Enoch Taken by God and Methuselah the Wholly Righteous

(Genesis 5:24) "And Enoch walked." He does not enter within the register of the righteous, but within the register of the wicked. Rabbi Aibu said: Enoch was a hypocrite, sometimes righteous, sometimes wicked. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: While he is in his righteousness, let Me remove him. He judged him on Rosh Hashanah, at the hour when He judges all who come into the world. The heretics asked Rabbi Abbahu: We do not find death stated of Enoch. He said to them: Why? They said to him: "Taking" is stated here, and "taking" is stated elsewhere, "For the LORD will take your master from over your head" (2 Kings 2:3). He said to them: If you reason from "taking," then "taking" is stated here and "taking" is stated elsewhere (Ezekiel 24:16), "Behold, I am taking from you the delight of your eyes by a plague." Rav Tanchum said: Rabbi Abbahu answered them well. A noblewoman asked Rabbi Yosi: We do not find death stated of Enoch. He said to her: Had it said, "And Enoch walked," and fallen silent, I would say as you say; but since it says, "and he was no more, for God took him," he was no more in the world, for [God] took him, and so forth. From Adam to the flood was one thousand six hundred fifty-six years. Enoch buried Adam and lived fifty-eight years after him. Methuselah carried his years until the flood. Jacob served Abraham our father fifteen years and Shem fifty-eight years; Shem served Methuselah ninety-eight years; Methuselah served the first Adam two hundred forty-three years. You find then that four men spanned twenty-two generations. Seven there are who folded up the whole world: the first Adam, Methuselah, Shem, Jacob, Amram, Achiyah the Shilonite, and Elijah, who is still alive. Nine entered the Garden of Eden in their lifetime, and these are they: Enoch, the Messiah, Elijah, Eliezer servant of Abraham, the Cushite servant-king, Hiram king of Tyre, Yaavetz son of Rabbi Yehudah the Prince, Serach daughter of Asher, and Bithiah daughter of Pharaoh. And some say: Hiram was taken out and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi entered in his place. (Genesis 5:27) "And all the days of Methuselah were." They said: Methuselah was a wholly righteous man, and with every single word that issued from his mouth he composed two hundred thirty parables in praise of the Holy One, blessed be He, and he studied nine hundred orders of Mishnah. When he died, they heard a sound of trembling in the firmament, for they were making a eulogy for him, and tears fell from the eyes of the celestial beasts upon the place of his passing. When they saw this, they made a eulogy for him below. And the Holy One, blessed be He, set for them time after time for the generation of the flood, as a reward because they eulogized him seven days.