jen-er-a'-shun (Latin generatio, from genero, "beget"):

(1) The translation

(a) of dor, "circle," "generation," hence, "age," "period," "cycle": "many generations" (De 32:7);

(b) the people of any particular period or those born about the same time: "Righteous before me in this generation" (Ge 7:1); "four generations" (Job 42:16);

(c) the people of a particular class or sort, with some implied reference to hereditary quality; the wicked (De 32:5; Pr 30:11); the righteous (Ps 14:5; 112:2).

(2) toledhoth, "births," hence

(a) an account of a man and his descendants: "The book of the generations of Adam" (Ge 5:1);

(b) successive families: "The families of the sons of Noah, after their generations" (Ge 10:32);

(c) genealogical divisions: "The children of Reuben.... their generations, by their families" (Nu 1:20); (d) figurative, of the origin and early history of created things: "The generations of the heavens and of the earth" (Ge 2:4).

(3) genea, "a begetting," "birth," "nativity," therefore

(a) the successive members of a genealogy: "All the generations from Abraham unto David" (Mt 1:17);

(b) a race, or class, distinguished by common characteristics, always (in the New Testament) bad: "Faithless and perverse generation" (Mt 17:17);

(d) an age (the average lifetime, 33 years): "Hid for (Greek "from the") ages and (from the) generations" (Col 1:26). The term is also by a figurative transference of thought applied to duration in eternity: "Unto all generations for ever and ever" (Eph 3:21) (Greek "all the generations of the age of the ages").

(4) genesis, "source," "origin": "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ" (Mt 1:1; the American Revised Version, margin "The genealogy of Jesus Christ").

(5) gennema, "offspring," "progeny"; figurative: "O generation of vipers" (Lu 3:7 the King James Version).

(6) genos, "stock," "race," in this case spiritual: "But ye are a chosen generation" (1Pe 2:9; the American Standard Revised Version "an elect race").

Philip Wendell Crannell