a violation of the 5th Commandment, which shares the same principle as the 10th Commandment.
The 5th Commandment is about respecting relationships, and not only the father and mother relationship, but relatives, people with the same gender, and animals. Leviticus 18 spends a lot of time on these relationships. The 10th Commandment is about always wanting things that other people have. They share the same principle of being discontent with what you have. We see, then, that the sons of God should have been off-limits to the women as sexual partners and husbands.
It's curious that God doesn't say anything about the failure of the sons of God in this matter. We do know that they were also breaking these commandments, and with full knowledge, just as Satan and the snake were doing in the Garden. We also know there is a judgment lined up for them.
Now we come to the question of how shortening lifespan acts against this tendency to ignore the conscience. Part of the problem is the nature of our consciences. They become numb to an evil when repeatedly exposed to it. The other part of the problem is that mankind's fallen nature will always cause him to decay over time. We will push the boundaries, and when our consciences are comfortable with that, we will push the boundaries again, and so on. Over time, the consciences become what the Bible calls "seared." As we sear a steak to keep the juices in, a conscience can become seared. In the case of a conscience, though, we need the "juices" to come out.
Given time, mankind will become more and more depraved. Given less time, mankind won't become so bad.
But do we know that life-shortening is what God means by verse 3? We see that there was a rapid decline in lifetimes after the flood, and we see that Moses lived to be 120 years old.
And [Moses] said to them, "I am 120 years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and Yahweh has said to me, ‘You shall not cross this Jordan.’ (Deuteronomy 31:2)
Now Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated. (Deuteronomy 34:7)
So it seems clear that God was speaking about the lifetime shortening that resulted from the flood. Many translators go so far as to be specific about that meaning in their translations.
Then the LORD said, "I will not allow people to live forever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer than 120 years." (GNT)
That's a very poor translation overall, and it fails to recognize that God may have more than one intended meaning to his words.
But is there more to it than that? In answering that, we'll look at that last sentence, but in a better translation.
And yet shall be his days a hundred and twenty years
and·they-become days-of·him hundred and·twenty year (Hebrew interlinear)
This clause is conjunctive, meaning that it is joined with the previous clause, though the relationship between them isn't clear. Most translators translate that conjunctive indication into the word "yet," as seen in the first verse above. Others use "nevertheless," but some just throw it away. We'll come back to the idea that the clauses are linked.
There are other possible meanings for the two Hebrew words used in this verse that are highlighted in the translation above. The translators picked particular meanings for each that made sense to them. The diagram below shows the possible English words with the meanings that could be used in this context.
And yet shall be hisdaysa hundred and twenty
day
time
lifetime
period
yearyears
time
lifetime
age
If all of the possible combinations of those words make you unsure about God's intended meaning, it should. In fact imprecision is a good indication that there are multiple intended meanings.
Because of that, people have considered other possible "times" that could be an intended meaning. In other prophecies, God uses the word year to refer to a shmitah period, which is 7 years long and synchronized to the shmitah cycle. God also works in jubilee periods, which are 7 shmitahs long (49 years) and synchronized to the jubilee cycle, which is synchronized to the shmitah cycle.
There are other ways to understand what God means in this limiting of man.
In the previous interpretation, it is thought that God was referring to the lifetime of every individual. In this interpretation, it is thought that God was referring to the lifetime of mankind as a whole.
120 shmitahs would be 840 years, which doesn't seem to relate to anything in history. 120 jubilees would be 5880 years, which is interesting because it's a little longer than the Biblical age of the universe, and mankind.
Now we need to look back at the clause that connects to the one we've been studying.
Then Yahweh said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever because he indeed is flesh" […]
This verse is talking about a future time, a time still in our future. It implies that the Spirit of God will have been striving with mankind until that time. The "striving" refers to the spirit of God trying to lead all the people toward a godly life. At that time, it says, the Spirit will no longer do that.
The verse implies another thing - failure. The reason for the failure is that, despite the Spirit's best efforts, the flesh will fail.
Given that the first clause is speaking of a future time, it's almost certain that the second clause is as well. Therefore it makes more sense to think that the primary meaning of the verse is that 120 somethings is the lifetime of mankind's productivity. That ties back to what has happened with the sons of God and the women, despite the striving of the spirit of God.
We've already seen that 120 jubilees gives us a time in the future. If this interpretation is correct, then it gives us an estimate for the time of Jesus' return. The time of mankind began with the Garden of Eden. All we need is to know when that was.
There's a problem with knowing that. Scholars, even Jewish scholars, have studied the scripture carefully, but there are gaps in the chronology. In many places, there are dates and ages of people that can be used, but not everywhere.
The Jews made their best effort, throwing in estimates and logic where they had to. They produced what has become the Jewish system for year numbering in their calendar.
The first year of the Hebrew calendar, known as Anno Mundi (AM) 1, was determined through a combination of biblical chronology and rabbinic calculation, primarily based on the work of Rabbi Yose ben Halafta in the 2nd century CE, as recorded in the text Seder Olam Rabbah. This work compiled genealogies, lifespans, and historical events from the Hebrew Bible to estimate the time elapsed from the creation of the world to key events like the Exodus and the Bar Kokhba revolt.
According to this calculation, the world was created on 25 Elul, AM 1, which corresponds to 6–7 September 3761 BCE in the Gregorian calendar. […] Thus, the Hebrew calendar counts years from 3761 BCE, with the current year (2026 CE) corresponding to 5786 AM. (Some AI)
The Jews probably aren't exactly correct, but they probably aren't far off. If we assume that they are correct and that God was saying there would be 120 Jubilees in the productive lifetime of mankind, then the year 5880 in the Jewish calendar would be the end of the age, as the Jews call it, and the return of Jesus, from our perspective. That would be 2121 on our calendar.
The kind of errors that people make when trying to determine when a historical event happened all tend toward a date that is later in time than it really happened. Therefore 2121 is, most likely, later than the real date, but it's impossible to know by how much.
There is another possible additional meaning that God could have had in mind. Just as we saw that some translators spin their translations toward the interpretation of "lifetime of every individual person," there is one translation that spins it this way.
So the LORD said, "My spirit will not remain in humankind indefinitely, since they are mortal. They will remain for 120 more years." (Genesis 6:3 - NET Bible)
Paraphrase translations, like this one, give the translator so much latitude that they often show the translator's lack of understanding. That is the case here. He implies that the "spirit is in humankind" at that time. There is no evidence in the Bible to support the idea that all people had God's spirit in them. It wasn't until the New Covenant that God's Spirit became available to all people.
It is an interesting interpretation, though, because the timing looks close. It took a long time for Noah to build the Ark after that, but we don’t know how long. That uncertainty is also the problem with it. What purpose does a prophecy have if it can't be demonstrated to have been true? In this case we can only say that it looks close to 100 years or so. Also, the Bible doesn't say that Noah told the people that God had said this so that they might benefit from it. Still, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
If this was an intended meaning of God, it was secondary or tertiary, not primary, that a translation should be tuned to it. We saw in the section above that the first part of that clause indicates that God is more likely speaking about the lifetime of all mankind.
We saw that the number 120 is used in many places, and that those usages lead us to understand that it has a meaning that is something like "productive lifetime."
We began to focus on God's use of the number 120 as a limit on the years of mankind. We saw that this limitation was a consequence of the women of Earth accepting the "sons of God" as husbands. This appeared to be a reenactment of Eve in the Garden wanting to be equal to God.
We saw that the common interpretation of what God says is that the lifetime of every individual person will be limited to 120 literal years.
We also saw in this interpretation a purpose behind God's choice to limit the lifetime of every person. It would allow people whose consciences had become permanently seared to age-out earlier, thus improving society by their absence.
We saw another interpretation where God is limiting the lifetime of mankind as a group. This is based on interpreting the 120 years as 120 Jubilees. There is a lot of precedent in the Bible for interpreting the word "year" figuratively.
We saw that this interpretation includes the idea that the spirit of God would not always struggle with mankind to live holy lives, or at least, not descend into abject depravity.
We saw that this interpretation gives us an approximate year for the return of Jesus, the year 2121.
We saw another interpretation where God is limiting the lifetime of the pre-flood people to 120 literal years. This is a bit dubious as an interpretation, but it is interesting anyway.
We saw that God often speaks with multiple meanings in his words. It's entirely possible that all of these interpretations were the intended meanings of God because the first clause points to an event in our future. To me it seems that limiting the lifetime of mankind was the primary meaning. Limiting the lifetime of every person would be secondary, but it is strongly supported by the historical lifetime change after the flood.