Genesis 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Men multiply on the earth, the sons of God take wives from the daughters of men, and the LORD sets a limit of a hundred and twenty years; giants are on the earth in those days. God sees that human wickedness is great and that every thought of the heart is only evil, regrets making man, and says he will wipe out people and animals from the earth, but Noah finds favor with him. God tells Noah the earth is filled with violence and that he will destroy it, gives him instructions for building an ark of gopher wood, promises to establish his covenant with him, and orders him to bring his family, two of every living creature, and food aboard. Noah does everything God commanded him.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • Men began to multiply on the face of the ground.
   • Daughters were born to them.
2. 6:2
   • The sons of God saw the daughters of men.
   • The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good to look upon.
   • The sons of God took wives for themselves from all whom they chose.
3. 6:3
   • The LORD said that his spirit would not remain at work in man forever.
   • The verb in the LORD's statement is uncertain in the original, meaning either strive with, abide in, or judge man.
   • The LORD gave as the reason that man is also flesh.
   • The reason clause is ambiguous in the original, meaning either 'because he also is flesh' or 'in their erring he is flesh'.
   • The LORD said man's days would be a hundred and twenty years.
4. 6:4
   • The Nephilim were on the earth in those days.
   • The Nephilim were also on the earth afterward.
   • The sons of God came in to the daughters of men.
   • The daughters of men bore children to the sons of God.
   • Those children became the mighty men who were of old.
   • Those mighty men were men of renown.
5. 6:5
   • The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
   • The LORD saw that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil.
   • Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was evil all the time.
6. 6:6
   • The LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth.
   • The LORD was grieved in his heart.
7. 6:7
   • The LORD said he would wipe out man from the face of the ground.
   • The LORD said he had created man.
   • The LORD said the wiping out would extend from man to beast.
   • The LORD said the wiping out would extend to the creeping thing.
   • The LORD said the wiping out would extend to the birds of the heavens.
   • The LORD gave as the reason that he regretted having made them.
8. 6:8
   • Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
9. 6:9
   • These are the generations of Noah.
   • Noah was a righteous man.
   • Noah was blameless in his generations.
   • Noah walked with God.
10. 6:10
    • Noah begat three sons.
    • Noah's sons were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11. 6:11
    • The earth was corrupt before God.
    • The earth was filled with violence.
12. 6:12
    • God looked upon the earth.
    • God saw that the earth was corrupt.
    • All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.
13. 6:13
    • God spoke to Noah.
    • God said the end of all flesh had come before him.
    • God gave as the reason that the earth is filled with violence because of them.
    • God said he would destroy them along with the earth.
14. 6:14
    • God commanded Noah to make himself an ark of gopher wood.
    • God commanded Noah to make compartments in the ark.
    • God commanded Noah to cover the ark inside and outside with pitch.
15. 6:15
    • God told Noah this is how he was to make the ark.
    • The length of the ark was to be three hundred cubits.
    • The breadth of the ark was to be fifty cubits.
    • The height of the ark was to be thirty cubits.
16. 6:16
    • God commanded Noah to make an opening for light for the ark, the word being ambiguous between a window and a roof.
    • God commanded Noah to finish it to a cubit from above.
    • God commanded Noah to set the door of the ark in its side.
    • God commanded Noah to make the ark with lower, second, and third decks.
17. 6:17
    • God said that he himself was bringing the flood of waters upon the earth.
    • God said the flood was to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven.
    • God said everything that is on the earth would die.
18. 6:18
    • God said he would establish his covenant with Noah.
    • God told Noah to come into the ark.
    • God said Noah's sons, his wife, and his sons' wives would come into the ark with him.
19. 6:19
    • God commanded Noah to bring two of every sort of every living thing of all flesh into the ark.
    • The purpose was to keep them alive with Noah.
    • God said they were to be male and female.
20. 6:20
    • Birds were to come after their kind.
    • Cattle were to come after their kind.
    • Every creeping thing of the ground was to come after its kind.
    • Two of every sort would come to Noah.
    • The purpose was to keep them alive.
21. 6:21
    • God commanded Noah to take for himself some of all food that is eaten.
    • God commanded Noah to gather it to himself.
    • The food was to be for Noah and for the animals.
22. 6:22
    • Noah did so.
    • Noah did according to all that God commanded him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

"On the face of the earth" is a Hebrew way of saying "all across the land": it does not point to any particular region.

6:2

"The sons of God" translates a Hebrew phrase (bene ha-elohim) that elsewhere in the Old Testament usually refers to heavenly beings, but which ancient and modern readers have also taken to mean human rulers, or the male line descended from Seth. The text does not explain who they are, and the rendering leaves the phrase open, as the Hebrew does. "The daughters of men" simply means human women.

6:3

"LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew, four consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish readers said "the Lord" aloud in its place, and English Bibles have kept that custom by using the capitalised word. The Hebrew verb behind "keep struggling with" is uncertain; older translators read it as "contend" or "strive," others as "remain in" or "abide." "Flesh" here means a creature that is physical and therefore mortal. "His days will be a hundred and twenty years" has been read two ways: as a new limit on how long a human life may run, or as a countdown of the time left before the flood.

6:4

"Giants" renders the Hebrew word Nephilim, whose meaning is unknown; the earliest Greek translation guessed "giants" and the King James followed it. The word appears again only in Numbers 13, where scouts use it of unusually large men. "Came in to" is a plain Hebrew idiom for sexual relations. "Men with great names" means famous men, ones people still told stories about.

6:5

In Hebrew, the heart is the seat of thinking, planning and deciding rather than of feeling; "the thoughts of his heart" means roughly what we would call a person's mind or intentions. "Imagination" in the KJV means what the mind shapes or forms, like a potter forming clay, not daydreaming.

6:6

The King James "it repented the LORD" does not mean God turned from wrongdoing. The Hebrew verb covers regret, a change of mind, and being moved to grief, a person feeling the pain of how something turned out.

6:8

"Found favour in the eyes of" is a standard Hebrew idiom meaning someone regarded him kindly or looked on him with approval. It is the ordinary phrase used of a servant well thought of by a master, or a subject by a king.

6:9

"This is the account of" translates a Hebrew formula ("these are the generations of") that recurs through Genesis to introduce a new section, usually a family record or the story of what came of someone. "Blameless" here does not mean sinless; the Hebrew word is used of an animal without physical defect, and of a person of undivided integrity. "Among the people of his time" translates "in his generations": that is, compared with his contemporaries. "Walked with God" is an idiom for living in close company with God, used earlier of Enoch in chapter 5.

6:10

These three sons are named again in chapter 10, where the peoples known to Israel are traced back to them.

6:11

"Corrupt in God's sight" means corrupt as God saw and judged it, not merely in his presence. The Hebrew word rendered "violence" (hamas) covers cruelty, bloodshed and the kind of lawless wrong that a victim would cry out against.

6:12

"All flesh" is a Hebrew idiom for every living creature that breathes, humans and animals together. The KJV's "his way" means "its way"; in 1611 English "his" served as the possessive for things as well as for men.

6:13

"Has come before me" is court-like language: the matter has been laid before God as judge, and he has reached a decision. "All flesh" is a Hebrew expression for every living creature, people and animals together.

6:14

An "ark" here is not a ship. The Hebrew word (tebah) means a chest or box; the only other place it appears is the basket that carried the infant Moses on the Nile. The vessel has no sail, oars or rudder in the description that follows. "Gopher wood" is a guess at an unidentified Hebrew word that occurs nowhere else; nobody knows which tree is meant. The "tar" is bitumen, a natural black pitch found in the region and used to make baskets and boats watertight.

6:15

A cubit was roughly eighteen inches, about the length of a forearm from elbow to fingertip. That makes the ark about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high, a little longer than a football pitch.

6:16

The Hebrew word rendered "window" (tsohar) occurs nowhere else and is obscure; it has been understood as an opening for light, a roof, or a covering. "Finish it to within a cubit of the top" is equally uncertain in the Hebrew, and may describe a gap of about eighteen inches left under the roof, or the roof being brought to a point.

6:17

The Hebrew word for this flood (mabbul) is used almost only of this event and of nothing else; it is not the ordinary word for a river flood. "The breath of life" is the Hebrew way of describing what makes a body a living creature, the breathing that stops at death.

6:18

A covenant was a formal, binding agreement between two parties, of the kind kings and nations made with each other, sealed with set words and often a sign. The Hebrew phrase "establish my covenant" means to put such an agreement firmly in place.

6:19

"All flesh" again means every kind of living creature. In chapter 7 the instruction is given in more detail, with seven pairs of some animals; the two accounts sit side by side in the text as it stands.

6:20

"Every kind" translates a Hebrew phrase, "after their kind," used through the creation account in chapter 1 for the natural groupings of living things.