Genesis 6:9-22

THIRD PART

THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD’s JUDGMENT AND OF THE WORLD’s RENEWING BY MEANS OF THE FLOOD. THE FLOOD AND THE DROWNED RACE. THE ARK AND THE SAVED HUMANITY. (THE ARK AS A TYPE OF THE PIOUS FAMILY, OF THE PIOUS STATE, AND OF THE CHURCH). (Genesis 6:9 to Genesis 8:19.)

FIRST SECTION

The Calling of Noah. The Ark

Genesis 6:9 to Genesis 7:9

9These are the generations [tholedoth] of Noah; Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations [in his times], and Noah walked with God. 10And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11The earth also was corrupt before God [in relation to God], and the earth was filled with violence [in relation to men]. 12And God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted3 his way [walk or conduct] upon the earth. 13And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through4 them [before them]; and behold I will destroy4 them with the earth. 14Make thee an ark of gopher-wood [cypress—a resinous wood]; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of; the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, 16the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window [a sky-light] shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above [downward—not above on the side, but from the top surface downwards through the different stories]; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second and third stories shalt thou make it. 17And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherever is the breath of life under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die [expire-yield the breath]: 18But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. 19And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 20Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 21And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee [for a store], and it shall be for food for thee and for them. 22Thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him.

See Genesis 7:1 ff for DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL, HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, and EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

Footnotes:

[8][Genesis 6:9. צַדִּיק, primary sense, fidelity, truthfulness. תָּמִים, primary sense, soundness, integrity. That the terms are comparative is shown by the qualifying word that follows, בְּדוֹרותָיו, in his generations. The language gives no countenance to the opinion of Knobel, that Noah is represented as a man of spotless innocence, and that the author of this account knew nothing of any fall. So the Jewish interpreters take it, some of whom, as Rashi and Maimonides both tell us, go so far as to say that he would not have been so called in comparison with Abraham. אֶת הָאֱלֹהִים הִתְהַלֶּךְ: see remarks on this phrase as used in the account of Enoch. T. L.]

[9][Genesis 6:11. יַתִּשָּׁחֵת, primary sense, depression, sinking down. Hence, corruption, destruction. T. L.].

[10][Genesis 6:12. וַיַּרְא. “And God saw the earth”— looked at the earth, and lo. Some would render: “saw that the earth was;” but the other mode is the more literal, as well as the more expressive. It may be called anthropopathic, as expressing something like surprise, but it is all the more striking on that very account. “Had corrupted its way.” הִשְׁחִית אֶת דַּרְכּוֹ. This may be taken physically as well as morally. דַּרְכּוֹ, its way, its mode of life. Men were becoming monsters, sinking down into brutality—becoming dehumanized through lust and cruelty, כָּל בָּשָׂר, all flesh. Dr. Murphy well remarks, that “this, should teach us to beware of applying an inflexible literality to such terms as all when thus used; since the mention of the whole race “does not preclude the exception of Noah and his family.” Commentary on Gen. p. 210. T. L.]

[11][Genesis 6:13. קֵץ כָּל בָֹּשָׂר. “The end of all flesh is come up, לְפָנַי, before me (to my face).” Or it may be rendered in the present, comes up before me, giving it more the sense of a prediction (or an event seen to be inevitable unless prevented soon) than of a threatened judgment. The language is remarkably graphic; as though the events of time, as it moves on, or the roll unfolds itself, come up before the immovable, unchanging God, and the last periods of a long series were drawing nigh in their development. In this view, כָּל of Genesis 6:13 would be taken in its universality. Through human wickedness and corruption there will be an end of man (of the whole human race without exception) unless means are taken for the preservation of a sound humanity, in the destruction of these who are becoming dehumanized. מִפְנֵיהֶם, another most graphic expression—filled with violence before the face of them. Wherever they spread, violence and corruption goes with them, and before them. Compare the description of Leviathan, Job 41:14, לְפָנָיו תָּדוּץ דְּאָבָה, “terror moves swiftly before him.” “Lo, I am destroying them (with) the earth” מַשְׁחִיתָם אֶת־האָרֶץ. Another view takes אֶת־חַאָרֶץ as in apposition with the preceding pronoun, and as explanatory of it. It sounds harsh in rendering, but is somewhat favored grammatically by the fact that אֶת, where it is occasionally to be rendered with, always denotes the closest and most essential union, and, on this ground, it is that it comes to denote the nearest and most direct object of the verb—“will destroy them, the very earth,” as the means of their destruction. Other renderings are, upon the earth (אֶת for עַל), with reference to 1 Kings 9:25; Psalms 67:2; and from the earth (אֶת for מֵאֵת), 2 Kings 23:35; but the examples cited for these fail to bear out the interpretation. See Rosenmüller. It may be offered as a conjecture entitled to some attention, that the Hiphil participle מַשְׁחִית may have the permissive sense which sometimes belongs to it (see Deuteronomy 2:28; Genesis 24:17; Genesis 25:30; Isaiah 63:15 et al.; Glassii Phil., p. 836), instead of the causative, and then it would be a case of double government: “And lo I am suffering them to corrupt the earth;” in which case את would have its usual sense of the direct object, and there would be no need of the sudden change in משחית from the sense of corrupting to that of destroying, although they are nearly allied; as though it were a reason for the interposition instead of a threatening of it. Lo I am letting them ruin the earth, if they are permitted thus to have their way. The interpretations generally are against this, but it may be grammatically supported, and has some grounds in the context as giving the merciful and remedial aspect of the passage the predominance over the retributive. It may at least be offered as a conjecture. The השחית of Genesis 6:12 seems to be against it, but even that may be rendered, “all flesh is letting its way become corrupt upon earth.”—T. L.]

[12][Genesis 6:14. עֲצֵי גֹפֵר, Rendered gopher-wood. The word occurs but once in the Scriptures. It is, however, etymologically the same with the Greek κυπάρισσος (cypress, the same radical consonants, g p r—k p r), and may also be regarded as related to the Latin juniperus (g (n) p r). It may denote any resinous wood which is at the same time light and firm. T.L.].

[13][Genesis 6:17. חַמַּבּוּל: used only of the Great Deluge, except Psalms 29:10, where it comes in as a hyperbole in the description of a great storm and inundation. Lange, Gesenius, and others, derive it from יָבַל, to which they give the sense fluxit, though it occurs only in some noun derivatives, the Hiphil sense being remotely secondary. The sense of flowing, however, in יבל, if it has it at all, is quite different from the conception we have of the deluge. It is the flowing of streams, rivers, rivulets, as seen in the derivative יָבָל, flumen, rivus. Aben Ezra gives us the views of the older Jewish grammarians. One class of these make it from נבל, comparing it with Isaiah 24:4, אָבְלָח נָבְלָה הָאָרֶץ, “ in mourning and desolate is the earth,”—giving to נבל the sense of ruin and wasteness. This accounts for the dagesh in ב. It is dagesh compensative, they say, for the swallowed נ, or מַבּוּל for מַנְבּוּל, just as מַבּועַ (from נבע) for מַנְבּוּע. It is certainly much easier, etymologically, to account for it in this way, than by making it from יבל, which would rather give the form מוֹבָל. Others make it from בלל confundit, and regard it as equal to מַבְלוּל, the dagesh arising from the swallowing, as the Jewish grammarians call it, of the first ‎ל following. They compare it, in its full form, to מַסְלוּל from סלל, Isaiah 35:8, or שִׁבְלוּל, Psalms 58:9. Either of these conceptions of ruin, desolation, and confusion, suits better with the idea of the great catastrophe than simply that of flowing, especially regarded as the flowing of a river. And then, according to these acute authorities, we have a reason for the addition of מַיִם, “the mabbul of waters,” which would be a mere tautology, and, in this case, a feeble tautology, if the word simply meant flowing. It was a wasteness, a ruin, a desolation, a confusion, or mingling together of all things (בלול), by means of waters. Hence the special descriptive term used only of this great event, and intended to show that it was sui generis, so that it comes to be used like a proper name. T. L.]

[14][Genesis 6:18.–בְּרִית. Lange makes it from ברת, a root not found; and the metathesis from בתר is harsh and unexampled. The Jewish grammarians and lexicographers make it from ברא = ברה, primary sense, to cut, referring to the severance of the victim in sacrifice on the making of a covenant. See Psalms 1:5, כֹּרְתֵּי בְריתי עֲלֵי זָבַח “who have made (cut) a covenant (with me) by sacrifice.” Further on this word and idea, see Exegetical and Notes. T. L.]