Genesis — Chapter 6

AND AFTER THAT MEN BEGAN TO BE MULTIPLIED UPON THE EARTH, AND DAUGHTERS WERE BORN TO THEM. — Josephus and Theodoret place this corruption around the seventh generation from Adam, i.e., in the time of Henoch. This is a recapitulation: Moses returns from Noah to the prior times that gave rise to the Flood.

THE SONS OF GOD SEEING THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN THAT THEY WERE FAIR, TOOK TO THEMSELVES WIVES OF ALL WHICH THEY CHOSE. — Who are \"sons of God\"? First opinion (Josephus, Philo, Justin, Clement, Tertullian, Lactantius): they are angels, who sinned in the flesh and were cast from heaven — hence this century also Cajetan held it probable that angels have bodies. Second (Burgensis, Valesius): they are demons who generated by succubus/incubus methods. Third and best (Chrysostom, Cyril, Theodoret, Rupert, Hilary): the \"sons of God\" are the sons of Seth, so called for their holiness, justice, and virtue by which God's image in them shone as if they were His sons. \"Daughters of men\" = daughters of Cain — called merely human because carnal, earthly, and devoid of the divine quality. Cainite women are said to have borne daughters more than sons because their procreative power was weakened by promiscuous lust. Fourth opinion (Molina, citing Symmachus, Chaldaean, Pagninus): \"sons of God\" = sons of the powerful, who abused their power over humble women.

MY SPIRIT SHALL NOT REMAIN IN MAN FOR EVER, BECAUSE HE IS FLESH: AND HIS DAYS SHALL BE A HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS. — \"My spirit\" = the life and soul of man breathed by God. Three interpretations of \"shall not remain\": (1) Hebrew reading (Jerome, Chrysostom): \"shall not contend\" = I will no longer contend with man's perversity by long patience; (2) Pagninus, Cajetan (following Chrysostom): \"shall not dwell\" (from neden = sheath, vagina) — My spirit shall no longer dwell in man's body as in a scabbard; (3) LXX, Chaldaean, Vulgate: \"shall not remain\" = shall not abide long in man. \"A hundred and twenty years\" = not the new limit of individual human life (refuted by Gen. 11, where men still live 400 years), but the time given to the whole human race for repentance before the Flood (Chaldaean, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, De Civit. XV, 24). Morally: God stated the 120 years to Noah that he might proclaim it; Noah preached repentance together with Mathusala and Lamech, as Berosus Chaldaeus attests.

NOW GIANTS WERE UPON THE EARTH IN THOSE DAYS. — Hebrew Nephilim (from naphal = to fall), meaning violent assailants, those who overwhelm and cast others down; hence Aquila: \"the violent ones.\" They were men of monstrous stature, strength, arrogance, and tyranny — the chief cause of the Flood (Wisd. 14:6; Job 26:5). From the myths of the Titans and Giants fighting the gods (Ovid, Metamorph. I) the Gentiles derived garbled echoes of this event (Ambrose, Eusebius). The giants arose especially from the sons of Seth (the \"sons of God\") who, degenerating from their ancient integrity and inflamed by lust, joined themselves to the daughters of Cain, and the force of nature exhausted in them its full strength, producing huge and powerful offspring. Morally: the strength and virtue — or vice — of parents is transfused into children.

AND GOD SEEING THAT THE WICKEDNESS OF MEN WAS GREAT ON THE EARTH, AND THAT ALL THE THOUGHT OF THEIR HEART WAS BENT UPON EVIL AT ALL TIMES. — Refuting Flacius Illyricus, who used \"figmentum cogitationum\" (plasma of thoughts) to argue that original sin is a substance, not an accident: it is the \"plasma of thoughts\" (imaginings), not of man himself, that is evil; and imagination produces images, not substances. Against Calvin: \"all the thought\" refers only to these wicked men of Noah's time, not to all humans at all times; Moses uses hyperbole; and the just Noe is immediately excepted. Lapide also argues it is probable that some of the adults engulfed by the Flood repented as they saw the waters rise and were saved — as 1 Pet. 3:19 suggests.

IT REPENTED HIM THAT HE HAD MADE MAN ON THE EARTH, AND BEING TOUCHED INWARDLY WITH SORROW OF HEART. — God does not properly repent or grieve; He is impassible. Scripture speaks anthropopathically (in the manner of human passions): \"God repented\" means God — who is angered and indignant at men's sins — decreed to recall and destroy the man He had created. LXX: \"He reconsidered\" — for one who truly repents reconsiders his deeds with sorrow. Symmachus: \"was displeased.\"

I WILL DESTROY MAN, WHOM I HAVE CREATED, FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH. — Note: sin corrupts the harmony of the whole universe. Each day's work of creation is undone by sin: light (Day 1) is darkened; the firmament (Day 2) shall be rolled up like a book (Is. 34:4); plants (Day 3) become desolate (Jer. 4:26); the sun (Day 4) is eclipsed; birds (Day 5) flee (Jer. 4:25); land animals and man (Day 6) are swept away. Thus sin brings its own punishment — by misusing each creature, man is deprived of each.

NOE WAS A JUST AND PERFECT MAN IN HIS GENERATIONS: NOE WALKED WITH GOD. — \"Perfect\" — not of sinlessness in venial matters but of integrity in moral life: no mortal sin, assiduous in virtue and progress (Augustine, De Perfect. justitiae). Ecclus. 44:17: \"Noe was found perfect and just; in the time of wrath he was made a reconciliation.\" \"In his generations\" = among the men of his time and century — he excelled all in justice. Ambrose: \"Not by ancestry but by justice is Noe praised; for the lineage of a good man is the pedigree of virtue.\" Allegorically: Noe = Christ the Saviour and consoler of the world; the ark = the Church; those inside are the just; those outside (heretics and infidels) perish in the flood. Gregory (Hom. 16 in Ezek.): \"The ark is consummated in one cubit, because one is the Author and Redeemer of holy Church.\" Tropologically: the ark = the holy soul refined by crosses and labors; Noe = the mind; the flood = temptations; the ark resting on Armenia = the mind resting in contemplation.

THE END OF ALL FLESH IS COME BEFORE ME. — The day decreed for the destruction of all flesh is now at hand; the earth is filled with their iniquity, and I will destroy them together with the earth.

MAKE THEE AN ARK OF TIMBER PLANKS. — Hebrew teba = a box or chest form, not a ship's hull: a large rectangular structure like a house, closed on all sides, with a gently sloping roof rising to the height of one cubit at the apex. Augustine (De Civit. XV, 26–27). \"Of levigated timbers\" — Vulgate: smoothed/planed planks (for close-fitting joints and easy caulking). Hebrew \"gopher\" — LXX: squared timbers; Chaldaean and Aben Ezra: cedar; Jerome: bituminous wood. Most probably cedar from Lebanon (incorruptible, long, light, buoyant). Lapide describes in great detail the architecture of the ark (following Joannes Buteo, De Arca Noae): four levels — (1) a bilge/ballast deck; (2) the animal quarters with ~300 cells; (3) the storage deck for food and supplies; (4) the top deck for humans and birds, with the great window and ventilation shafts. Dimensions: 300 cubits long × 50 wide × 30 high = 450,000 solid cubits capacity. Animals: ~175 species of terrestrial animals (≈ 250 cattle in space); ~150 species of birds.

AND THUS SHALT THOU MAKE IT: THE LENGTH OF THE ARK SHALL BE THREE HUNDRED CUBITS, THE BREADTH FIFTY CUBITS, AND THE HEIGHT THIRTY CUBITS. — The proportions (10:1 length to height; 6:1 length to breadth) are identical to those of the human body well-formed (Augustine, De Civit. XV, 26; Ambrose, De Arca, 6). Total interior capacity: 450,000 solid cubits. Sufficient to hold all the required animals and provisions (Origen wanted geometrical cubits 6× larger, but this is unnecessary).

A WINDOW SHALT THOU MAKE IN THE ARK. — The great window was of glass, crystal, or specular stone (transparent), one cubit in height (Symmachus: διαφανής = transparent). Other smaller windows may also have existed in the top story for light and ventilation. The ark had three stories (deorsum = bottom; coenaculum = middle; tristega = top), plus a bilge as a fourth lower section.

BEHOLD I WILL BRING THE WATERS OF A GREAT FLOOD UPON THE EARTH, TO DESTROY ALL FLESH WHEREIN IS THE BREATH OF LIFE UNDER HEAVEN. — The Flood was universal, covering the entire earth, including the highest mountains (15 cubits above, Gen. 7:20). Fish and amphibians were not destroyed.

BUT WITH THEE I WILL ESTABLISH MY COVENANT. — The first explicit covenant in Scripture. Noe and his sons (but not their wives) enter the ark — wives and husbands being separated during the Flood as a time of penance, mourning, and prayer, not generation (Ambrose, Damascene, Rabanus, Jerome, Abulensis). No child is reported born in the ark; after the Flood, Sem is said to have begotten Arphaxad two years after (Gen. 11:10).

AND OF EVERY LIVING CREATURE OF ALL FLESH, THOU SHALT BRING TWO OF A SORT INTO THE ARK, THAT THEY MAY LIVE WITH THEE. — The wild beasts entered the ark voluntarily, tame as in Paradise before Adam (Chrysostom, Hom. 25; Augustine, De Civit. XV, 27) — drawn by God's instinct or angelic impulse, not gathered by Noe or swimming to the ark as the waters rose. No fish were in the ark; no vermin generated from putrefaction (mice, worms, etc.); no hybrid animals (mules, etc.).

OF FOWLS ACCORDING TO THEIR KIND — THEY SHALL COME IN TO THEE. — Hebrew: \"they shall come to thee\" — of their own accord. Noe did not seek them.

AND THOU SHALT TAKE UNTO THEE OF ALL FOOD THAT MAY BE EATEN, AND THOU SHALT LAY IT UP WITH THEE. — This includes meat for the carnivores (Buteo; against Pererius who thinks all animals ate only plants): the lion, for instance, eats only meat. Hence Noe stored both plant food and meat in the ark.

AND NOE DID ALL THINGS WHICH GOD COMMANDED HIM. — Noe's perfect obedience prefigures that of Christ, and is a model for all the faithful.