Genesis VI
Vers. 1, 2.” ‘ And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on (or over) the face of the earth (Heb. the ground or soil), and daughters were born unto them, 2. That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.’
HE original law of increase is still in force. Sin
has not cancelled nor weakened it. The sentence
of death against man does not interfere with it; nay, rather seems to give it new impulse, — as if creation, threatened with death, urged forward all the processes
1 The Septuagint makes this chapter to begin with the last verse of the preceding, as if the statement respecting Noah and his sons (ver. 32) were the introduction to what follows. The 4 here, like the Greek zai, is not so much a link with what goes before as an introduction to what follows, and corresponds with our particle ‘ now.’ The expression, ‘on the face of the earth,’ might be more literally rendered ‘ over (by) the surface of the ground,’ — alluding to the
population spreading itself out as well as increasing. We ought to notice, too, that the word translated mez is singular, yet it is said “born to them.’ The passage might run thus: — ‘ Now it came to pass that men began to multiply over the ground, and daughters were born to them.’ There ought to be a period at this verse. Havernick remarks, — ‘ We must pass over the genealogies in chap. v., which interrupt the history, and join the passage with iv. 26. Here it is the progeny of Seth that is spoken of, and the worship of Jehovah which they practised; by which the narrator has evidently made sufficient preparation for “sons of God,” especially when, in ver. 25, they are designated as a whole, a seed (comp. Deut. xiv. 1; Ex, Wa22; VOL. VI. T ‘ RNIN Sli ae st nS ae x of life to prevent its own extinction; or rather, as if God, who loves not to see His works destroyed, and who has a glorious purpose in view, were hastening on the different steps, that so the days of evil may be shortened.
Men multiply over the earth, though, perhaps, at a slower rate than now. The whole race now has become evil, so that the name ‘man’ has become, as the word ‘world’ did in later days, an expression for the ungodly. Earth is becoming what David afterwards felt it to ‘be, when he saw the faithful failing ‘from among ¢he children of men’ (Ps, xii. in) so that there were hardly any left on earth save ‘the children of men;’ or when, seeing himself surrounded with an evil generation, he said, ‘How great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee; which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee defore the sons of men!’ (Ps. XXxi. 19); or when he speaks of ‘the works of men’ (Ps. xvii. 4); or when he speaks of his ‘soul being among lions, even among ¢he sons of men’ (Ps. lvii. 4). Thus we find (even in this chapter) that the words ‘man,’ and ‘flesh,’ and ‘world,’ which are not in themselves names of evil, are becoming synonymous with ungodliness.
To ‘men’ daughters are born. Sons, of course, as well as daughters are born; but daughters are specially mentioned, because of the part they act in the scene that follows. It is a scene which is the natural summing up and result of what began in Lamech, when woman’s beauty took the lead in seducing man from God. It is in the region of the beautiful that Satan lays his most
and the lust of the eye. It is the comeliness of woman that gives new impulse to the ungodliness of earth.
The earth is a scene of gaiety and lust. ‘Man’ and his daughters overspread it. To the eye of the flesh, it is a bright display of earth’s perfection. The song and the dance, and the fair attire, and the rich gem, and the ringing mirth, — these make up the sum of this “magic of bliss,’ in which the world was revelling.? The fame of these ‘daughters of beauty’ spreads. Eyes are attracted to them that should not have looked on them; and hearts are beguiled by them that should have repelled their advances. But as it was the beauty of the daughters of Moab that ensnared Israel, and led on to wickedness which drew down God’s stroke of judgment, so did the attractions of these daughters of men entangle those who stcod, in reference to God before the flood, as Israel did in later days.
For there were still some that ‘dwelt alone,’ and were not mingled with the ungodly. They were few, but age after age they held fast to the early faith. Adam was their head; for long did he dwell among them; and he was known as the son of God (Luke iil. - 38).2 Seth and Enos, and the band of patriarchs, were
1 See Milton’s description of the time and the scene in Paradise Lost, book xi. 581-592 — A bevy of fair women richly gay, In gems and wanton dress.’ 2 If Luke drew his catalogue from the regular and legal genealogical tables, as doubtless he did, then it is plain that Adam’s name had been entered in these tables as ‘son of God,’
29% called by Adam’s name; and even after his death they and their children clung to Adam’s faith, and worshipped Adam’s God. When Cain and his posterity spread over the earth, Adam and Seth, and their offspring, still clustered round the primeval home, and worshipped at the gate of paradise, within sight of the flaming sword and the cherubim within. This region was to them what Canaan was to Israel; and as Israel in after days. got the name of sons of God, so did these in the earlier age; for the name of the redeemed has been one throughout — ‘sons of God.’ Identified with Him who is the Son of God, and washed in His blood, they get His name.
These sons of God, though for ages dwelling alone, at length came into contact with the ungodly. The
1 It is said that in the Old Testament none but angels are called ‘sons of God.’ In proof of this, Job i: 6 and il. 1 are adduced; but these are at least doubtful. The only apparently undoubted one is Job xxxviil. 7, ‘The sons of God shouted for joy;’ where, however, we may notice that the article is awanting in the Hebrew before ‘ God,’ so that this passage stands alone. But admitting that angels are called sons of God, we do not need to concede that men may not be called the same. In Luke iii. 38, Adam is called the son of God. In Ex. iv. 22, 23, God calls Israel His ‘son;’ and that this is not in any inferior sense, is proved by Hos. xi. 1, which, referring originally to Israel, is applied by Matthew to Christ. In Isa. xlv. 11, God calls them His ‘sons;’ and in Jer. xxxi. 21, He calls Ephraim His ‘ dear son;’ and in the same chapter, at the ninth verse, God says, ‘I am a father unto Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born,’ — the very words which are used in reference to Messiah, Ps. lxxxix. 27. See also Hos. i. 10, ‘ Ye are the sons of the living God;’ Deut. xiv. 1, ‘Ve are the sons of Jehovah, your God.’ And one of the apostle’s objects in the 3d and 4th of Galatians is to show that we are brought into the participation of sonship, such as Abraham had, long before the law
GENESIS Ni, I, 2.; 293
tide of the world’s population gradually swelled till it -
reached the confines of Eden, and there it flung ashore
its glittering gems, which soon attracted the eyes of the inhabitants of the sacred region. They picked them up, adorned themselves with them, and soon the separating line between the two regions disappeared. The sons of God were captivated with the beauty of these daughters of men, and entered into marriage affinity with them. Thus the godly are entangled and corrupted. Thus the ungodly became more ungodly still. The barrier is quite broken down between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Thus is not merely an individual ruined, as in the case of Samson; not merely a nation, as in the case of Israel; but a whole world is destroyed. Such are the evils flowing from
was given by faith in Christ, — ‘ Ye are all the sons of God (vist @:03 — just as the patriarchs were) by faith in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. iii. 26). The Church’s privilege is to be brought into that standing and relationship towards God which Abraham had enjoyed, and which had been known from the beginning, but which the introduction of the law had narrowed or curtailed. The verse above cited means, ‘ Ye all, who believe in Jesus Christ, Abraham’s true seed, are placed on Abraham’s footing, and get Abraham’s name, vids @e0¥,’ — a name which appears to have been much better known in patriarchal times than we imagine. Philo writes: ‘Ye who have knowledge are rightfully addressed as the sons of the one God, as Moses says, ‘*‘ Ye are the sons of Jehovah, your God.” ’ — (De Confusione Linguarum, sec. 28.)
1 There is no proof of unlawful violence here. The expression is a common one to intimate the lawful marriage union — ‘ they took themselves wives;’ as the Lord expressed it, ‘they married and were given in marriage.” The words, however, probably intimate that, like Lamech and the Cainites, they took as many wives as they pleased. Mark the contrast between the words ‘whom ¢hey chose,’ and ‘a prudent wife is from the Lord.’
the lust of the flesh and of the eye! We have seen it in Lamech’s case; we see it in the case before us on a larger scale; we see it in after ages in Sodom, in Israel, in Samson, in David, in Solomon. What endless evils haye flowed from impure desires! What corruption of piety; what strifes, and hatred, and wars! One of the marks of the last days is ‘incontinence;’ and both Peter and Jude have left warnings for the Church as to these special sins. Let us mark, too, the danger of unequal marriages. ‘Only in the Lord’ is the apostle’s rule; and when this is wilfully neglected, — when beauty and wealth, instead of piety, are preferred, — then what sin is there, what peril, to the individual soul, to the family, to the Church, to the land! See Gen. xxxvi. 35; Kings xi. 1-6; Ezra ix. 12; Neh. xiii. 23-28; Mal. ii. #1; x Cor, vil. 39 3 2 Cor, vii 142
Ver. 3. ‘ And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and
twenty years.’
Perhaps these words were spoken by the lips of Noah. It was thus that, as God’s preacher of righteousness, he condemned the world (Heb. xi. 11), speaking to that generation, in the name of Jehovah, both of grace and righteousness, both of His long-suffering to the sinner, and of His hatred of the sin. It is of the Holy Spirit
1 How expressive these words of the prophet Malachi, ‘ Judah hath married the daughter of a strange god;’ Judah, of whom, in the previous verse, he had called God the father, — distinguishing him thereby from the heathen, as if Judah only could be called the son of God!
ales ead that he speaks; of Him who ‘moved upon the face of
the waters’ at the first, and who now is seen moving upon d
the more turbid waters of the ungodly world. It is He whom God calls here, as elsewhere (Prov. i. 23; Isa. gin.- 2; Ezek. xxxix. 29; Joel ii. 28; Hag: ii. 5; Zech. iv. 6; Matt. xii. 18), ‘My Spirit ; — mine, in opposition to man’s spirit, to Satan, to the flesh. The ‘striving’ here spoken of implies conflict between God and the sinner, nay ‘judgment’ also, as the word seems to indicate, — God contending with man in righteous love, — sitting in judgment on his sins, yet seeking to win himself. But all this love is vain. The striving fails. Man, like Israel, resists and vexes the Holy Ghost. He refuses to be won. He accomplishes this awful victory over God, — the victory, of which the trophy is his own perdition. God’s name for man’s corruption is ‘ flesh, — that ‘flesh’ in which ‘dwelleth no good thing.’ The words ‘man,’ and ‘world, and ‘flesh,’ have originally no bad meaning. But when overflowing ungodliness has filled man, and the world, and the flesh, with sin, then these words become synonymous with pure and unmixed evil. God’s Spirit had been striving long with man; but there must be a limit to this; and when man has reached this limit, — when he has become a mass of utter sin, — then God’s Spirit withdraws, and he is given up to a reprobate mind. Yet in resolving to let man alone, that he may ripen for judgment, God gives a time of respite, — an hundred and twenty years. A long day of grace indeed! God will not take advantage of man in any way. He gives him full time to turn, He is long-suffering to the uttermost. How vast. His compassions! How great is His unwillingness to smite! How infinite His patient love!
Ver. 4. ‘ There were giants in the earth in those days (Heb. the Nepheelim were on the earth in those days); and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.’
Earth’s wickedness had long been on the increase. There had been mighty men (like Lamech before, and like Nimrod afterwards) on the earth; but this sad union gives a fresh impulse to the ungodliness, and raises up a new race of giant-sinners. The union between the Church and the world led to physical improvement; to a higher perfection in all things pertaining to the flesh, bodily strength, natural accomplishments, and everything that man calls ‘progress.’ But it made the flood of evil to swell the more rapidly, when thus the windows of heaven and the fountains of the great deep mingled their mighty stores, as if in prefigurement of the coming flood of waters, and the two sources of its overflow, the one from above, the other from beneath. That which ‘letted’ did ‘let,’ until it was taken out of the way; and when that which divided the waters
1 The origin of the word ‘Nepheelim’ is hard to settle; but the meaning of it is sufficiently well expressed by ‘ giants,’ — mighty men of prowess and stature. See Num. xiii, 33, the only other place where the word occurs. The latter clause of the verse is more literally rendered by the Septuagint: txsivo: Gov of yiyavrss of dx’ aldves, cf avbpumos of ovouacro: — * these were (or are) the giants who were of old, men of name.’
above from the waters beneath was removed, then the tides mingled, the flood of sin swelled up, ‘the wicked one’ was revealed, whom the Lord swept away with the stroke of His overwhelming sword, leaving righteous Noah lord of the earth in room of those who had so long usurped the sway.”
i *Ver. 5. ‘ And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.’
This scene is represented as coming specially under the eye of God. He looked down from heaven, and saw! (Gen. xviii. 21; Ps. xiv. 2.) What further need E of witnesses? Here is one better than a thousand human witnesses. He saw, and could not be mistaken. He saw, and would not misrepresent. Five chapters before, we are told that God saw that all was good; now He sees that all is evil. Nothing but evil meets His eye, in. the outer or the inner world of man. He had made this world not fifteen hundred years before; it was then holy and blessed, fit dwelling for Himself and all holy beings. Now not a trace of its excellency remains. All is evil. There was ‘ wickedness:’ it was ‘in the earth,’ His own earth; it was the wickedness of ‘man,’ the very being whom He had formed in His own image; it was great.’ And surely that which God calls ‘great
1 This is only one of the many points in which the days of Noah resemble the day of the Son of man. One of the best books on this subject, though it does not bring out the above parallel, is the volume of Mr, Maitland, Discourses on the History of Noah’s Day.
wickedness’ must be great indeed. But it is not the outer world alone that is evil. The inner world is worse. The fountain has become thoroughly polluted. Man’s ‘heart is evil;’ the ‘thoughts’ of his heart are evil; the ‘imaginations’ of the thoughts of his heart are evil; nay, ‘every imagination’ of the thoughts of his heart is evil; nay, ‘only evil,’ and that ‘continually.’ Such is God’s picture of a human heart! What difference now between a man and a devil? Is earth now any fairer than hell? Such is the race of man when ripe for judgment. Is not, then, that judgment righteous? Is it strange that God should sweep such a race away? Nay, is it not strange that He should bear with it so long, and be so unwilling to destroy it, as to suspend His stroke for a hundred and twenty years, and all this while deal with it in patient pity, yearning over it with unquenched love?
Ver. 6. ‘ And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.’
While thus describing man’s guilt, God still owns him as His handiwork. We here read, not that man ‘had been made,’ but that ‘He had made man.’ God does not keep out of view the fact, that the being who had become so thoroughly evil was the very man whom He had made. There is no hiding of this apparent failure of His.plans. It is said that He ‘repented’ that He had made man; and though in one sense God cannot ‘repent’ (Num.-xxill, 19), yet in another He does repent; nor does He hesitate to speak of His ‘repentings’
s. xi. 8).’ For though He is unchangeable, yet that changeableness is no arbitrary or unreasonable thing, if no altered circumstances could lead God to change His mind. That would be the unchangeableness of - folly, not of wisdom. Besides, let us remember that it is unchangeableness of purpose that we ascribe to God as His perfection, not unchangeableness of procedure. Nay, it is through the very variation of His procedure that He carries out His unchangeable purpose. But it is added, ‘it grieved Him at His heart.’ The expression is so strong as to be startling. It makes us ask, Is it right to speak thus of God? Is it right to speak so; for it is God who thus speaks of Himself. And how deep the insight which He thus gives us into His heart; how marvellous the discovery which He thus makes to us of His yearnings over rebellious man! It is the ’ same word that He uses in Ps. Ixxvill. 40, when He speaks of Israel ‘grieving Him in the desert;’ and in
Isa, lxiii. 10, when He speaks of their vexing His Holy 4 Spirit. Only it is stronger than these, for it is, ‘it grieved (or afflicted) Him at His heart.’
“eS
ia 1 The word pny is, as Robertson gives the meaning in this place,
“to express deep sorrow, to repent.’ It occurs frequently, sometimes in reference to God, and sometimes in reference to man. For the former, see Ex. xxxii. 14; Deut. xxxii. 36; Judg. ii. 18; Ps. evi. 45; Joel ii. 13; Jonah iii. 10; in all which passages, while it is true that God speaks after the manner of men, yet He also shows us this, that change of mind, when circumstances change, is not inconsistent with His unchangeable character; as, for example, when the sinner is brought to repent, then God changes His mind and procedure towards him. The pardon of the sinner is the result of this change on the part of God.
It was not that an unexpected crisis had arisen. It was not that God’s purpose was frustrated. It was not that God is subject to like passions as we. It was not that He had at length ceased to care for the works of His hands, and to wish that they had never been. But God is here speaking after the manner of men. He is looking at facts simply as they are, without reference to past or future. He isolates or separates them, and looking at them as they stand alone, He declares what He thinks and feels. Nor do God’s eternal purposes alter His estimate of events. It was God’s purpose that Christ should be delivered up and‘ slain; yet that did not alter God’s estimate of the crime. Each action of man is in one aspect a necessary link in God’s mighty purpose, yet each must be weighed and measured by itself. God is looking at the scene just as a man would look at it, and expressing Himself in language such as man would have done in such circumstances. He sees all the present misery and ruin which the scene presents, and they truly affect Him according to their nature; and as they affect Him, so does He speak in the words of man. ‘The scene affects God just as it would have affected a wise and just but most tender-hearted parent; and His words correspond to this. The feelings implanted in man must, to some extent, be the same as those existing in God. For man was made in God’s image in respect to his feelings as truly as in respect to his intellect. The human heart is the counterpart of the divine. Hence it is that God so often uses the language of human feeling when referring to Himself. God’s love, hatred, wrath, pity, grief, are i ar ve he oi ae ee 4 sh nae ee 2S ie — d oa oe uy ee =:
7 — — i:
GENESIS v1.7. eo
all veal; and they correspond to those feelings which He
has implanted in man; with only this difference, that in
God there is no admixture of sin.
Yes, God is ‘grieved at His heart.’ These are His own
words. Let us not explain them away. He is grieved at
the change which sin has made in the works of His hands.
He is grieved at the dishonour thus brought upon Himself.
He is grieved at man’s misery and ruin, — so fearful, so
eternal! He is grieved because He must Himself be the
pronouncer of man’s sentence, the inflicter of man’s doom.
How unutterably gracious must this God be with whom
we have to do! How unwilling to destroy, how willing to
bless and to save! With what a yearning love does He bend over rebellious man!
Ver, 7. ‘ And the Lord said, I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of thecarth; both man and beast, and the creep- mg thing, and the fowls of the air: for it repenteih me that I have made them,’*
. Probably these words were spoken to Noah, ‘the preacher of righteousness,’ or to some of the other of the righteous patriarchs then on the earth, that they might
- proclaim the message of judgment. Not without special meaning are the commencing words, ‘And Jehovah said.’ He lifts up His voice and makes public declaration of His purpose of judgment, that man may be fully warned; that
1] will destroy man, — even that very man whom I created, not regarding the work of my hands,- — from that very earth which I made - for him, — man and all these living creatures which I made for his benefit.’ Thus the words may be paraphrased. The reader may remember Oyid’s words: ‘ Perdendum mortale genus,’ — //etam. i. 188. he may know when ruin comes that it is no sudden outburst of vengeance, but the coming forth or carrying out of a calm and deliberate purpose.*
God’s declaration is, ‘I will destroy maul’ He has purposed, and who shall gainsay Him, or disannul His purpose? He will ‘blot out’ man, — He will sweep him away as men do what they loathe.? When He ‘blots out’ our sins, on our believing the record of His grace, He blots them out entirely, removing them from us as far as the east is from the west; so He will ‘destroy’ man as completely as He will remove sin; He will ‘blot out’ these szzners of an unbelieving world as thoroughly as He ‘blots out’ the sézs of believing Noah and his children.
It is he man whom He has created that He is thus to ‘blot out.” As He blots out the sin that He has not made, so He blots out the sinner whom He has made. He spares not the work of His own hands. Words of deep dread, truly! ‘I will destroy man whom I have created.’ Solemn warning and rebuke to those who flippantly taunt us with believing in the eternal doom of the ungodly, and say, ‘Oh! God did not make man to destroy him.’ True, He did not make him to destroy him; but He will do it! He did not make him for the dark-
’ «Before weird (doom) there’s word,’ says the Northern proverb.
2 The word is nnd, the same as is used for the washing away of filth. Deut. xxix. 20; Ps. li. 1; Isa. xliv. 22. Sept. deraasinby; Vulg. delebo, The word translated ‘destroy’ in the 13th verse is nny, the same word as ‘corrupted,’ ver. 12: as if God would say, ‘ They have corrupted themselves; I will corrug¢ them; I wiil make
them reap the fruit of what they have sown.’ The Septuagint gives xarapdcipw; the Vulgate, disperdam.
ness, but for the light; yet the everlasting darkness shall be his lot. He desires not the death of the sinner, yet — he shali die. He did not make man for hell, nor hell for man, yet the wicked shall be turned into hell. ‘I will destroy man whom I have created.’ He will do it Himself; with His own hands will He destroy His own workmanship. He will not leave him to fall:to pieces himself,. nor merely make his own conscience his tormentor, as some men speak; He will execute judgment Himself. And all this because He is the ‘ righteous God that loveth righteousness.’
He will destroy him ‘from the face of the earth.’ The earth is not to be destroyed in this ruin. It is not to receive any further curse on account of man’s sin; nay, it is to be delivered from a burden, an intolerable load of defilement that had been accumulating for fifteen centuries. Though God had cursed the earth, yet He always makes it appear that it is for man’s sake, not its own. ‘The creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly’ (Rom. viii. 20). Nay, we might say that here there is a purpose of grace intimated respecting the earth, when judgment is proclaimed against its dwellers. God’s object by the flood of waters was to cleanse the earth of its pollution, just as hereafter He shall purge it by fire, removing on that day not merely the incumbent wickedness, but durning out the curse from its veins, Water can do the former; but fire is needed for the latter:
But though the earth itself is not to share man’s ruin, the beasts and fowls and creeping things must be swept away along with him. They must share his doom, as being more closely linked to him than the material earth. What, then, must sin be in the sight of the Holy One, when it draws after it such boundless ruin? Whatever is most intimately connected with man, the sinner, must perish with him. Man’s first sin introduced the curse, but it did not destroy the creatures; now, however, sin has so swelled, so risen and overflowed creation, that God’s righteousness insists upon execution being done even upon the unintelligent creation, that He might thus publish before the universe, by the voice of an all-devouring flood, how terribly He hated that which man had done.
Then the statement of the sixth verse is repeated: ‘For it repenteth me that I have made them.’ How solemnly does this reiteration of God’s mind fall upon our ears! How deeply does He feel the sin, the wrong, the dishonour that man had done! How profound the compassion for those very sinners whom, in His righteousness, He was thus compelled to sweep away! How awful must have been the scene presented to His view, when, after surveying it, He was constrained to say, in reference to the creatures which He had made, ‘It repenteth me that I have made them’! Can any ignorance — can any madness exceed theirs who would make light of sin, who would treat it as a mere transient disease, which is in the course of ages working itself out of the system, and will soon pass away? ‘Terrible will be thy position, O man, when God comes to say this of thee! It will be terrible
1 Ovid’s verse is very striking, as if borrowed from this:
“Quz Pater ut summa vidit Saturnius arce,
Ingemit.’ — Metam. i. 163.
enough when thou art brought to feel, ‘Oh that I had
‘| mever been made!’ but it will be more overwhelming
still when God comes and says, ‘Oh that I had never created thee!’1
1 The Fathers speculated much and often on the nature and feelings: of God, raising all manner of questions as to His anger, love, hatred, repentance, etc. There is much more, however, of philosophy than of Scripture in their disquisitions; and Cicero, Plato, etc., are oftener quoted than Paul or John. Minucius Felix has some good remarks in his Octavius, p. 144, Ouzel’s edition. Lactantius, besides many general references to the subject, has a long discourse, De iva
Dei, in which there are good statements and well-pointed arguments ;, but a woful lack of Scripture. He quotes Plato’s remark, ‘Nemo prudens punit quia peccatum est, sed ne peccetur,’ iva un aihis ddixnon 3, a remark which, though lauded in our day, is but a one-sided axiom, which, if accepted as the whole truth, would set aside moral guilt, and do away with all necessity for a 7udgment. His treatise throws no light upon the subject. It merely affirms the truth, that if anger be denied to God, so must love, etc. — ‘si non ira est in eo nec gratia est,’ sec. 4. It is curious to notice the opposite sentiments of the ancients on this point. Ovid, referring to the world’s wretchedness, speaks of the great Father as ‘ groaning,’ zwgemens; whereas Epicurus is represented as saying, respecting the nature of God- —
* Semota a nostris rebus, sejunctaque longe,
Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
Ipsa suis poilens opibus, nil indiga nostri
Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira.”
Augustine’s remarks. are more satisfactory: ‘ The anger of God is no perturbation of His mind, but a judgment assigning sin its punishment. His revolving and re-revolving (Augustine follows the Sept. éveluunda, ‘He pondered”),is but the unchangeable ordering of changeable things (‘*Mutandarum rerum immutabilis ratio”), For God repents not of what He does, like a man; for His opinion (‘‘sententia”) of everything is as fixed as His foreknowledge is certain. But Scripture without such expressions cannot insinuate itself familiarly into all kinds of men.. .. This it could not do if it did not bend itself towards us, nay stoop to us sometimes, when lying prostrate.’ — De Czv. Dei, book xv.. chap. 25, - y
VOL. Vi. U
Ver. 8. ‘ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.’
There is one exception. The race is not to be wholly swept away. There is a remnant according to the election of grace. God has mercy on whom He will have mercy (Rom. ix. 15). God’s purpose shall stand, in spite of the world’s sin. Not by nature above the level of an unbelieving world, Noah by grace stands fast. ‘Not of works, but of Him that calleth.’ He rises when others fall. He rises higher, the lower the rest sink. For Jehovah has laid hold on him; and Jehovah upholds him. Nor was it because he was better than the rest that God’s choice fell on him; but he was made better in consequence of that choice. And where is the believing man that cannot trace his faith, his love, his whole change, to the same eternal fountainhead?
God’s description of a saint, then, is ove that has found favour in Fis sight. And this is the saint’s own account of himself — ‘Then was I in His eyes as one that found favour’ (Cant. vill. 10). This is all he can say for himself, — all the account he can give of the origin of his sonship, the cause of his spiritual change. How blessed to be able thus simply to trace all that is good in us directly to the sovereign will and love of Jehovah!
Ver. 9. * These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.’
The general testimony to Noah was, that he ‘had found
1 *Generations.’ This word occurs about forty times in the Old Testament, and is always translated in our version by the same word:
GENESIS vi. 9. a
favour with God.’ The fuller and particular testimony now follows. It is God’s own opinion of His saint. It takes up three features.
1. He was a just man, — a man whom God accounted righteous. It seems to be with reference to this expression that the apostle calls him ‘an heir of the righteousness which is by faith’ (Heb. xi. 7). There is righteousness o7 him and zz him; and God recognises both. The surety-righteousness of the Son of God places him in the state of a just man; and the inward righteousness of the Spirit gives him the character of a just man. He stands out before us, holy in a generation of the unholy, justified in a world of the condemned.
2. He was perfect in his age. He stood out ‘complete’ as a man of God, in all the various features which constitute that character; as the apostle speaks when he tells of the fitness of the divine word to make ‘the man of Gen. v. 7, xi. 10, xxxvi. I, etc. Calvin, followed by Rosenmiiller, Dathe, etc., extends its meaning, and gives as its signification, ‘ Totavitee historia.’ Paulus Fagius renders it, ‘ These are the things which befell Noah and his family.’ Our version in this same verse gives generation as the sense of 1y, which occurs about 150 times; and almost always in the:sense of age, or men of a particular age: Ps. xcv. 10; Eccles. i. 4. The Septuagint translates the former word by yéveais,
the latter by yévez. Calvin remarks that the plural (generations) is used to show that it was not in one age, but several, that he kept his integrity.
1 The words are literally, ‘Noah, a just man, was perfect in his time.’ The word means whole, complete — ‘a full year’ (Lev. xxv. 30); ‘a whole day’ (fosh..x. 13). It occurs about fifty times in the sense of ‘without blemish’ as applied to sacrifices. Noah is ‘ without spot,’ — a complete sacrifice, — body, soul, and spirit, — and so accepted of the Lord. Gesenius makes it refer simply to moral integrity. Scripture connects it with sacrifice and priesthood.
ne
God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works’ (2 Tim. iii. 17). He was not a man without sin; for ‘there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not’ (t Kings viii. 46; 2 Chron. vi. 36; Eccles. vil. 20); but he was perfect as pertaining to the conscience, and in all the parts of his character and life he bore the stamp of righteousness, — as is written of Zacharias and Elizabeth, ‘They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless’ (Luke i. 6). Yes, he was ‘perfect in his generation.’ He stood alone; yet he stood. He held aloof from the evil around. He had taken on nothing of the pollution which abounded.. He held fast in an age of matchless sin, when he had none to side with him but God.
3. He walked with God. The word is strong and peculiar, denoting the repetition and energy of the act. He walked and walked; yea, walked with fervent and untiring energy. Through centuries he lived on, walking with God, as Enoch had done before him; nay, during part. of the time, with Enoch at his side; for only of these two is the expression used. It is as if
1 Both in this verse and in chap. v. 23, 24, it is the Hithpael that is used; in the former the Hithpael preterite, in the latter the Hithpael future (with the 4 conversive). It is this that makes it so expressive. See Job i. 7; Zech. i. 10, vi. 7; Ezek. i. 13, The Septuagint makes it einpiornce r@ O24. Rungius has some excellent remarks on Noah’s standing alone, and preserving a testimony to the ‘woman’s seed,’ also on the reproaches he must have endured from these ‘giants.’
He calls him the martyr of martyrs: ‘Vere fuit martyr martyrum Noah,’ p. 295.
PMP cma ee, God had come down to earth and walked through it, with Enoch on one side, and Noah on the other. Of Abraham it is said, ‘Walk defore me, and be thou perfect;’ but it would almost seem as if this walk of Enoch and Noah were something nearer and more blessed than this.
Ver. 10. ‘And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Fapheth.’
This holy man is a husband and a father. For the marriage bond is holy, nay, ‘honourable in all’ (Heb. xii, 2), and the paternal relationship excellent and blessed. To the members of Noah’s family the whole human race was ere long to be reduced. Such is the narrow isthmus between the old world and the new; such is the remnant to which the Church of God is brought. How will Satan triumph at the prospect of cutting off the seed of the woman; nay, of compelling God (let the expression be pardoned) to cut off that seed Himself, and so to break His first promise, as well as destroy the world’s one hope! The seed of the woman was fast becoming extinct. The promise hung upon a thread. The Church’s hope was narrowed to a single saint. Thus God lets matters go to a crisis, — an extremity, — that His own wisdom and power may be brought out, and pride hidden from man. It is all of God.
Shem is named /rs? in this list, though Japheth was the elder (x. 21). Like Judah, he was to have the pre-eminence, — the birthright; and this not by any natural right, but solely by the choice of God. How often does God teach us in His word that all honour is of Him, and that the highest pre-eminence which He could confer on a man was to make him a link in Messiah’s line. Connection with Christ, even before He came, was God’s badge of nobility — His star of honour. It is so still. Connection with Christ, through belief of the Father’s testimony to Him, is man’s truest, highest honour, either now on earth or hereafter in the kingdom.
Vers. 11, 12. ‘ The earth also (Heb. And, or Now, the earth) was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence. 12. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt: for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.’
It was ‘corrupt’? It had become a decaying and abominable carcase; defiled and hateful; the very opposite of that which God had made it. For though it was not made, like the future inheritance, ‘incorruptible,’ still it was ‘incorrupt.? There was no blemish on it; no sin; no taint; no stain.
It was corrupt ‘before God.’ Full in His sight and under His eye, it revelled in its vileness. Its wickedness was daring, and dark in its defiance of God. He declares this not as one relating a thing from report, but narrating what had come under His own eye. Yes, He looked on it. He hated the sin; yet He bore long with it. Such are His compassions!
‘The earth was filled with violence.’ Injustice, cruelty, rapine, wrong, — these formed the sum of its story, Like
The Jews refer this specially to licentiousness, and to the strange intermarriages previously spoken of,
GENESIS Vi,11,-12. our
a mighty sea, violence had swelled up, till every plain and
3 valley were overflowed. It was drenched in sin ere it
was drowned in water.y
Such was earth! Transformed from paradise into worse than a wilderness; from being the seat of God to be like Babylon, the abode of devils, giants, murderers, and all unclean and hateful things. What has sin done! What can it not do! How quickly can it empty a soul or a world, of all good, and fill them with all evil! The frosts of winter do not so destroy the tender plant as sin does the soul or the world into which it finds its way.
But the awful description is repeated in the next verse, and God Himself is declared to be the witness of the evil. God looked at the earth. Ue surveyed it, so that there might be no mistake; and that no man might say that He judged hastily or untruly. He will not,misjudge His creatures; nor will He allow them to suppose that He is doing so. Behold, it was corrupt. There could be no mistake. The divine eye could not be deceived. Ad’
1 Montgomery thus describes the scene : —
* But as they multiplied from clime to clime,
Embolden’d by their elder brother’s crime,
They spurn’d obedience to the patriarch’s yoke;
The bonds of nature’s fellowship they broke;
The weak became the victims of the strong,
And earth was fill’d with violence and wrong.’ — World before the Flood, canto i.
Du Bartas thus describes the scene : —”
‘ From these profane, proud, cursed kisses sprung
A cruel brood, feeding on blood and wrong;
Fell giants strange, of haughty hand and mind,
Plagues of the world, and scourges of mankind.’
flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.» The whole race had gone astray, and become vile. Outwardly as well as inwardly all was evil. Thus sin spreads and widens, as well as deepens. It has no end. It never dies out, nor loses its hatefulness. God bears long with it. He allows evil as well as good to ripen. He will not pluck the unripe evil, any more than the unripe good. It is not till “the grapes are fully ripe’ that the clusters of earth’s vine are gathered (Rev. xiv. 18). Every sin is rendering earth riper for the last vengeance, and preparing it for the flood of fire.?
Ver. 13. ‘And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh ts come
before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them: and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. *
It is to Noah, face to face, that God now speaks. The
1 We may just notice here the use of 27s, where we should have zés. Attention to this will help to clear up several difficulties in Scripture.
? It may be worth while to throw together in a note some of the classical allusions to the events recorded in this chapter. It would be impossible to cite Hesiod, as, both in his Works and Days and Theogony, the passages are too long and too numerous to come within our limits. But their resemblance to the divine narrative is striking. Homer has several allusions to the early giants, Saspédmortyiydrvrecos (Odyss. vii. 59); and Sophocles speaks of the ynyevis orpardsyiyéyray, Virgil refers to their ‘immania corpora’ (eid, vi. 582); and Ovid to the ‘gigantas, immania monstra’ (Fast. v. 35). Describing the wickedness of this age of giants, Ovid writes, —
“Tertia post illas successit ahenea proles Sevior ingeniis et ad horrida promptior arma.’ — Medam, i. 126.
And again —
* * Sed et illa propago Contemptrix superum szeveeque avidissima cadis, Et violenta tuit; scires e sanguine natos,’ — Mefam. i. 160.
3 The LXX. give xaipss as the rendering of Pp; while Aquila, preceding utterances, though probably spoken through Him, were general proclamations, meant for all. He tells him that now at length His long-suffering is exhausted, and that the end of all flesh has come up before him. It had been long delayed, but it comes at last ; — the end of all flesh ; — the end of their day on earth; and with the end of that day, the end of grace, the end of hope, the beginning of wrath and everlasting woe! How simply, but how solemnly, God speaks! Not in anger, yet with awful decision! Such shall be the judgment of the great day. God does not judge hastily, or in a spirit of revenge,
more correctly, gives réacs, and Symmachus pas. The following passages will show that our translators have rendered it correctly by ‘an end:’ — Gen. viii. 6, xli. 1; Jer. li. 13; Lam. iv. 8; Ezek. vii. 2; Amos viii. 2. The last of these passages resembles the one before us clearly — ‘ The. evd is come upon my people.’ ‘All flesh,’ a very universal term, including man and beast. See chap. viii. 17; Num. xviii. 15. Most critics interpret the clause thus; ‘ The end (or destruction) of all flesh has been determined by me’ (see Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, Dathe, etc.); and perhaps this is substantially correct. But may it not be as if God were looking on the earth (ver, 12), and after each scene, from the first to the last, has-presented itself to His view, He speaks — ‘ I see the end of all flesh’? Philo has a curious passage of mysticism on the clause, understanding the words of the Sept. as if they had meant, ‘The time of mankind has come against me’ (évavrioy), See his Questions and Solutions. ‘Through them ’ — /t. Heb. before their face, z.e. coming forth from them; see Ex. viii. 24, ‘the land was corrupted by reason of’ (Heb. from the face of) ‘the swarm of - flies;’ Judg. vi. 6, ‘by reason of;’ Heb. ‘from the face of;’ Jer. xv. 17; Ezek. xiv. 15. We may notice that the word p%)s, occurs above
2200 times in various applications. ‘ With the earth.’ That this is the proper rendering of py is evident from chap. ix. 11, where the destruction of the eavth is spoken of. That this is a literal meaning is plain from chap. xxxvii. 2, xliii, 16; Judg. i. 16; Jer. li. 59. The Sept. has xay chy yay, which is the same meaning, Is it not to this that the Apostle Peter alludes (2 Pet. ili. 6), 6 xdcyos dxoarsra?
ea
FP Sens AS PEE ee eee against poor sinning man. He has reasons for what He does, and they are worthy of Himself. No stroke comes at random. All is calmly spoken, and calmly done. And will not this, O sinner, be the aggravation of your endless sorrow? You cannot soothe yourself with the idea that you are suffering unjustly, or are the victim of a hasty sentence. The wisdom and the justice of the proceeding will be clear even to yourself. This, too, makes your case so hopeless. Were the reasons for your condemnation weak or partial, you might hope for a reversal of the decision; but they are so wise, so good, so holy, that reversal is eternally impossible. In the case before us, God’s reasons are man’s total corruption of his ways, and his filling the earth with violence. He has not only let in evil, but he has made it overflow; he has filled the earth with it. ‘The earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof’ (Isa. xxiv. 5). It is not ome sin that brings down the judgment; no, nor many. It is the persisting in sin till others are corrupted, and the earth polluted, and the Spirit grieved away. God hates even ove sin; but He is slow to punish. Not till sin has become an overflowing flood, does He smite. But when He does judge, how terrible the stroke! Thus God waits now in His patient love. Earth is full of sin, but He waits. He will not cast it into the winepress of His wrath till its grapes be fully ripe (Rev. xiv. 18). The flood of waters waited till iniquity had filled the earth, So is it with the flood of fire; it waits till the wickedness of the last days has reached its height. Then the judement sits; and it is seen that sin was no mere disease which needed healing, but gwi/t, which could only be dealt with at a seat of justice by the great Judge of all. For the inflicter of the sentence is God Himself: ‘I will destroy them with the earth.’ They have corrupted the earth; I will corrupt them with that earth which they have corrupted. They and their earth shall be destroyed together; for the sentence comes forth against both. This destruction does not infer the annihilation of either man or the earth. Nor does the Apostle Peter, when he speaks of the old world ‘perishing,’ mean annihilation. So, when this earth is spoken of as consumed by fire, we are not to understand aznihilation. It passes through fire, only in order to be purified; and thus, purged from its dross by the Refiner’s fire, it comes forth a more glorious world than before.
Vers. 14-16. * Make thee an ark of gopher-wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of; the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits, 16. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third storeys shalt thou make it,’ *
‘How shall any escape?’ would be Noah’s feeling, on hearing God’s sentence against the world. Without
1 The word in the original is the same in both clauses: ‘They have corrupted the earth; I will corrupt them,’ etc. The Sept. has preserved. the identity of phrase. Trapp paraphrases it, ‘I will punish them in kind, pay them in their own coin.’
There is no need for minute criticism on the words of these three verses. Gesenius, Robertson’s Clavis, and Moses Stuart’s Chrestomathy (p. 153), will give the radical meanings and common uses of delay, God reveals the provision to be made for the deliverance of the few. That deliverance was to be of God as directly as was the destruction. Yet man was to make the vessel of deliverance. ‘Make for thyself,’ is the express and urgent command. Deliverance was secured and provided by God, yet everything was made to depend on man’s using the appointed means, just as in the case of Paul’s deliverance from shipwreck.
The ark was well planned, well proportioned; admirably adapted for its end; not for sailing, but floating, not for ornament, but safety. God knows how to deliver His own, yet He does so by means, though these means are sometimes apparently slender enough. His providing means, and placing them at.our disposal, implies the promise that in using them we shall attain what they
the terms, which our translators have rendered with sufficient accuracy. The word used for ‘ ark’ occurs only in connection with Noah’s vessel and Moses’ basket, — a proof that the word is a general term applied to any sort of chest, great or small, made to float on the water. The word is not the same as that used for the ‘ark of the covenant.’ Gopher-wood, a resinous tree, such as the pine or cypress, probably the latter, from the likeness of the letters, — xurépiccos. The word translated pitch (both noun and verb) means properly ‘ cover’ — ‘cover inside and outside with a covering;’ the word nowhere else means pitch. It always means ‘ covering,’ or ‘ransom,’ or ‘atonement,’ save in Canticles, where it is translated ‘camphire’ (chap. i. 14, iv. 14). We ought to add, that in 1 Sam. vi. 18 it means village, giving origin to Cap~ernaum, or Caphernaum, and similar prefixes. The ark was divided into chambers, or nests, or rooms (see Num. xxiv. 21; Job xxix. 18; Hab. ii. 9). It had a window, or transparency, or clear light. It was finished or sloped to a cubit above. Its door was in the side. It had a threefold division (which the Fathers greatly loved to mystify), It was 300 cubits long, 50 broad, 30 high; a measurement in which Augustine finds profound signification.
were meant to lead to. -God does not mock us. He does not place a ladder up to heaven, without meaning us to ascend. He does not provide a Saviour merely to tantalize or mock. He provides an Ark, and He opens a door in it, that we may go in and be saved. He provides comfort as well as safety; light in this Ark, that we may not go blindfold to heaven, or in the dark; not merely safely lodged, but carried through with comfort and gladness. And just as the Church’s deliverance is sure, so is the destruction of the world. The flood of fire will spare none. Yet the open door of our Ark bids welcome to all. And we know that our Ark is as sufficient as it is suitable. Christ is just such a deliverer as we need. And we must receive Him as such, not fashioning an ark of our own, or making a Christ of our own; but taking just the very Christ whom the Father here provides.*
Ver. 17. ‘ And, behold, I, even I, do bring (or am bringing) a flood
of waters upon the earth, to destroy ali flesh, wherein is the breath of life, Jrom under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.’
Now, for the first time, the zature of the coming destruction is announced. It is to be a flood of waters;
1 The references to the ark in the Fathers would furnish matter for along Excursus, which might be curious, but certainly would not be profitable, more especially as they make the ark a type not of Christ, but of the Church. It was to them a favourite and prolific subject for allegory. — See Origen in his Homilies on Genesis. Trenzeus has a few brief allusions to the subject, Ambrose, de lVoe e¢ Area. Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis. Augustine, De Civit. Dei, book xv. chap. 26 and 27, in which that Father gives fuli vent to his fancy. Lactantius “merely gives the- narrative, De Orig. Evroris, book ii, and it is to be no accidental outburst, but brought upon the earth by God Himself. He Himself is to be the doer of the whole. His object is to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life,! ‘from under heaven,’ that these blue heavens may no longer bend over such a mass of wickedness, and that sun no longer look down on such crimes. And then, to show how terribly complete this destruction is to be, it is said, ‘Every thing on the earth shall perish.’ What a sweep of judgment God makes when He begins! How like these words to those announcing the terror of the last day, ‘They shall not éscape!’ (1. Thess. “v, 3 ;. Jer. xi. 11.) Noah’s day, aad the day of the Son of man, are like each other not merely in their suddenness, but in the fierceness of the judgment.
sec. 13. The same may be said of Prosper, De Vocat. Gent. book ii. chap. 13 and 14. Jerome, Adversus Fovinianum, etc., chap. 93 more largely Adversus Luciferianos, chap. 8; Commentary on E2zckiel, chap. 42. Athanasius makes a fine use of the subject, in his brief tract against those who judged of truth by the multitude of adherents: ‘ Prefer, if you please, the multitude drowned by the flood to Noah saved; yet allow me to betake myself to the ark which contained the few’ — to) 08 cuyyapnony rH rods bArliyous Exoton xiPwrw xpocdpopsir. Gregory Nazianzen, on referring to the ark, speaks of Noah ‘preserving the seeds of the second world in a small vessel of wood ’ — xécnovdevrépov oxtpuare. Twentieth Oration. Fulgentius, De 7riz. chap. xil.; De Remiss. Peccat. chap. xx. We might multiply such citations, but these are sufficient. — See Peverius Valentinus, vol. ii. book x., where, however, the references are not full or complete. See also Glosse Literales in Genesim, by the Jesuit Del-Rio (p. 158), A.D. 1608. Christopher Ness, however, while equally ingenious, is more satisfactory than these ancient mystics. See his Avstory and Mystery of the Old and New Testament, chap. ix. pp. 99-129.
1 The clause might be rendered more emphatically, ‘To destroy all flesh which is in it (the earth); and to destroy the breath of life from under the heavens; everything that is in the earth shall perish.’
It is written, ‘The flood- came and destroyed them all’
(Luke xvii. 27); and again, ‘Even thus shall it be in
the day when the Son of man is revealed’ (Luke xvii. 30).
Increasing ungodliness ended by overflowing judgment in both.
Vers. 18-21. ‘ But 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. 19. And 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. 20. Of 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. 21%. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be food for thee, and for them.’
There is an exception to this destruction; Noah, and all those whom God was to treat as one with him, and to spare for his sake. ‘This exception is to be made on the footing of a covenant, or rather ¢4e covenant. The reference seems to be to a previous covenant, well known and recognised. This covenant had ‘fallen down,’ and seemed as if about wholly to fail. If all flesh is to be cut off, how is the covenant to be carried out? God sets apart Noah, making him the link by which the chain is to be kept unbroken. All the previous promises are to be centred in him. Through him the race of man
is to be perpetuated, that in this way ‘the Seed of the
1 With thee I will establish my covenant,’ or se¢ wf my covenant. 4 It is the same word as in Gen. xvii. 7; Ex. vi. 4, xxvi. 30; Deut. a xxvii. 2; 1 Sam. ii. 35; Ezek. xvi. 60, {And I will raise up that z which is fallen down.’ That such is its sense in the Hiphil, see ‘s Gesenius, who gives as instances, Deut. xxii. 4, Job iv. 4, Ps. xli. 61.
woman’ may at length come. Though the covenant thus “set up’ with Noah is in substance the old promise made to Adam, yet it comes before us in a new aspect, and with new appendages. It connects Noah personally with itself, and his preservation with its ultimate accomplishment. It is cast as the life-preserver to Noah in the midst of the rushing flood. It is made to encircle the ark with its sure girdle, that so the assurance may be given that all shall yet be well, in spite of man’s desperate ungodliness. Evil may abound, hatred may assail the chosen one, the waters may compass him about, the fire may wrap him round, but the covenant holds him fast — surer than any anchor. He cannot sink or drift away, or be destroyed, for God’s everlasting purpose has taken up its abode in him, and that purpose must fail ere he can be overthrown.
The covenant provides not only that there shall be an ark, but that some shall enter it; nay, it fixes on those who are to enter it. So, in regard to Christ and His salvation, love planned a covenant, love provided an ark; but love did more than this — it secured the entrance of at least some. It saw that none would enter if left to themselves, and it laid hold of some and drew them in.
God provides for the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. They are to be saved; and, in order to this, they are to be made to enter. In the one verse it is said, ‘Thou shalt bring,’ and in another, ‘They shall enter,’ showing Noah’s part and God’s part in the matter. Noah makes ready the ark; God inclines them to go in. But more, — God must have all these fed as well as sheltered; and Noah is instructed to take provisions with him for man and beast. God overlooks nothing. He cares for all His work; He clothes the lilies, He feeds the rivers, He watches the falling sparrow, He counts the hairs of our head. Truth and grace are with Him. His tender mercies are over all His works. What a gospel does the ark preach to us! — glad tidings of grace, the reception of which at once links us to the God of all grace.
Thus has Jehovah His time and His way for inflicting His judgment, as well as His time and His way for providing deliverance. He is altogether sovereign in His dealings with earth and its dwellers; sovereign in grace, sovereign in judgment. He establishes His covenant with whomsoever it pleases Him; blessing Noah in His free love, and for his sake saving his family; nay, saving the brute creation and sparing the earth, which had, for well-nigh sixteen centuries, been polluted with the crimes of man.
Ver. 22. ‘ Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.’
He listened to God and obeyed in faith, overlooking nothing, just as we read of Moses in regard to the tabernacle (Ex. xl. 16). He staggered not through unbelief, but gave God the credit for knowing what was to be done far better than he. Faith leads to obedience; the simpler faith is, the more prompt and implicit the obedience. Much as faith is needed in our time, surely obedience is no less so. Ours is the day of disobedience as well as of unbelief; of seifwill, no less than of enmity
and mistrust.: