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You're listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast, where we unpack the meaning of books, passages and themes from Scripture. Join us each week as Dr David Klingler walks us through God's Word and teaches the Bible. Each episode has a study guide available in the show notes. This is Teach Me the Bible podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome back to Teach Me the Bible podcast. Today we are continuing on in our series in Genesis, and so we have made it all the way through chapter five, and last week we did part of the end of four and chapter five, and today we're going to do chapter six and a little bit of chapter seven as well, and so we're trying to include a little bit more in there just to make really emphasize the point that they're not meant to be chopped up into chapters necessarily. Right, the original story didn't have chapters and verses, and so we want to really emphasize this is one story continuing all the way through here. But we've been looking at these two developing groups, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and we've been focusing on the line of Seth in chapter five, and so we're going to pick up and see what happens to them in chapter six.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we pick it up in chapter six, verse one, which is really a continuation of chapter five. You look at this and there's different ways that the Hebrew tells the story. There's narrative construction, and one of the ways is the narrator just continues to tell the story, and that's the construction here, and so it's continuing right in from chapter five, continues into chapter six and really goes all the way through chapter six, and so we'll make that point. But one of the things that needs to be stated right here, and of course chapter six, there's this big debate about who are the sons of God, and so we pick it up in six one. It happened or it came to pass, or something like that men begin to multiply on the face of the land, face of the Audemars. That is exactly what's happening in chapter five. Adam is the word here for the man or men begin to multiply. Actually, it came about when Adam, the man, began to multiply on the face of the land, and this is what the story is that Adam had his wife Eve. They had other sons and daughters and other sons and daughters and other sons and daughters, and it tracks this one line, this one genealogy, all the way down to Lamec and then to Noah, and this story is about Noah.
Speaker 3:Chapter six is about Noah. So you can't say, well, chapter five has nothing to do with chapter six. Even the storyline, the genealogy, is getting you to Noah, so that the narrator can tell you about Noah. One thing I would point out is that it says in dollars now, daughters were born to them or be gotten to them, and the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were tov and they took to themselves wives, whomever they chose. This isn't just about procreating with angels. This is about taking Naashim, taking wives. The word there for wives is Naashim, and we've been introduced to that word all the way back with Lamec. Lamec on Cane's side.
Speaker 3:This is in chapter four, verse 19. Lamec took to himself, to Naashim, two wives, and so the story is kind of setting up the two sides. This is what the Lord said to do, this is the instruction, this is what's good and right in the eyes of the Lord Be fruitful, multiply, fail the earth and do it. One man, one woman, one flesh. And what's been going on in the genealogy of Cane is that his sons are doing the opposite. They're not being fruitful and multiplying image bears. They're being fruitful and multiplying, but they're multiplying people who are doing what's good and right in their own eyes, making a name for themselves, building a city, taking multiple wives, basically violating everything that has been stated by the Lord as being good and right in the eyes of the Lord. The continuing problem throughout this story is that there's two sides and Satan's side the serpent's side is always trying to entice the other side to come on and join, just like with Cain. Enabled. The Satan deceived Cain. Right, satan deceived the woman.
Speaker 2:Right, and that goes back to you know that four, seven verse that we talked about. You know, the desire of the woman versus the desire of the serpent. The serpent wants to to steal the sons and get them on his side.
Speaker 3:And that's exactly what's happening here. Intermarriage is going to be forbidden with the nations, and so what's going to happen here let's just, you know, kind of give you the Cliff Notes version and jump forward is that Noah and his wife, singular, and the three sons and their three wives all singular, and the text is going to make that point explicit they're going to get on to the boat and they're going to come off the boat, and the point of getting onto the boat is to destroy the wickedness of man. You know, man was evil. Every intent of his heart was on evil all the day long, and so the point was to wipe out all of those who refused to do what was good, right in the eyes of the Lord. The problem is it didn't work. They get off the boat and it picks right back up where it left off and the other sons and daughters starts to show up again, and out of this, these sons of daughters, come the nations, and the nations are going to be deceived and run by Satan. They're going to do what Cain's side was doing, cain's descendants were doing right from the beginning. So the multiplying wives is going to continue. The building cities to make your name great is going to continue. In fact, that's the first scene. Right after the flood, you get to chapter 10 of genealogy, chapter 11, you get the tower of Babel. What started with one person building a city, now everyone's doing right Now.
Speaker 3:Why do we say all that? Because there is an interpretation that says that the sons of God are angels. Now, in Job, the sons of God are angels. In Deuteronomy, chapter 14, verse one, you are sons of the Lord, your God, and so Israel was to be sons of God, and so the son image, son language is representation, but the context has to determine who's in view here, right? And so all the way back in chapter five, as we said, chapter five continues right into chapter six. This is the what Adam begot, and he translated this as the book of the generations of Adam. What Adam begot. In the day that God created Adam, he, the Lord, made Adam, him in the likeness of God, and he created them, male and female, and he blessed them and named them Adam. In the day that they were created, and when Adam lived 130 years, he became a father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image. And so you've got Adam created in God's image, seth created in Adam's image and so forth. And then there's other sons and daughters. And so what are the other sons and daughters? And so the text is identifying, sectioning out a certain genealogy Adam, seth all the way down, enish, enoch all the way down through to you get to know.
Speaker 3:And so a good summary statement of what's going on in chapter chapter five is chapter six. It came about that Adam began to multiply on the face of the land, and so daughters were born to them, and the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were tove. Same thing that happened in the fall Eve saw that the tree was tove, was good. It's the same construction here. And the point is, man continues to do what's good and right in their own eyes, not what's good in the eyes of the Lord. And so these sons of God, they see that the daughters of man were good and they take to themselves wives, whomever they chose, they're doing what's good. And wives plural in their own eyes, yeah, wives plural. Then the Lord said my spirit shall not strive with Adam forever.
Speaker 3:Now the angel view has all kinds of problems, not only with context, not only with Hebrew construction, but even with the wording my spirit shall not strive with angels forever, since they aren't flesh. That's not what it says. My spirit shall not strive with Ha'adam the man forever, because he is flesh. Nevertheless, his days will be 120 years. This is the time from the pronouncement until the flood. There's a limited amount of time. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterwards.
Speaker 3:Now the word Nephilim and one of the problems that we get into is that, because we don't know the Hebrew, we don't know the translations when we see this Nephilim and we go, oh well, it's the Nephilim, well, the Nephilim shows up about 10 times. This exact word, ha'at-nephilim, the Nephilim, shows up 10 times in the Old Testament. The next time is in Numbers, chapter 13, verse 33. Then again in Joshua 8, 25,. It's transliterated in Numbers 13. It's translated in Joshua 8. And so in Joshua 8, the New American Standard Reads all who fell that day.
Speaker 3:Well, in the Hebrew it came about all the Nephilim. All the Nephilim in that day numbered 12,000,. The same thing in Judges, chapter 20, verse 46. So all of Benjamin. It came about. All the Nephilim from Benjamin. The fallen ones, all the fallen ones from Benjamin, all the second Kings 25, jeremiah 39, jeremiah 50, it's 10 times, all the way through here All the other times. It's translated this time and then in Numbers 13,. It's transliterated Okay. So if they were to translate it, not transliterate it, it would be something like the fallen ones were on the earth in those days and also afterwards. In other words, the flood's not gonna get them all. They're gonna show right back up the fallen ones, the ones who rejected, and later in the story it's gonna be the fallen ones being to fall in battle, and so and so the fallen ones like Cain, yeah, like Cain, who's faced Nephall Nephilim.
Speaker 1:I think that's what it's doing there.
Speaker 3:So the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterwards, when God, when the sons of God, came into the daughters of men and bore to them children. These were mighty men, men of old. They translated men of renown. Now, where do we get the giants view? Well, a couple things In Numbers, chapter 13,. These were, they were tall, they were large people. In the Septuagint, it translates it, these were gigantos, these were giants. That is to say, they were men of old, men. They translated men of her. Now it's men with a name. They had made a name for themselves. They were famous, right, we have context for that. Yeah, big shooters, right. And so this is what the other side's been doing. They were trying to make a name for themselves.
Speaker 3:And the Lord saw that the wickedness of Adam was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was on evil continually. That's hard to interpret that as angels. Every intent of angels, no, it's every intent of Adam. This is used consistently all the way through here. And the Lord was sorry that he made Adam on the earth and he was at Sev, he was grieved in his heart. Now here's a great irony here, back in chapter five, verse 29,. Lamek has a son, names him Noah, which means rest, saying this is the one who will, naham, they translate, give us rest. But it's actually comfort, comfort us from our work and from the sorrow of our hands. They translate that toil. All of the same wording is showing up here in 6-6. In other words, the text the narrator is saying in, lamek's words are saying Noah's the one who will give us rest from the labor of our hands. The irony is Noah doesn't bring rest to mankind. The Lord was not calmed, doesn't bring comfort, not calm to mankind. The Lord was not calmed. He was sorry, not calmed, that he made man on the earth. He was sorry for the work of his hands which formed the man, and he was sorrowful, grieved in his heart. That's cool. And the Lord said I will blot man, whom I've created, from the face of the land, from the animals, from man to animals, to creeping things, to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I made them. I am not calm that I made them, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And so there's a contrast between Noah and what everyone else is doing.
Speaker 3:Why is Noah singled out? The flood comes in the last year of Methuselah's life, which is back in 27. And so everyone is wiped out except for Noah. The sons of God, the daughters of men, everyone's wiped out except for Noah and his wife and his three sons and their three wives. These are the ones that Noah begot, the generations of Noah. These are the ones Noah brought forth. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his days or in his time. Noah walked with God. We've seen that before, just like Enoch walked with God back in the previous chapter, and we're gonna see this in chapter 12. Abram walked with God or walked according to the word of the Lord. And so to walk with God or to walk according to the word of the Lord is to do what's right in his eyes, and specifically, he's not killing people and he's not taking multiple wives and he's not trying to make his name great.
Speaker 1:The Lord tells him to build a boat.
Speaker 3:He's building a boat for deliverance. He's not building a city to make his name great.
Speaker 2:Which kind of later becomes significant with Abraham too. He's walking with God. He's not building a city, rather he's a nomad wandering around.
Speaker 3:Looking for a city whose builder is gone. And there's a difference, and that's what the writer of Hebrews is gonna point out. And so all of this is just kind of flowing right along and, as you read it, as a single story, which again, grammatically, syntactically, vocabulary, it's all fitting together. It's when we take a passage out of Jude or 2nd Peter and read it back into Genesis that we get ourselves in some trouble. In trouble, right. And so the earth was corrupt in the eyes of the Lord, or in the side of the Lord, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth and behold, it was corrupt and all the flesh had been corrupted. And God said to Noah the end of all flesh has come before me. The earth is filled with violence because of them and, behold, I'm about to destroy them with the earth. In other words, I am going to wipe them out.
Speaker 3:Some try to argue that it's not the Lord doing it, but it's very explicitly. Behold, I, even I, am the one who'm going to bring the flood and I'm going to wipe them off the planet. Right, therefore, make for yourself an Ark. This Ark word is going to show up later in the story, so pay attention to it. It's a little Ark. It's the one that's going to be made. It's a golden one. Yeah well, no, this is a no, it's a different. This is a word, the word for what Moses's mother puts him in on the Nile Interesting, yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 3:And he's delivered from the Pharaoh trying to kill all the children and he's placed on the water and he floats down the water and he comes to the dry land and he's delivered. It's all the same.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's cool.
Speaker 3:Same language and so, anyway, Make for yourself an arc of gopher wood and pitch and it tells the size of 300 cubits. We're not familiar with a cube and a cube. It is really the size of basically your elbow to the tip of your finger. I think that's what it is, but that's not particularly helpful because Shaquille O'Neal's cube it is a little bigger than some little guy's but about 18 inches.
Speaker 3:right Is about what they say, and so that would make it about 450 feet long and all 30 feet. You know, 50 feet, 75 feet wide and about 45 feet tall. So that's the size we're looking at. Make a window, cover it with pitch, have a second deck, third deck, and behold, I'm bringing the flood. Behold, I, even I that. There it is in verse 17,. In bringing floodwater upon the earth to destroy all flesh which has the breath of life in it, from under heaven, everything that is on the earth shall perish. I don't know how you make that more explicit than the Lord is doing this, but I shall establish my covenant with you and you shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. Now, it's not explicit the number there, but we're gonna get the explicit number in chapter seven, verse 13,. On that very same day, noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife singular, and the three wives of his sons with them, right One for each, entered into the ark.
Speaker 3:And so there's a yeah, so it's making it specific or explicit that this is not multiplying wives plural, not taking multiple wives. And we're gonna run into this Kings are going to take multiple wives and the patriarch's gonna take multiple wives and it's gonna be a problem. It just shows that they're not doing what's good and right in the eyes of the Lord and so continue to keep the literary context going. And so the Lord's going to establish his covenant with Noah, but he's going to wipe out every living thing. And so there's instruction given to take two by two, get on to the ark. And so that's the instruction.
Speaker 3:So then the Lord said and Noah, enter the ark. This is in seven one, you and all your household. For you, I have seen to be righteous before me all this time. Maybe we should point out here there's a common belief and I think it comes from our kind of the way we share the gospel is we say there's none righteous, not one. See, that's what Paul said there's none righteous, not one. I do this in my classes. I'm sure you've heard this.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 3:And I asked the class is that true? And they go, oh yeah, that's true. And then someone will say, oh well, no, jesus was righteous. And I say is that it? Yeah, that's it Jesus. And they all agree yeah, yeah, jesus.
Speaker 3:Well, in Romans, chapter four, paul makes the point, he argues the point, that Abraham was righteous by faith. And when you start to think about it, there's all kinds of people in the Old Testament. They were righteous. In fact, the very Psalms that Paul quotes in chapter three, if you go back and read those Psalms chapter Psalm 10, five, 14, so forth they all have righteous people in them, in fact righteous generations in them. And so you are righteous by doing what's right in the eyes of the Lord, by operating by revelation.
Speaker 3:This is what Noah's doing. So he's not righteous because he was a really good boy or did never did anything wrong, but he's righteous because he valued the word of the Lord, he walked according to the word of the Lord and did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And so, seven, two, you shall take with you every clean animal by sevens, male and female, and the animals which are not clean, two by two. Well, the question then becomes well, how does he know this, since the clean and the unclean have not been revealed yet? Remember what this story is doing. This story is being told to people who already know what clean and unclean animals are. It's being told to people who are in covenant with the Lord, who are about to enter into the land, and so this story provides the backdrop for why they are to do what they're to do. What animals are clean and unclean?
Speaker 3:Well, they know that, but this is the kind of the base story, and so the things that happen in the narrative are going to get codified into the law. They're going to be. This is why we do what we do. The Lord has identified clean animals and unclean animals and this is why we do what we do. More about that. Later, Moses is gonna say hold on to that, hold your questions. This will be significant.
Speaker 2:We'll get to it right Right.
Speaker 3:That's good, and so birds of the sky and all of that, for after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights and I will blot out from the face of the land. There's the eye where I will blot out every living thing that I have made. You can't say the Lord didn't make it because he says I made it, and you can't say the Lord didn't blot it out because he says I will blot it out. Right and so. And Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him. Now, noah was 600 years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. Then Noah and his sons and his wife's sons they all entered the ark because of the water of the flood. Every clean animal and animals that were not clean birds, and everything that creeps on the ground there went into the ark, two by twos, male and female, as God had commanded them.
Speaker 3:And it came about that after seven days, the flood of the water came upon the earth. And so you'll get this throughout the. The Lord will give someone instruction and then it will be repeated. And they did exactly according to the word of the Lord, or they didn't right. And you're supposed to compare what the Lord said with what they did. Did they follow the instructions or did they not? And so Noah has followed the instructions. So next time we'll pick it up in chapter seven, verse 11, when the flood begins, and we'll talk about them getting off the boat. Next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so recap, we've watched these sides kind of developing and we watched as the sons of God, so to speak, the sons of Adam. This team is developing and then they all joined the wrong side.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the carriers of the promise are all going along and they are all led astray and they're doing what's good in their eyes, but Noah, yeah, but Noah did right in the eyes of the Lord, and this is gonna be the enticement all the way through this story. So, again, the nations are going to be fruitful and multiply, and they're gonna be working on Satan's team, and the Lord's going to instruct Israel to go wipe out theites, just like he has done here in the flood. Don't intermarry with them, don't take their sons or daughters, because they will cause you to follow their gods, and then the anger of the Lord will burn against you and he'll wipe you off the face of the planet. And so that's gonna be Deuteronomy, chapter seven. And so we're gonna see what we're seeing in this story early.
Speaker 2:We're going to continue to see over and over and over Right and this again, this makes a lot of sense out of what we've been talking about in Genesis 3, 15, and 16, and 4, 7,. These two teams are developing these two desires. This is all playing out, which really helps to validate what was happening in those earlier scenes, and so we're gonna keep tracing that. We're gonna keep tracing those two sides and see how it plays out through the entire story, not just in Genesis but the entire Old Testament, and so we'll pick up next week, like you said in chapter seven, verse 11, we'll see you then.
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