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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Genesis 6:9 - 6:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gen 6:9-12 contain a description of Noah and his contemporaries; Gen 6:13-22, the announcement of the purpose of God with reference to the flood.
Gen 6:9
“Noah, a righteous man, was blameless among his generations:” righteous in his moral relation to God; blameless (τέλειος, integer) in his character and conduct. דֹּרֹות, γενεαί, were the generations or families “which passed by Noah, the Nestor of his time.” His righteousness and integrity were manifested in his walking with God, in which he resembled Enoch (Gen 5:22).
Gen 6:10-12
In Gen 6:10-12, the account of the birth of his three sons, and of the corruption of all flesh, is repeated. This corruption is represented as corrupting the whole earth and filling it with wickedness; and thus the judgment of the flood is for the first time fully accounted for. “The earth was corrupt before God (Elohim points back to the previous Elohim in Gen 6:9),” it became so conspicuous to God, that He could not refrain from punishment. The corruption proceeded from the fact, that “all flesh” - i.e., the whole human race which had resisted the influence of the Spirit of God and become flesh (see Gen 6:3) - “had corrupted its way.” The term “flesh” in Gen 6:12 cannot include the animal world, since the expression, “corrupted its way,” is applicable to man alone. The fact that in Gen 6:13 and Gen 6:17 this term embraces both men and animals is no proof to the contrary, for the simple reason, that in Gen 6:19 “all flesh” denotes the animal world only, an evident proof that the precise meaning of the word must always be determined from the context.
Gen 6:13
“The end of all flesh is come before Me.” אֶל בֹּוא, when applied to rumours, invariably signifies “to reach the ear” (vid., Gen 18:21; Exo 3:9; Est 9:11); hence לִפָנַי בָּא in this case cannot mean a me constitutus est (Ges.). קֵץ, therefore, is not the end in the sense of destruction, but the end (extremity) of depravity or corruption, which leads to destruction. “For the earth has become full of wickedness מִפְּגֵיהֶם,” i.e., proceeding from them, “and I destroy them along with the earth.” Because all flesh had destroyed its way, it should be destroyed with the earth by God. The lex talionis is obvious here.
Gen 6:14-15
Noah was exempted from the extermination. He was to build an ark, in order that he himself, his family, and the animals might be preserved. תֵּבָה, which is only used here and in Exo 2:3, Exo 2:5, where it is applied to the ark in which Moses was placed, is probably an Egyptian word: the lxx render it κίβωτος here, and θίβη in Exodus; the Vulgate arca, from which our word ark is derived. Gopher-wood (ligna bituminata; Jerome) is most likely cypress. The ἁπ. λεγ. gopher is related to כֹּפֵר, resin, and κυπάρισσος; it is no proof to the contrary that in later Hebrew the cypress is called berosh, for gopher belongs to the pre-Hebraic times. The ark was to be made cells, i.e., divided into cells, קִנִּים (lit., nests, niduli, mansiunculae), and pitched (כָּפַר denom. from כֹּפֶר) within and without with copher, or asphalte (lxx ἄσφαλτος, Vulg. bitumen). On the supposition, which is a very probable one, that the ark was built in the form not of a ship, but of a chest, with flat bottom, like a floating house, as it was not meant for sailing, but merely to float upon the water, the dimensions, 300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high, give a superficial area of 15,000 square cubits, and a cubic measurement of 450,000 cubits, probably to the ordinary standard, “after the elbow of a man” (Deu 3:11), i.e., measured from the elbow to the end of the middle finger.
Gen 6:16
“Light shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit from above shalt thou finish it.” As the meaning light for צֹהַר is established by the word צָהֳרַיִם, “double-light” or mid-day, the passage can only signify that a hole or opening for light and air was to be so constructed as to reach within a cubit of the edge of the roof. A window only a cubit square could not possibly be intended; for צהר is not synonymous with חַלֹּון (Gen 8:6), but signifies, generally, a space for light, or by which light could be admitted into the ark, and in which the window, or lattice for opening and shutting, could be fixed; though we can form no distinct idea of what the arrangement was. The door he was to place in the side; and to make “lower, second, and third (sc., cells),” i.e., three distinct stories.
(Note: As the height of the ark was thirty cubits, the three stories of cells can hardly have filled the entire space, since a room ten cubits high, or nine cubits if we deduct the thickness of the floors, would have been a prodigality of space beyond what the necessities required. It has been conjectured that above or below these stories there was space provided for the necessary supplies of food and fodder. At the same time, this is pure conjecture, like every other calculation, not only as to the number and size of the cells, but also as to the number of animals to be collected and the fodder they would require. Hence every objection that has been raised to the suitability of the structure, and the possibility of collecting all the animals in the ark and providing them with food, is based upon arbitrary assumptions, and should be treated as a perfectly groundless fancy. As natural science is still in the dark as to the formation of species, and therefore not in a condition to determine the number of pairs from which all existing species are descended, it is ridiculous to talk, as Pfaff and others do, of 2000 species of mammalia, and 6500 species of birds, which Noah would have had to feed every day.)
Gen 6:17-21
Noah was to build this ark, because God was about to bring a flood upon the earth, and would save him, with his family, and one pair of every kind of animal. מַבּוּל, (the flood), is an archaic word, coined expressly for the waters of Noah (Isa 54:9), and is used nowhere else except Psa 29:10. הָאָרֶץ עַל מַיִם is in apposition to mabbul: “I bring the flood, waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is a living breath” (i.e., man and beast). With Noah, God made a covenant. On בְּרִית see Gen 15:18. As not only the human race, but the animal world also was to be preserved through Noah, he was to take with him into the ark his wife, his sons and their wives, and of every living thing, of all flesh, two of every sort, a male and a female, to keep them alive; also all kinds of food for himself and family, and for the sustenance of the beasts.
Gen 6:22
“Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded him” (with regard to the building of the ark). Cf. Heb 11:7.