Genesis 6-9
Introduction
This lesson examines the account of events leading up to the Great Flood, and one incident shortly after.
Gen. 6
This is where we first encounter the term sons of God
. Many approach the text with the presumption that this cannot refer to angels, based on two points: that angels aren’t physical so they can’t mate with people, and the statement Jesus made in Mat. 22:30, that marriage will no longer apply to the dead because they will be like the angels in heaven.
The claim that spirit beings cannot be physical is refuted by Gen. 18, where Abraham is visited by what appeared to be three men, who ate and drank with him. The context clearly indicates that these men were really God, in what is called a theophany. God has no physical form, and Jesus would not incarnate for thousands of years after this. One may object that only God can do this and not angels, but Heb. 13:2 says that some have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. To this we could add the account of Balaam in Numbers 22, where God allowed him to see the angel blocking his way, or Luke 24, where the women at Jesus’ empty tomb saw two men who gleamed like lightning, or Gen. 19 where the men of Sodom wanted to rape the angels who came to rescue Lot, but referred to them as men
.
This source is a good study on angels in the Bible. It points out that though they always appear to people as adult male humans, they are only doing so temporarily and for our benefit. The point is that they can take on real physical flesh that can eat and drink as any human. As for the other point referencing what Jesus said, he specified that the angels in heaven don’t marry— not the fallen angels, and not by inability but by choice.
We might wonder why this is even an issue, until we remember the serpent seed theory. The presumption that no angelic being could mate with humans leads to what is called the Sethite theory, which developed in the 5th century a.d. This theory claims that while the line of Cain was wicked, the line of Seth was righteous. So they equate sons of God
with the Sethites, and daughters of men
with the Cainites (not to be confused with Canaanites). But it is based on nothing but presumption and poor logic.
Why would only the daughters of Cain be wicked, and the sons of Seth be righteous? Why would the children of such unions result in what Gen. 6 describes as giants, who were renowned from ancient times, from Moses’ perspective? And why would Jude later describe the fallen angels as having left their proper place and chased after strange flesh
? The ancient myths of godlike beings, some apparently part animal, likely came from these hybrid offspring of the fallen angels and human women and animals. And when they died, being part angel, they would not go to the grave as human souls did, but would wander the earth and become known, in my opinion, as demons. This might also explain why demons seem to crave taking over the body of a person or animal. At least the argument for sons of God
being angels has some support in scripture and history.
In vs. 5-7 and 11-12 we see the reasons God decided to flood the earth: everyone’s mind was continually focused on evil, and the earth was filled with corruption. The Greek text has a word meaning sin
in vs. 11, but the Hebrew has the word for violence
. And what does it mean that Noah was found to be perfect in his generation
, per vs. 9? Some say that it means he was the only good person of his time, but generations overlap and ALL the rest of humanity was wiped out. Others say that it means he was genetically pure, having no mixture with the fallen angels. This idea fits better with the context regarding giants.
Now to the building of the Ark. Check this web archive of a site dedicated to studying the dimensions and seaworthiness of the Ark itself. Keep in mind that the Ark was not built for speed or distance, but simply to stay afloat in rough seas. There is no problem fitting the pairs of animals onboard, and we can’t assume all of them were fully grown at the time. Keep in mind also that there would not need to be every variation within a kind
. For example, one pair of wolves could result in all kinds of what we call dogs
without requiring millions of years. And compared to the evolutionary fable about life arising from electrified pond scum, the Bible’s account is much more believable.
Gen. 7
This is when God finally tells Noah to enter the ark along with his wife, his three sons, and their wives. As for the mention of clean animals, remember once again that Moses is using the word clean
during a time when such a term had meaning. All of this preparation likely took place during the 120 years God marked out in 6:3. But now they are told that the rains will come in 7 days, when Noah was 600 years old.
Verse 11 states that the fountains of the abyss were broken up, and the torrents (or the flood-gates to release them) of the sky were opened. The traditional interpretation is that torrents of the sky
simply refers to rain, but we can’t rule out a supernatural release of at least some of the waters above the sky per Gen. 1. The objection to this view is that there could not possibly be waters coming from beyond the stars to the earth. Yet who is to say that the stars are that big and far away? Few are aware of just how much guesswork and imagination goes into what is passed off as the science of cosmology or astronomy. And we should ponder the question of how the surface of a ball could flood.
Verse 19 states that the Ark was lifted by the waters over the tops of the highest mountains, though we can’t be sure how they compared to the mountains as we know them. Since the waters below ground were released by it being broken up, the land mass and everything on it was likely to be changed in significant ways. The fossil record and the layers of strata in which they’re found are best explained by the processes of floods, including the rapid deposition of silt and other debris. Smaller creatures would be the first to die while larger ones could get to higher ground at first, explaining why smaller, simpler creatures are found in lower rock strata. Flood geology is a much more straightforward explanation of what we observe, than any gradualistic story.
The issue of Flood aftermath and why evolution is a fable are beyond the scope of this lesson, so please visit this website for a thorough debunking of evolution. Also visit the Youtube channel Wise Up for evidence of the level of technology wiped out by the Flood— which of course was the Flood’s purpose. Much of what we have been told is alien rock-cutting or people wearing out simple copper tools to carve rocks with great skill, is really just wood, straw, concrete, metal, and other materials buried under salt water for a year or more while the earth went through violent changes.
Gen. 8
This chapter reports on the end of the great Flood, which according to vs. 13, lasted about a year. Noah then built an altar to God and sacrificed some of the clean animals. This is when God made the first Covenant or Promise, and you may recall the chart of Biblical covenants from the lesson Did the Church Replace Israel?. God promises to Noah that he will never again wipe out the earth with water, though in 2 Peter 3:7 he will wipe it out in the future with fire. Until then, God promised that the seasons will continue.
Gen. 9
This chapter explains why animals seem to have a natural fear of people, that being because God commanded it. We may wonder why God would do this, until we read in verse 3 that the animals themselves would become food for humans. Keep in mind that God is blessing Noah, and the eating of meat is part of that blessing. God further commands that if anyone, human or animal, takes a person’s life, that human or animal must pay with its own life. And as God’s habit is throughout the scriptures, he puts a seal on this Covenant with a sign: the rainbow.
Verse 20 begins the account of Noah and his son Ham. Some commentators interpret the incident to mean that Ham actually violated the body of his drunken father, while others only take what’s actually stated in the text, though pointing out that an accidental glimpse of his father’s body would not in itself be sinful. Rather, they think it’s reasonable to infer that Ham went out and mocked his father to his brothers.
But why is it that when Noah became sober and found out what had happened, he cursed Ham’s son Canaan rather than Ham himself? Scripture doesn’t tell us, but perhaps it was because the son of Noah would suffer the exprience of having a wicked and cursed son of his own.
This completes the lesson about the Great Flood. Next comes a study of the earliest post-Flood genealogies, including some interesting names that appear later in Bible prophecy.