Today’s Passage: Genesis 6
The last chapter handed you Noah’s name and stopped. Here you find out the world he was born into. People multiply. Violence multiplies with them. God is grieved in His heart. He will not let the earth go on this way forever. The first lines are hard, and readers have argued about them for a long time. You do not have to settle that debate here. Hold these two things. The earth was filled with violence. Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
As you read, hold this: The earth was filled with violence. Noah found favor.
Context The world of Genesis 6
The first lines are some of the hardest in the book. “The sons of God” take wives from “the daughters of men.” The Nephilim are on the earth, the mighty men, the men of renown. Readers have heard this three ways: heavenly beings, the line of Seth marrying the line of Cain, or kings who took what they wanted. Honest people have held each one. You do not have to settle that debate here.
Stay with what God sees. Wickedness is great, and every inclination of the thoughts of the heart is evil all the time. The earth is corrupt and full of violence. God regretted that He had made man, and He was grieved in His heart.
Noah is a righteous man, blameless in his generation, and he walks with God the way Enoch did. God tells him to build an ark with real measurements, real rooms, and real pitch. Judgment is coming. There will be a door in it.
Genesis 6:1–8 (BSB)
¹ Now when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives whomever they chose. ³ So the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.” ⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown. ⁵ Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time. ⁶ And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. ⁷ So the LORD said, “I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—every man and beast and crawling creature and bird of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” ⁸ Noah, however, found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
“My Spirit will not contend with man forever.” There is a limit on the patience: a hundred and twenty years. The ark will take time. The warning is already in the world.
Genesis 6:9–22 (BSB)
⁹ This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. ¹⁰ And Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. ¹¹ Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and full of violence. ¹² And God looked upon the earth and saw that it was corrupt; for all living creatures on the earth had corrupted their ways. ¹³ Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth. ¹⁴ Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out. ¹⁵ And this is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. ¹⁶ You are to make a roof for the ark, finish its walls a cubit from the top, place a door in the side of the ark, and build lower, middle, and upper decks. ¹⁷ And behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy every creature under the heavens that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish. ¹⁸ But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹ And you are to bring two of every living creature into the ark—male and female—to keep them alive with you. ²⁰ Two of every kind of bird and animal and crawling creature will come to you to be kept alive. ²¹ You are also to take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten and gather it as food for yourselves and for the animals.” ²² So Noah did everything precisely as God had commanded him.
This is the account of Noah. God names the reason twice: the earth is full of violence, and all living creatures have corrupted their ways. Then He gives a blueprint: cubits, decks, a door, and pitch inside and out. A man is being told to build a vessel because water is coming. You can measure what God tells him to build. Wood and pitch and a coming flood.
Here the word covenant stands in the Bible for the first time. God will bind Himself to Noah. The ark is how that will look when the rain starts. Eight people, animals two by two, food for all of them. And the last line of the chapter is the one Hebrews remembers: Noah did everything precisely as God had commanded him. Favor does not make a lazy man. The man who found chen, pronounced KHANE. Strong's H2581, grace, favor, charm. You have just heard that every inclination of the heart is evil all the time. Then it says Noah found favor. That does not mean Noah was lucky. It means God looked on him with kindness. The next line calls him righteous and blameless. The man who found favor is the man who walked with God. cut the wood.
The LORD regretted that He had made man, and He was grieved in His heart. A God who grieves is not a God who is cold about the world He made.
Study notes Going deeper
Peter later calls Noah a preacher of righteousness, and he treats the flood as a real judgment on a real world.
"By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in godly fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith." Hebrews 11:7 (BSB)
"if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;" 2 Peter 2:5 (BSB)
A violent earth, a grieved God, and a man who found favor and obeyed. Next the water comes. Stay here long enough to hear the grief, and the grace, and the sound of wood being cut while there is still time. Thank God that favor found a man on a violent earth. Praise Him that He still knows how to keep a family when He judges the world.