Questions on Genesis 1 to 25
1. Why does Genesis 1 use the phrase "And the evening and the morning . . ." six times? Answer
2. What special day did God create simply by resting (Genesis 2)? Answer
3. Do men have one less rib due to Eve's creation (Genesis 2)? Answer
4. Why was Satan the devil allowed in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3)? Answer
5. What was Cain's punishment for killing his brother Abel (Genesis 4)? Answer
6. Who built the first city (Genesis 4)? Answer
7. Who created the first musical instruments (Genesis 4)? Answer
8. Who first created implements that were used for war (Genesis 4)? Answer
9. Who was the first person to have more than one wife (Genesis 4)? Answer
10. How many people before the flood lived to be at least 900 years old (Genesis 5)? Answer
11. What ultimately happened to all of Cain's descendants (Genesis 4, 6)? Answer
12. How big was Noah's Ark (Genesis 6)? Answer
13. What kind of animals were saved on the ark (Genesis 6, 7)? Answer
14. How old was Noah and his sons when they entered the ark (Genesis 7, 10)? Answer
15. How many people died in the flood (Genesis 7)? Answer
16. Where did Noah's Ark finally settle when the waters subsided (Genesis 8)? Answer
17. What did God use as a symbol of his covenant with all humans to never again destroy humanity with a flood (Genesis 9)? Answer
18. What is another name for the genealogies listed in Genesis 10? Answer
19. Why was it sinful for humanity to build the tower of Babel (Genesis 11)? Answer
20. What was God's punishment for building the tower (Genesis 11)? Answer
21. At what age did God call Abram (Abraham) (Genesis 12)? Answer
22. Was silver considered more valuable than gold in Abraham's day (Genesis 13)? Answer
23. What was the path Chedorlaomer and his forces used to murder and pillage their way to fight Sodom, Gomorrah and their allies (Genesis 14)? Answer
24. Who was the first person to have the term "Hebrew" used to describe them (Genesis 14)? Answer
25. What makes Abraham unique in regard to military history (Genesis 14)? Answer
26. Whose land would Abraham's descendants be given after they are freed from slavery (Genesis 15)? Answer
27. How old was Abraham when he had Ishmael through Hagar (Genesis 16)? Answer
28. Why was Abram's name changed to Abraham and Sarai's to Sarah (Genesis 17)? Answer
29. Why did Abraham attempt to save the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18)? Answer
30. Were Sodom and Gomorrah the only cities destroyed for the wickedness (Genesis 19)? Answer
31. Who were the first people miraculously blinded (Genesis 19)? Answer
32. Who were the first people personally killed by God (Genesis 19)? Answer
33. What was it about Sarah that Abraham felt would get him in trouble or even killed (Genesis 20)? Answer
34. How old was Abraham when Isaac was born (Genesis 21)? Answer
35. Why did God command Abraham to kill his only son Isaac (Genesis 22)? Answer
36. What made Sarah's death especially unique in Scripture (Genesis 23)? Answer
37. How old was Abraham when he sought a wife for Isaac? How old was Isaac when he married Rebekah (Genesis 24 - 25)? Answer
38. How many sons did Abraham produce (Genesis 16, 21, 25)? Answer
Answers on Genesis
1. God was defining for man a Biblical day. Days in Scripture begin at sunset (evening) and end at sunset the next day. This is a far more common sense delineation of a day than our modern custom of starting a day in the middle of the night!
[What Is the First Holy Creation?]
2. God, after his six days of creating, rested on the seventh. The seventh day, by this act, became the first thing in the Bible sanctified by God and made holy by his presence (Genesis 2:1 - 3).
The seventh day Sabbath was created for the benefit of ALL mankind and not just Israel or the Jews. The keeping of seventh day Sabbath, kept by Jesus and the early church, continues to be the only weekly day divinely sanctioned for worship.
3. Men do not have fewer ribs due to the creation of Eve (women). In regard to Adam, although the Bible is not specific, either he lived the rest of his life missing one of them or God healed him immediately after his "surgery."
[Do Men Have Fewer Ribs than Women?]
4. Satan the devil was allowed by God into the Garden of Eden to test Adam and Eve's willingness to obey his simple command not to eat the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3).
5. God was quite merciful to Cain as he rightfully deserved the death penalty for his grievous sin (see Genesis 9:6).
First, Cain's ability to harvest the abundance of the earth (farming was his profession, Genesis 4:2) was cursed. He was then cursed to wander the earth with no permanent home. These penalties, coupled with the mark he received, became a living warning to all future humans not to repeat his sins (Genesis 4:13 - 15).
6. The first city the Bible records being built is Enoch. It was built by Cain, after he was rejected by God, and named after his first son (Genesis 4:17).
7. The first musical instruments were created by Jubal who was a descendant of Cain (Genesis 4:16 - 21),
8. Tubalcain, a descendant of Cain, was the first person to work with bronze and iron (Genesis 4:22). He not only made domestic utensils out of metal but also implements of war.
[Musical Instruments in the Bible!]
9. Lamech is the first polygamist mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 4:19).
10. Five out the first six men in Jesus' lineage lived to be more than 900 years old. They were Adam (930, Genesis 5:3 - 5), Seth (912, verses 6 - 8), Enos (905, verses 9 - 11), Cainan (910, verses 12 - 14) and Jared (962, verses 18 - 20).
[Jesus' Genealogy Through Mary]
Mahalaleel, the firstborn son of Cainan, almost made it into the 900 club by living to the age of 895 (Genesis 5:3 - 20, Luke 3:37 - 38).
11. All of Cain's descendants died in Noah's flood. Cain was Adam's firstborn son. Noah was a descendant of righteous Seth (Genesis 5) who was Adam's third son.
[What Happened to Cain's Descendants?]
12. God gave Noah the precise dimensions for the ark.
"And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits" (Genesis 6:15).
The ancient cubit was somewhere between 17.5 to 21.5 inches long (44.4 to 54.6 centimeters). An 18 inch (.45 meters) cubit gives us an Ark that is 450 feet (137 meters) long, 75 feet (22.8 meters) wide, and 45 feet (13.7 meters) high.
A 20.4 inch (.518 meters) cubit, sometimes called a "long" or "royal" cubit, gives us an ark that is 510 feet (155.4 meters) long by 85 feet (25.9 meters) wide and 51 feet (15.5 meters) high.
13. Noah was commanded to save land animals and birds (Genesis 6:19 - 20, 7:2 - 3) which could not survive the flood waters. Water based animals such as fish, dolphins, clams, etc. would not need the ark, nor would most snakes, alligators, or even many insects, worms and so on that could survive in water.
[How Many Animals Were on Noah's Ark?]
14. Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came to cleanse the earth of its wickedness (Genesis 7:6). His firstborn son Japheth (Genesis 10:21) was 100, Shem was 98 and Ham was in his 90s when they entered the ark.
15. The time period from Adam and Eve's creation to the flood is about 1,656 years. During this period people lived incredibly long lives and had many children.
Mathematical models, using conservative numbers, have shown the earth could have easily had 3 to 4 BILLION (and possibly more!) living on it at the time of the flood (Biblical Basis for Modern Science, Chapter 15).
16. The "mountains of Ararat" (Genesis 8:4), on which the ark rested, are located in the eastern part of modern-day Turkey. These mountains are composed of two primary peaks. The one called "Greater Ararat" has a present elevation of 5,137 meters (16,854 feet) while the other, called "Little Ararat," is 3,896 meters (12,782 feet) high.
17. God designated rainbows as a sign that he will never again destroy all life on planet earth with a flood (Genesis 9:8 - 17).
18. The list of the descendants of Noah's sons Japheth, Shem and Ham, found in Genesis 10, is commonly referred to as the "table of nations." The table delineates seventy descendants (twenty-six from Shem, thirty from Ham and fourteen from Japheth) who were born after the flood.
[The Descendants of Noah Chart]
19. God, after the flood, commanded humanity to disperse and repopulate the whole planet (Genesis 9:1, 7). Humans, instead, decided to concentrate themselves in one location and build a tower "(to) establish a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth"(Genesis 11:4).
The tower of Babel was also a sin because it represented mankind's vain attempt to save itself from another flood even through God promised never to do so again (Genesis 9:11, 15).
20. God caused man's one language to become many due to the building of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11).
According to the CIA Factbook, as of 2023, there are roughly 7,168 living languages spoken in the world. 80% of these languages are spoken by less than 100,000 people while around 150 languages are believed to be spoken by less than 10 people!
21. Genesis says God contacted Abraham when he was 75 and told him to leave Haran for a land he would show him (Genesis 12:1 - 4). Stephen, however, in his address to the Sanhedrin before his martyrdom, indicates that Abraham was called at least five years prior to Genesis 12.
Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran (Haran),
And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans (Chaldeans), and dwelt in Charran (Haran) (Acts 7:2 - 4, see also Genesis 15:7).
22. In the Middle East, before around 500 B.C., it was harder to find silver than gold and hence it was considered more valuable. This is likely why silver is mentioned before gold in regard to Abraham's wealth (Genesis 13:1 - 2, 24:35).
23. Chedorlaomer, along with three other kings allied with him, traveled from North to South on a path known as the King's Highway (see Numbers 20:17).
Chedorlaomer's campaign, the first war in the Bible, began with overcoming the giant warriors living in Ashtaroth (Genesis 14:5). He then destroyed the Zuzims, Emims and even the Horites (who were cave dwellers living on Mount Seir).
24. The first use of the term "Hebrew" is found in reference to Abram (Abraham) in Genesis 14:13.
25. Abraham fought in the first series of battles recorded in the Bible (Genesis 14). His small force of 318 servants, along with a few allies (Genesis 14:13 - 14), defeated a huge army led by King Chedorlaomer of Elam!
26. God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the following.
Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites (Genesis 15:18 - 21).
The Jebusites were the tribe that lived in the city of Jebus before Israel, under David, conquered it and renamed it Jerusalem.
27. Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born (Genesis 16:16).
28. Abram's and Sarai's names were changed to reflect the blessings they were to receive from God. Abraham's name means "a father of many nations" (Genesis 17:5) while Sarah's means "a mother of nations" (verses 15 - 16).
[Meaning of Names in the Bible]
29. Abraham did not disagree with the Lord that the wicked of Sodom should be punished for the many sins they pursued. Abraham argued, however, that the city should be saved for the sake of the righteous within it (Genesis 18:23 - 32). The Lord ultimately agreed to spare Sodom if ten righteous lived within its walls.
[Why Did Abraham Try to Save Sodom?]
30. God destroyed not only Sodom and Gomorrah but also the smaller cities on the plain near them such as Admah and Zeboim (Genesis 10:19, 19:24 - 25).
[Where Were Sodom / Gomorrah Located?]
31. The first Biblical record of blindness is found in Genesis 19. Two angels, in their effort to save Lot and his family living in Sodom, caused those attempting to forcibly enter his home to miraculously lose their sight (Genesis 19:11).
32. The turning of Lot's wife into salt, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, are the first two Biblical cases where God personally carried out the death penalty due to sin (Genesis 19).
33. Sarah, even in her old age, was a strikingly beautiful woman (see Genesis 12:11 - 13). Abraham felt the couple had to pretend that Sarah was his sister so that anyone who saw her would spare his life.
34. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5) which was 14 years after Ishmael's birth.
[Why Was Isaac the Son of Laughter?]
35. God wanted to test Abraham's faith by commanding he sacrifice Isaac. This severe test showed that Abraham loved and obeyed God above all else. Isaac was roughly fifteen years old when he was to be sacrificed.
[Why Did God Want Isaac Sacrificed?]
36. Sarah is the only women in the entire Bible where her age at death is recorded (Genesis 23:1). When she died her son Isaac was roughly thirty-six years old and Abraham was 136.
37. Isaac was forty years old when he married (Genesis 25:20). He married roughly four years after his mother Sarah died. Since Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born he was 140 when he married.
38. Abraham had his first son through Hagar (Genesis 16:15) and his second through Sarah (21:3). After Sarah's death he produced six more sons through a woman named Keturah (25:1 - 2) for a total of eight male descendants.