(1.) “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose.” The “sons of God” were his professed children of the godly race of Seth, Enos and Enoch. The “daughters of men” were of the Cainites, culturedprobably in music (Gen. 4: 21); attractive in person, fascinating in manners—but alas, all corrupt in heart as toward God!——The Jews have a tradition that these “sons of God” were fallen angels, once first-born sons of God, who by intermarriage with man’s fair daughters, intensified this fearful corruption of the race. This tradition we must reject for the following as well as other reasons:
(a.) Nothing is said here about angels. The record gives us no word which legitimately designates angels—least of all, the fallen angels.
(b.) According to the Scriptures, angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” The tradition is therefore not only without Scripture authority but against it.
(c.) If this extreme demoralization had been caused by the marriage connection of fallen angels with the daughters of men, those angels should certainly have come in for their share of the visible retribution. God gave Satan his share of the curse for his agency in the first great sin. The same justice would have made the fallen angels visibly prominent under this curse of the flood.——Either of these reasons singly would be sufficient ground for rejecting this tradition; much more must they suffice, combined.
(2.) The withdrawal of the divine Spirit is the second assigned antecedent of this fatal degeneracy. In our English version we read—“And the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’”——As to the meaning of “My Spirit,” we must reject the sense—animal life—that which God breathed into man to make him “a living soul” (Gen. 2: 7), as being incongruous with the verb “strive”: also the sense—rational soul—that which makes man a rational being; and must accept the sense so amply sustained by Scripture usage—the divine Spirit, sent by Christ to transform human hearts.——Theword “strive” to translate the Hebrew verb[22] is not bad. We must reject the construction of some of the old versions, dwell, as not in the original, and as too tame: also the turn given it by Gesenius—to be humiliated, put down—as not borne out well by the original; and say that theverb is currently used of judicial transactions—searching out, convincing, convicting; and seems to have a striking analogy in that leading word given us by Christ; “When he is come, he shall reprove the world”—enforce conviction upon the world—as to sin and righteousness.
The next clause is more difficult and perhaps more controverted: “For that he also is flesh.” Why is the word “also” here? And what is the logic indicated by “for that”? Can it mean that God withdraws his Spirit because man is human—with a body of “flesh”? Our translators separated the main Hebrew word into three—the preposition meaning in, the relative written elliptically, and the particle meaning also. The construction of Fuerst is better—“In their wandering, he is flesh,” i. e. their degeneracy has brought flesh completely into the ascendant: warring against the spirit, the flesh is absolute victor in the fight. Henceforth all further conflict is hopeless. Hence God may righteously say—nay must in honor to himself say—My Spirit shall not plead my cause in man forever. He is utterly gone over to the flesh, and nothing remains but that he must perish.One hundred and twenty years of merciful respite[23] for patient warning and exhaustive trial must suffice:—then, if no penitence appear, judgment must fall, and that without remedy!——Thus God places on record the moral causes and antecedents of this fearful visitation, that its moral lessons may go down to distant ages for their admonition to the end of time.
The hour of doom draws nigh. The Lord gave Noah definite notice to enter his ark (7: 1) and allowed him seven days time (7: 4) to gather in all whom the ark was provided to save. Then “the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened.” Of small avail for safety then was the gigantic frame of the giants of those days or the defiant heart of unbelieving scoffers!
It is scarcely needful to speak of the physical meanswhich God employed to produce this flood. The agencies which appear in the volcano and in the earthquake and which God holds imprisoned at no great depth below the earth’s surface, are all-sufficient for these results. We may suppose that they lifted the bed of the adjacent seas, upheaving their waters into the atmosphere to descend in torrents of rain, and sinking for the time the inhabited lands—and the work is done. Such alternate upheavals and depressions are, we may say, chronic to the crust of the earth. The ancient records of geology bear this testimony. It was not strange therefore but was merciful that God should allay human fears by his promise to drown the earth no more. His bow in the cloud, seen when the sun shone forth after the shower, became by God’s special appointment the sign and pledge of this covenant.——I see no good reason to suppose that the rainbow never existed before. It must have existed by the laws of nature, unless those laws were greatly changed at the flood—a change which should not be assumed without sufficient reason. No such reasons are apparent. It is better therefore to construe the promise—The well known bow in the cloud I give and ordain to be my sign and pledge that the earth shall be deluged with water no more.——Beautiful symbol, kindly and lovingly ordained; and as we look upon it, delighted with both its beauty and its significance, let it heighten our joy that God says of himself, “I will look upon it and remember my covenant.”
Was this flood universal?