4.13–16 Anyone…may kill me. Away from human habitation and the protection of his kin, Cain is vulnerable to violence and murder. Ironically, Cain uses this problem in his plea for mercy, a mercy he did not show his brother. God grants this mercy by applying a visible mark on Cain similar to the brand that identifies the owner of a slave.
4.17–26 The lineage of Cain takes a curious turn, attributing to Cain and his descendants the origin of various arts of civilization: cities, herding, music, and (as Cain’s name foreshadows; see notes on 4.1–16; 4.1–2) metalworking. But the wickedness of Lamech continues Cain’s evil legacy. The birth of Seth to Adam and Eve provides a new younger son who takes the place of Abel and restores the proper lineage for the future humanity. The goodness of this line is indicated by the beginning of the worship of “the LORD” in v. 26, perhaps initiated by Seth’s son Enosh. Many of the names in the Cainite lineage (J) are paralleled in the Sethite lineage in ch. 5 (P), suggesting that the two lineages may descend from oral variants. The association of the arts of civilization with the Cainites may suggest that civilization is tainted with evil, but this is not clear. Traditions of culture heroes who lived before the flood are found in neighboring cultures (Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Greece).
GENESIS 5
Adam’s Descendants to Noah and His Sons
1This is the list of the descendants of Adam. When God created humankind,a he made themb in the likeness of God. 2Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them “Humankind”c when they were created.
3When Adam had lived one hundred thirty years, he became the father of a son in his likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. 4The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters. 5Thus all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred thirty years; and he died.
6When Seth had lived one hundred five years, he became the father of Enosh. 7Seth lived after the birth of Enosh eight hundred seven years, and had other sons and daughters. 8Thus all the days of Seth were nine hundred twelve years; and he died.
9When Enosh had lived ninety years, he became the father of Kenan. 10Enosh lived after the birth of Kenan eight hundred fifteen years, and had other sons and daughters. 11Thus all the days of Enosh were nine hundred five years; and he died.
12When Kenan had lived seventy years, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13Kenan lived after the birth of Mahalalel eight hundred and forty years, and had other sons and daughters. 14Thus all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.
15When Mahalalel had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Jared. 16Mahalalel lived after the birth of Jared eight hundred thirty years, and had other sons and daughters. 17Thus all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred ninety-five years; and he died.
18When Jared had lived one hundred sixty-two years he became the father of Enoch. 19Jared lived after the birth of Enoch eight hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 20Thus all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty-two years; and he died.
21When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 23Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. 24Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.
25When Methuselah had lived one hundred eighty-seven years, he became the father of Lamech. 26Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech seven hundred eighty-two years, and had other sons and daughters. 27Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years; and he died.
28When Lamech had lived one hundred eighty-two years, he became the father of a son; 29he named him Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.” 30Lamech lived after the birth of Noah five hundred ninety-five years, and had other sons and daughters. 31Thus all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy-seven years; and he died.
32After Noah was five hundred years old, Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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a Heb adam
b Heb him
c Heb adam
5.1–32 The genealogy from Adam to Noah is from the P source and may have been drawn from a separate document called “the book of the generations of Adam” (the list of the descendants of Adam, 5.1), which continues in 11.10–32. The antediluvian genealogy seems to be related to the J genealogy of Cain in 4.17–26, perhaps originally as an oral variant. The P list traces the lineage through Seth and makes no mention of Cain and Abel. After Seth and Enosh, the list closely parallels the Cainite genealogy: cf. Kenan, Cain; Mahalalel, Mehujael; Jared, Irad; Enoch, Enoch; Methuselah, Methushael; and Lamech, Lamech. The long lives of the patriarchs before the flood (ten generations) are a sign of the greatness of the ancestors and their distance from the present era. A similar concept is found in Mesopotamian king lists, where the kings before the flood (usually seven to ten kings) lived for tens of thousands of years.
5.1–3 The beginning of the genealogy repeats the language of God’s creation of humans in 1.26–28. The semantic range of the word ’adam, “man,” is exploited in these verses to refer to the collective, humankind, and to the name of the first man, Adam. (This is the first clear use of Adam as a proper name.) The repetition of the statement that God created humans in the likeness of God (v. 1) is complicated by the following statement that Adam fathered a son in his likeness, according to his image (v. 3). The latter seems to have a physical and visual sense—Seth looked like Adam. The language may be deliberately ambiguous or ironic.
5.4 He had other sons and daughters, a statement, repeated for each generation (e.g., vv. 7, 9, 13), accounting for the increase in the population before the flood, while keeping the focus on the main patrilineal sequence. (Only the firstborn sons are named, not wives or siblings.)
5.21–24 Enoch’s description differs from the others. After the birth of his firstborn son is added Enoch walked with God (v. 22), indicating piety and righteousness and placing him in the same category as Noah (6.9). Instead of the usual death formula, it is said Enoch…was no more, because God took him (v. 24). The end of Enoch’s life is mysterious and gave rise to much speculation in the vast Enochic literature of the Second Temple period. Enoch’s life span of 365 years, much shorter than the other antediluvians, suggests a connection with calendrical speculation.
5.27 The life span of Methuselah makes him the longest-lived of the antediluvians and places his death in the year of the flood. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint give different numbers for his life span and those of the other antediluvians.
5.28–29 In a brief inset from the J source, Lamech derives the name Noah from the word relief and foretells that Noah will relieve the harshness of human toil, referring to the curse on the ground in 3.17. This seems to be fulfilled in God’s promise after the flood to never again curse the ground (8.21) and may also be fulfilled in a different way with Noah’s invention of wine (9.20).
GENESIS 6
The Wickedness of Humankind
1When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, 2the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. 3Then the LORD said, “My spirit shall not abidea in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” 4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.
5The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people
together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”8But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.
Noah Pleases God
9These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. 10And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. 13And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. 14Make yourself an ark of cypressb wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16Make a roofc for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. 18But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. 21Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” 22Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
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a Meaning of Heb uncertain
b Meaning of Heb uncertain
c Or window
6.1–4 The strange account of the sons of God who marry and have sons with the daughters of humans is another instance of transgression of the boundaries between human and divine (like the garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel stories). This time, however, the transgression is initiated by the divine beings. Sons of God are elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible members of God’s divine entourage (see Deut 32.8; Job 1.6; 2.1; Pss 29.1; 89.7) who were even present at creation (Job 38.7). In Canaanite mythology, all of the gods in the pantheon, under the authority (and parentage) of El, were called the banu ili, “children/sons of El/God.” The attraction of male gods to human women has numerous parallels in Greek mythology. It seems that an older traditional story has been truncated by J to serve as another step in the spread of the chaos and transgression that gave rise to the flood.
6.3 God’s response to the breach of boundaries between divine and human is to restrict the human life span to 120 years. (Moses, as the ideal man, lives exactly 120 years.) Presumably this relates to the potentially huge life spans of the offspring of gods and humans.
6.4 Nephilim, lit. “fallen ones,” a name for the offspring of the sons of God and daughters of humans; they are further identified as the heroes…of old, warriors of renown. We are not told what their heroic deeds were. They were on the earth also afterward, referring to Num 13.33, where the Nephilim are the giant aboriginal inhabitants of Canaan. These two traditions about the Nephilim—before the flood and before the conquest—may have originally been oral variants. The idea that there were giants in antiquity may have been spurred by the gigantic ruins of Middle Bronze Age fortifications, which would have been prominent in the Israelite landscape.
6.5–9.17 The flood story is an amalgam of two texts, the J version (6.5–8; 7.1–5, 7–10, 12, 16b–17, 22–23; 8.2b–3a, 6–12, 13b, 20–22) and the P version (6.9–22; 7.6, 11, 13–16a, 18–21, 24; 8.1–2a, 3b–5, 13a, 14–19; 9.1–17), along with some editorial passages that harmonize the two texts (in 6.7; 7.3, 8–9, 23). In both versions, God decides to send the flood to destroy life, because humans are perpetually evil (J) and have corrupted the earth (P). Yet he chooses to save Noah, the righteous man, along with his family and the seed of all animals on a huge boat. After the flood, God vows never again to send a flood, in spite of continuing human evil (J), and institutes the Noachian covenant (P). The biblical flood stories are related to the older Mesopotamian flood tradition (in Atrahasis and Gilgamesh tablet 11), in which the destroyer god (Enlil) and the savior god (Enki) are two different gods in conflict. In biblical monotheism, one God combines these two impulses, and the moral conflict is transposed from the divine realm to the relationship between God and humans and the problem of human immorality.
6.5–8 Every inclination…was only evil continually, the reason for the flood, which is unchanged at the end of the flood (8.21) and reveals a darkly pessimistic (or realistic) analysis of human nature. Equally striking is God’s sorrow at having made humans, an anthropomorphic touch characteristic of J’s portrayal of God. Noah found favor, a wordplay on Noah (nch) and “favor” (chn), indicating that God’s favor (graciousness) will counterbalance his sorrow.
6.9–13 The righteousness of Noah contrasts with the wickedness of his generation, which has corrupted the earth. The repetition of verbs for corruption (including to destroy, v. 13) emphasize the scope of cosmic corruption and the necessity of cosmic destruction. In line with P’s concern for purity, the flood serves as God’s agent to cleanse the earth of its corruption.
6.14–16 The ark is a huge boat, roughly 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high (a cubit is about 18 inches). It is possible that there is a relationship to the dimensions of the tabernacle courtyard (see Ex 27), which has the same width but one-third the length and height. The Hebrew word for ark (tebah) occurs elsewhere only in the story of baby Moses, who is placed in a pitch-coated “basket” (tebah) that carries him to safety on the water (Ex 2.3).
6.18 The Noachian covenant is given in (see note on) 9.8–17. It is the first of a series of covenants in P that progress from the universal to the particular: the Noachian covenant with all creatures; the Abrahamic covenant with the chosen people, Israel (ch. 17); the Mosaic covenant, which resumes the Abrahamic (see Ex 6.4; 31.16–17); and the priestly covenant with the Aaronite priests (Num 25.10–13).
6.19–20 In the P version, two of every kind are taken on the ark to preserve life. In contrast, J has seven pairs of all clean animals and a pair of all unclean animals (7.2–3). The reason for this difference is that the J version (like the older Mesopotamian versions) has a sacrifice after the flood (8.20), which requires extra clean animals. In P there is no sacrifice until the establishment of the tabernacle, the sacrificial laws, and the priestly office (Lev 1–9).
GENESIS 7
The Great Flood
1Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. 2Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; 3and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. 4For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.
6Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came on the earth. 7And Noah with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10And after seven days the waters of the flood came on the earth.
11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty
nights. 13On the very same day Noah with his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons entered the ark, 14they and every wild animal of every kind, and all domestic animals of every kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every bird of every kind—every bird, every winged creature. 15They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.
17The flood continued forty days on the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18The waters swelled and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; 20the waters swelled above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. 21And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings; 22everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark. 24And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days.
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