6:8
“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”
The chapter at a glance
The chapter in brief
As mankind multiplies, “the sons of God” see that “the daughters of man” are attractive and take as wives any they choose. The LORD says His Spirit will not abide in man forever, and that man’s days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim are on the earth in those days, mighty men of renown. The LORD sees that the wickedness of man is great and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart is “only evil continually.” He regrets that He has made man, it grieves Him to His heart, and He resolves to blot out man and beast from the face of the land. “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” Noah is righteous, blameless in his generation, and walks with God. God tells him that He will make an end of all flesh because the earth is filled with violence, and commands him to build an ark of gopher wood, 300 cubits long, 50 wide, and 30 high, with rooms, three decks, a roof, a door, and pitch inside and out. God will bring a flood, but He will establish His covenant with Noah, who will enter the ark with his family and two of every kind of creature. “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.”
The chapter sets the darkest verdict on mankind beside the first use of the word “covenant” in the Bible. The world is not a little bent; it is corrupt through and through, and God’s judgment is just. Yet the turn of the chapter is grace: Noah “found favor” before we are told anything about his righteousness. The ark is God’s provision, made to God’s design, for a family God chose to save, and Peter and Jesus both read the flood as a pattern of the judgment and salvation to come (1 Peter 3:20-21; Matthew 24:37-39). Many readers see in the ark a picture of Christ Himself, the one place of safety when judgment falls, with one door to enter by.
Points for discussion
vv. 1–4
Sons of God and the daughters of man
This is one of the most debated passages in Genesis, and there are three main readings. Some take “the sons of God” as angels who sinned by taking human wives; the phrase means angels in Job 1:6, and many connect it with the angels who “did not stay within their own position of authority” (Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4). Others object that angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30), and read the sons of God as the godly line of Seth marrying into the line of Cain, so that the line of promise is corrupted. Others read them as rulers, kings who claimed divine status and took any women they wanted. Each reading has real arguments, and this commentary takes no stand. What the passage means on every reading is plain enough: corruption had spread to the very line that should have kept faith, and God set a limit. The “120 years” is read either as a shortening of human life or as the time left before the flood, a span of God’s patience (1 Peter 3:20 says “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah”). The Nephilim appear again in Numbers 13:33; the text calls them mighty men of renown and says no more.
vv. 5–8
The LORD regretted
Verse 5 is one of the strongest statements in Scripture of human corruption: “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” It is not that people did some evil things; the heart itself was bent. Then comes a hard phrase: “the LORD regretted that he had made man.” Does God change His mind? Scripture says plainly that He does not: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind” (Numbers 23:19), and “I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6). First Samuel 15 sets both kinds of language side by side: “I regret that I have made Saul king” (15:11) and “he is not a man, that he should have regret” (15:29). God’s regret is His real, unchanging holiness meeting a changed world. He does not learn something new or wish He had planned otherwise, but His grief is no mere figure of speech: “it grieved him to his heart.” The holy God is not indifferent to evil. Then: “But Noah found favor.” The Hebrew word is chen, grace.
For discussion
How can God both “regret” and “not change”? Read Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:11, 29 side by side, and talk about what each kind of language protects.
vv. 9–12
Righteous and blameless
“These are the generations of Noah.” Noah is righteous, blameless in his generation, and like Enoch he “walked with God.” Notice the order. Verse 8 says he found favor; verse 9 describes his life. Grace comes first, and the righteousness is the fruit, not the price. Hebrews says Noah “became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7). Noah was not sinless, as chapter 9 will show; he was a believer who trusted God’s warning and lived by it. Around him the earth “was corrupt” and “filled with violence,” and the word corrupt comes three times in two verses (vv. 11-12). The same word appears in verse 13 when God says He will “destroy” them: God’s judgment gives to a ruined world the ruin it chose.
vv. 13–22
Make yourself an ark
God gives the plan in detail: gopher wood, pitch inside and out, rooms, three decks, one door. At about eighteen inches to the cubit, the ark is roughly 450 feet long, 75 wide, and 45 high, a vessel built to float and to carry, not to steer. The word for ark, tevah, appears elsewhere only for the basket that carried the infant Moses through the waters of the Nile (Exodus 2:3, 5), another rescue of God’s chosen one through water. Then the first “covenant” in the Bible: “I will establish my covenant with you” (v. 18). Salvation is not Noah’s idea; God plans it, provides it, and binds Himself to it. Noah’s part is to believe and obey, and the chapter ends with the words “he did all that God commanded him.” Peter calls him “a herald of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), so his building was itself a warning to his neighbors.
For discussion
Many readers see the ark as a picture of Christ: one refuge from judgment, made by God, with one door. Where does that picture help, and where must we be careful not to push it too far? Read 1 Peter 3:18-22 and John 10:9.
Threads across the chapter
What God sees. God sees the evil of man (v. 5), the corrupt earth (v. 12), and, in the middle, Noah, who found favor in His eyes (v. 8).
Corruption and destruction. The earth is corrupt and filled with violence (vv. 11-12), and God’s judgment answers in kind (vv. 13, 17).
Grace before righteousness. Noah finds favor (v. 8) before we hear of his blamelessness (v. 9) or his obedience (v. 22).
Covenant. God’s plan to judge (vv. 13, 17) is joined to His promise to save, “I will establish my covenant with you” (v. 18).
Key words
- 6:8
- חֵן chen“Favor”; grace, God’s unearned kindness, which Noah found before anything is said of his life
- 6:6
- נִחַם nicham“Regretted”; God’s grief at evil, spoken in human terms without any change in God
- 6:14
- תֵּבָה tevah“Ark”; used elsewhere only of Moses’ basket in Exodus 2:3, 5
- 6:18
- בְּרִית berit“Covenant”; its first appearance in the Bible
Cross-references
- Hebrews 11:7By faith Noah built the ark and became an heir of righteousness
- 1 Peter 3:18-22God’s patience in Noah’s day, and eight persons brought safely through water
- 2 Peter 2:4-5Angels who sinned, and Noah a herald of righteousness
- Jude 6Angels who left their proper dwelling
- Matthew 24:37-39As in the days of Noah, so the coming of the Son of Man
- Numbers 23:19God is not man, that He should change His mind
- Romans 3:10-12None is righteous, no, not one
- Exodus 2:3The basket of Moses, the same word as “ark”
- 1
Why might Genesis follow the long genealogy of chapter 5 with such a dark description of the world in chapter 6?
- 2
What does verse 5 teach about the human heart, and why is it good news that God’s verdict on us is that severe?
- 3
“But Noah found favor.” How does the order of verses 8 and 9 guard us from thinking we earn God’s grace?
- 4
Noah obeyed God for many years with no sign of rain. Where does God call us to faithfulness that looks foolish to others?
- 5
Of the readings of “the sons of God,” which seems strongest to you, and how should a group hold a question like this without dividing over it?
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