Genesis 6:5-8: Cause of the Flood

I’m trying to take this passage in smaller chunks than I usually do so that I don’t end up with so many incredibly long posts.

We’ve been watching the deterioration of the human race throughout these chapters. Genesis 3 gives one view of the start. Chapter 4 carries that story forward. If viewed in conjuction with Genesis 11, Genesis 5 hints at the problem. Genesis 6:1-4 again expands on the theme. Alden Thompson, in his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? titles his second chapter “Behold it was very good – and then it all turned sour” in which he discusses this theme. (Bias warning: Alden Thompson was one of my undergraduate professors and I publish his book.) However one debates the details of Genesis 3 and the nature of the first sin, one thing is incredibly clear. Genesis presents a clear picture of increasing separation from God and from God’s will.

Thompson says,

To summarize the argument of this chapter, we can say that God did create a good world. In this world he placed free creatures. They chose to rebel and align themselves with the Adversary. His attacks on God set the stage for demonic rule, a rule which a freedom-loving God chose to allow as necessary evidence in the cosmic struggle between good and evil. The Old Testament gives ample evidence of the impact of the demonic rule. At the same time, however, it testifies to God’s patient interest in his own people, a people through whom he hoped to demonstrate to the world that there is a God in heaven who is the source of everything good. God had much that he wanted to show and tell his people. As soon as they were ready, he passed on the good news. The tragedy was that they were so seldom ready. Yet God was still willing to watch and wait. That is the glory of the Old Testament and the glory of our God (pp. 31-32).

Now I’m extremely interested in the broader topic of God’s commands for violence, and with moral issues that are raised by stories like the flood, but that is not the focus of this passage, so I’m going to try to stick more to what this particular passage says first and then discuss these broader implications in another post. I believe that the paragraph I quoted above is a good summary of the message here. Let’s look at the scripture passage:

⁵And YHWH saw that the evil of humanity was great on the land, and the whole thrust of human thought was only evil continually. ⁶And YHWH was sorry that he had made humanity on the land, and it made him sad in his heart. ⁷And YHWH said, “I will wipe humanity which I created from the face of the ground, from human beings to cattle, to creeping things, to the birds in the sky, because I’m sorry that I made them!” ⁸But Noah found favor in the eyes of YHWH. — Genesis 6:5-8

There are several points to see in these verses. Let me break them out into bullet points:

• The total deterioration and evil of humanity
• God’s sorrow, leading to his statement that he’s sorry (or repents) that he’s made them
• The universality of the proposed punishment or cleansing
• The favor that Noah found, later attributed to Noah being found righteous (Genesis 7:1)

Modern theology is concerned with two things that the text does not emphasize, first the violent and massive destruction that God carries out here, and second with God repenting or being sorry. But as far as the story is concerned, God is not to be questioned as to his cause–it’s assumed to be an adequate reason for the destruction. Further, God’s “repentance” is a common feature of the Hebrew scriptures, and does not cause the Bible writers the type of discomfort it seems to cause us.

In addition, this is a good summary of the gospel (if we can deal with the destructive God issue), the good news about God: Big trouble is coming, God offers grace, people are saved.

One note: The Hebrew word nicham won’t give much help to those who are uncomfortable with God’s repentance or God being sorry. It does mean what it appears to mean, and it appears frequently with reference to God in Hebrew scriptures. Thus I’m going to leave the two issues–God’s repentance and God’s violence–for further discussion, as I think that the solution to the two problems is quite similar.