The Birth of Noach (Noah)
Lemech, aged 182, fathers a son named Noach — «this one will comfort us in our toil» — the tenth generation from Adam.
Noach is born in AM 1056, 126 years after Adam's death and 14 after Shet's. He is tenth from Adam and the last name in the genealogy of chapter 5; the list ends with him because history now narrows to a single story.
His father names him with an explanation: «this one will comfort us in our work and the toil of our hands, from the ground which the Lord has cursed». The sages link this to a change in farming itself — before Noach the soil was worked by hand. The decisive description comes later: «Noach was a righteous man, whole in his generations; with God did Noach walk» — a phrase used before him only of Chanoch.
The words «in his generations» became a famous dispute. Some sages hear praise: he stayed righteous among the wicked, and in a righteous age would have been greater still. Others hear a limit: righteous only by the standard of his time. The argument is really about how any person should be measured.