Genesis 6-9: Corruption of Mankind, Noah, the Great Flood, and the Rainbow

Chapter 6 starts off with a description of what was happening in the world. Verse 2 says that the "sons of God" took wives for themselves from the "daughters of men." The best explanation I have read for this is the most straightforward one...fallen angels were marrying human women and having children with them. This would become possible by them possessing human male bodies. Chapter 6 then goes on to talk about the Nephilim and men of renown. While the term Nephilim comes from a Hebrew verb root that means "to fall". I used to think that the Nephilim were the race of people who were the offspring of "fallen" angels and humans, but the verb implies that these Nephilim were giants that "fell" on people in a sense of overpowering them.

Chapter 6 then goes on to describe how God saw that the thoughts of man's heart was continually evil, and it grieved Him. Thus, He decided to destroy the human race and all animals, birds and creeping things. The only person to find favor with God was Noah, and thus he was given the instructions for building the ark. 120 years later, after building the ark with his 3 sons and preaching to a hardened people, Noah and his family was protected from the flood while the rest of humanity was eradicated.

The kind of faith that it took for Noah to build this ark is incredible. God told him that in 120 years a bunch of water would fall from the sky and kill everyone and everything, so he'd better build a boat that could hold his family and 2 of every living thing (even more of some creatures). I'm not sure how true this is, but I've heard the speculation that it may have never rained on the earth before the Flood. That would make this even more incredible, the fact that Noah had never even seen rain before and yet believed that God would destroy humanity with it. This is the kind of faith that earned Noah a mention in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. And yet, as we'll see in a few minutes, while he was a man of great faith, there was nothing super about him, and he still made his mistakes.

The floodwaters receded, and God made his covenant to never destroy humanity by flood again. He put the rainbow in the sky as a sign of this covenant. What happened afterward is interesting to me. So now there are 4 men and their wives left alive, and it's their job to repopulate the earth. So all of the tribes and peoples of the world descended from one of Noah's 3 sons (as far as I know, Noah did not have any more children after the flood). The lineage of Israel and therefore Jesus Christ came through Shem. The other lineage that is of special notice in this situation is that of Ham.

Verse 20 of chapter 9 picks up an interesting story. Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He became drunk from the wine and was naked inside his tent. Ham saw this and went and told his brothers about it. Instead of looking at their father naked, Shem and Japheth took a garment and walked backwards into the tent with it on their shoulders and covered Noah with it. When Noah "awoke from his wine" (I honestly have no idea if this means he literally woke up or if he just sobered up), he knew what Ham had done. I would think that the better explanation is that he was never actually asleep during the whole event, and thus he knew how each of his sons responded to his nakedness. For reasons not disclosed, he was unhappy with the way Ham responded and cursed Ham's son, Caanan. He declared that Caanan would be a servant to Shem. It's important to note here (and I never realized this until now) that this is a foretelling of the Israelites conquering the Caananites and taking their land. I learned that the term "servant" could simply apply to a conquered people, whether they became actual household servants of the conquering tribe or not. Therefore, this is an early proclamation of promise that the Israelites would reside in Caanan, long before the covenant was made with Abraham.

Gen. 4-5: Descendants of Adam

Several things stood out to me in these chapters. Some things I have thought about before, and others are new thoughts.

The first thing I have never thought about before is why exactly Cain's sacrifice wasn't pleasing to God. I assumed in Sunday school as a child that God "had no regard" for Cain's offering of produce simply because it was produce. Since all I ever learned about was the animal sacrifices that were used in the Old Testament, then I thought that was the only thing God wanted to be sacrificed. However, since I have been lazy about blogging and am just now writing this after starting the book of Leviticus, I have a bit better insight into this situation.

The first several chapters of Leviticus talk about the different types of offerings. One of the offerings is a grain offering, which implies that something other than animals can be given as a sacrificial offering. However, there are very particular criteria about which this offering must be given. While I'm aware that Cain and Abel did not have the Levitical laws, there must have been some sort of law given to them about how and what to sacrifice (this is not recorded anywhere in Scripture, so it is mere speculation). Abel obeyed these laws with his sacrifice (which also matches up with some criteria of Levitical law: "the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions". Firstlings would refer to the best of the flock, animals without defect. "of their fat portions" could possibly refer to fat from particular parts of the animal as described in Leviticus that must be offered.) And therefore, "the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering." (Gen. 4:4)

So what we see in Genesis 4 is that Cain simply "brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground." There is no specifics on this offering being the best of his crops or anything like that. Meanwhile, Abel brought the best of his flock. Why exactly God wasn't happy with Cain's offering, I can't be completely sure. Maybe it was simply because he didn't bring the best that he had. Maybe it was because his heart wasn't in it when he offered the sacrifice. Maybe it was a culmination of both, among other things. But what I do know now is that it WASN'T because his offering wasn't an animal.

The second half of Genesis 4 and all of chapter 5 are genealogy, first of Cain and then of Adam. I never noticed before that there are 2 Enochs mentioned in these chapters, one being Cain's son and the other being the great-great-great grandson of Seth, Cain's brother. Not much is said about either of them. Cain's son Enoch had a city named after him, and he's the father of Irad. That's about all we know.

The Enoch of Seth's descent, however, has a bit more information revealed about him. His dad's name is Jared, which we don't ever hear much about. Jared just happened to be the second-oldest person on record, dying at 962 years of age. The only person who lived longer than him was Methuselah, who died at the ripe old age of 969. What makes it cool is that Methuselah's dad was none other than Enoch. So with his dad living to 962 and his son living to 969, you'd think that Enoch must've lived a long time, too. On the contrary, he only lived to be 365; to make things more interesting, he didn't die.

Genesis 5:24 says two very interesting things about Enoch: he walked with God, and God took him. Noah is the only other person in the Bible that is said to have walked with God. I can't imagine what kind of intimacy that is, to actually walk with God. I hope that's the kind of relationship that all Christians crave, so that others could say of us that we "walk with God."

The second half of verse 24 says that God took him. The verse implies that he did not die, but God took him to Heaven alive, just like he does Elijah later on. I'm not sure what all would go into something like that, like does he have a glorified body in Heaven, or does he still have the body he had on Earth? I'm not well-versed on this subject, so I can't even provide a Scripture-based theory (for anyone who has info on this topic, please let me know).

And the end of this section of Genesis leads into the corruption of mankind, Noah, and the great flood. Which is where I'll pick up next time.