Up to this chapter I see three characters of sacrifice. God covers our nakedness, that is our first need as sinners next, coming to God in worship, we are accepted, personally, according to the value, and worth of our gift. Then God smells a sweet savor and says " I will no more curse." But this makes a new heaven, and a new earth; here earth, and note here, in spite of, and as meeting the wickedness of men, compare 6: 5; and it is Ha-Adam here. But then we have something more here; they were clean beasts. It was founded on God's mercy, according to His mind, an odor of rest. Abel's owned death, and needed sacrifice, in himself-came in faith, and all its value was on him but Noah's was the sweet savor of Christ according to God's mind, acceptable in itself so as to bring favor and blessing on the world. Abraham's is more worship of God, who revealed Himself; doubtless he offered sacrifices, but it is not what is noticed; so at the second altar he called on the name of Jehovah.
-2. Jude and Peter seem to make the B'ney ha-Elohim (sons of God) the angels; but God effaced all this in the deluge, and so may we; but the Titans and mighty men, heroes, find the origin of their tradition here.
I have little doubt this is purposely obscure, but the language here, in itself, tends to the thought that B'ney Elohim (sons of God) were not of the race of Ha-Adam (man).
" Wives " is not right; niishim (women) is not necessarily " wives." They chose those they liked, and compare verse 4; and query there if it be not " and also after the sons of Elohim went in to the daughters of men, and they bore to them; these were the heroes, mighty men which were of old, men of name "; these were Nachsatz.
-3. " Jehovah said "-all is of Jehovah till the historic recital, verse to. " My Spirit shall not always strive with man," in his wanderings-he is flesh; " yet his days shall be," etc.
Yadon, from dun (judges, contends with), rightly " strive " or " plead " I cannot doubt; it is the regular sense of din or dun, and even where it is judge, very often the judging is a judicial striving of God with man; see too the noun.
-3, 4. Here we return wholly to the race of " Ha-Adam."
It is a question whether akharey-ken asher does not mean " after that," " thereupon that," and no stop, or only a comma between " them " and " these "; Asher (that) is not " when," or " als "; akharey-asher (after that) is clearly so used, and I see not why akharey-ken asher; asher is not " when," that I know.
I can understand two distinct classes here, but they seem to have subsisted together, though the first may have, in the first instance, preceded the second. They may have been Cain's progeny; another offspring of the unholy mixture of the sons of God and daughters of men. Certainly the two are brought out as bringing about the Flood, they both characterized the epoch which brought about the Flood-" those days."
The principle is the mixture of those who are of God with evil; but I am not aware that B'ney ha-Elohim (sons of God), is ever used for men. Job 38:77When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7), they are surely not men, but angelic; so Job r: 6. B'ney El khay (sons of the Living God) in Hos. 1:1010Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. (Hosea 1:10) (in the Hebrew 2: I), is surely different. Judges are called " Elohim," but not B'ney ha-Elohim (sons of God). But there is no question of that here; so that the usage is certainly for beings angelic, not human, in nature; see Jude. I cannot for a moment doubt the force of this B'ney ha-Elohim (sons of God), and b noth ha-Adam (daughters of man); and Jude quite confirms it. It seems to me also that akharey ken is not " afterward " but " after that "; i.e., the consequence of this alliance; they were Titans and such like. All these traditions had a source. It may be questioned if the nephilim (giants) and gib-be-rim (mighty ones) are identical.
But then, afterward, only the general state of the race of Ha-Adam (Man) is spoken of. The sons of Anak are called nephilim; elsewhere giants are "Rephaim "; the connection with the traditions of giants, Titans, etc., seems evident.
I cannot help thinking that the war of Titans (mythology), and the details referred to in them, are directly connected, not merely with the fact of the deluge, but-though mixed up with the original desire and temptation, " ye shall be as gods "with the apostasy of angels, and the frightful oppression, war, and corruption, and open rebellion against God. No doubt Scripture-the Spirit of God-has clothed all this dreadful evil with a veil of brief words, and the pious mind will see the divine wisdom, and perfectness of this, yet enough, as in so many cases, to explain all the various traditions of the heathen world as to it, and that is all we want. The tartarosas of 2 Peter, and the sinning angels of Jude; the genealogy of Titans, and their end are too closely connected not to give a character to the history of the world before the Flood, which accounts for its being passed over. It is curious that these poor slaves of the enemy while worshipping the gods who, they alleged, destroyed the Titans, yet honored these as illustrious, and the origin of creation; and how Satan had succeeded in making the righteous Noah and his family, who were spared, into fallen gods, though they owned the judgment on apostasy which had spared them. But such is man, if not kept of God.
They are called giants or nephilim, giants I suppose earthborn; all this history is their being men of renown. Ovid says, besides the violence against men they would have aimed at heavenly rule, but were judged. Yet the giants and Titans are said to have been in contention; the oppression of the heaven-assailing rebels, who would have introduced all this, may be here alluded to.
Hesiod's making only three ages before the Trojan war is remarkable; he very likely meant to compliment his ancestors -the common bent of poetry.
He says:
Titenes upo zopho eeroenti kekruphatai (the Titans have been buried in murky darkness).
And again toffs ouk exiton esti (for whom there is no coming out).
And again before this he says:
kai tous men Titenas upo chithonos euruodeies pempsian kai desmoisin en argaleoisin edesan (and sent the Titans beneath earth, whose ways are open to all, and bound them in grievous chains).
I have sometimes thought that in this verse (4) two classes of persons are referred to-the giants, and men of renown. They were men of renown (I apprehend the article in the Hebrew is emphatic), the builders of Babel aimed at it; it is possible that the mythologists mixed up this story with it. I apprehend certainly it is " the " giants were in the earth in those days, and also after that the sons of Elohim came into the daughters of Adam, and they bore to them, the same were mighty men which were of old, men of name-of the wellknown name, an'shey hashshem, the men of name.
I do not in the least pretend to say how the impiety against heaven was shown, nor disentangle all the mythological accounts, but the great facts seem plain; Jude must of course be looked at, his subject is apostasy; Peter's, just judgment- apostasy (Jude) as leading to judgment.
With Jude, the angels are cast down, and not seen, they are upo zophon (under darkness), Sodom and Gomorrha prokeintai deigma (lie there as an example) in the earth; this is all fitting.
In Peter, we have it therefore with the Flood-the world's judgment, and a remnant saved-judgment being his subject, and an elect remnant. The reserved judgment no heathen could know, Satan would not teach them that, for it was responsibility was there; the eternal judgment, or of the secrets of men's hearts, was not his subject of course-now that full salvation is come in, he may reduce men to this level, quod nota, and so he does. Hence the importance of full grace for deliverance from him.
Nom-Milton-I do not know what men of taste will say-was a miserable engrafting of all the heathen mythology on what was, after all, error so as really to make a fresh heathenism; that is the effect for the imagination, and so merge the power of what approached to truth in it. With most beautiful poetry, no doubt, it is a very mischievous book; indeed I have ever thought it so since I read it. But he was full of various learning of this kind, and turned Scripture scenes, and his views of truth (which was not the truth) into it. Purity mixed with corruption is corrupted purity, and that is not purity at all, but as an effect, and an evil worse than new corruption, save indeed, as the word implies, that it is always that, for corruption always implies something good corrupted, there is no evil created. What God has had to bear with in man! but He is perfect in all, and oh! how great the grace which has brought, and brought us, into the perfect light in grace and truth by Jesus Christ.
The Satanic idolatrous version of divine facts, as to God or man, with which truth is connected, having its origin in what, in itself, truth had to tell-this truth, as given by God, both gives us the positive blessing of itself; and explains, and guards against all that Satan derives from it.
Apply this to the corruption of Christianity. I do not doubt that this system will come in again in the gods, mauzzim (Dan. 11:38, 3938But in his estate shall he honor the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. 39Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain. (Daniel 11:38‑39)), and that Satan will thus, where he exercises his direct power, so rule the world. How great the deliverance of being in the light.
Note.—That the evil being in the form of a serpent was called aphophis—the sacred asp—or the giant in Egypt, he was also called the brother of the sin.
5. But besides this, man's—Ha-Adam's—wickedness was great upon the earth; I say, besides this, for it was general, though this may have had a great deal to say to its coming in in this shape. Kol-hay-yom is surely "continually" not "every-day"—"all the day."
5. "And God saw"—He sees all things; He cannot forget His faithful ones, and He does nothing, but He makes it known to His servants the prophets.
7. Ma-khah (to blot out), is a very strong word, “wipe" or "blot out," "destroy."
9. His walking with God was not merely the acknowledgment of Jehovah, which he did, but "walking with God" -his moral character and walk-fear of God like Enoch.
11. So the earth was corrupt before God. We have the origin here of diaphthezrai tous diaphtheirontas ten gen (to destroy those that destroy the earth), Rev. 11:1818And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. (Revelation 11:18); but it is only in the Apocalypse, and thus Hebraic in language, but in Corinthians 3: 17, is the same, save dia.
13. All is simple judgment here, there is no intercession. We are not on the anticipative ground of grace in communion, but simple deliverance in judgment.
NOTE.-When the end of all flesh came, the spirits are in prison, yet it died.
-18. Noah stood alone for the covenant " with thee." '
There are two things here: the declaration of not repeating the curse on Adam as to the ground, and the non-repetition of the Flood. This was founded on sacrifice. The new world, as this earth, was founded on sacrifice, the first on judgment; then the curse, here the curse no more repeated; with man's nature fully seen, God acted on the sacrifice, not on it.
As to labor, partial relief, see verse 29.
7-12. I cannot but think the raven and dove emblematic, though not a type; yet the ravens brought food to Elijah.
1. Ta-raph," pluckt off " or " fresh "-not an old dried one to be found anywhere.
- 12. Where the dove could rest, Noah could; so blessed be God, with us; yet then, no sure rest, now sure.
- 21. We have here the propitiatory character of the sweet savor of Christ's sacrifice. It was not a sin-offering, bearing, and putting sin away, but one which met the mind of God, as to His sense of sin, by the perfectness of the sacrifice—a reyakh hannikhoakh (odor of the rest) to Him; so Jehovah said el-lib-be (in his heart).
21. The word as to the curse is this—Noah was to comfort man concerning the work of his hands, because of the ground which the Lord had cursed; it does not say the curse was gone, but there was comfort in labor as to it. But further, there was to be no repetition of the curse, or the Lord might have been always at it, for all the imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil and that continually. But there was this on the ground of sacrifice, " the Lord smelled a sweet savor, and the Lord said in his heart, I will no more again curse," neither would He smite the earth with a flood. He would not again act as He had done. And the effect of this sweet savor is very striking, not in changing God's mind, but in revealing what He is—the source of peace.
Love was free in righteousness, righteousness glorified in the sacrifice, the sacrifice love had provided. The Lord had seen that the imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually, and the Lord said, " I will destroy." But now, the sweet savor of the sacrifice was the ground of action—what drew out the heart of God—moved it in grace, and could because righteously; hence, though seeing all the evil, acts on the sweet savor. If I deal according to what man is, I must always curse, for the ground of cursing is always there as spoken of (chap. 6: 5, 6). Hence " I will not again," do it, or act as moved by what is in man (for there is only evil), but on the ground of the sacrifice offered. Here as to the world, for the old world was, as to dealings of God, left to itself, only with a testimony, and was founded (besides Cain) on " He drove out the man." This world was passed away, and sacrifice was the basis of God's dealings in testimony as to this. In the old we had full individual testimony, as Abel—Enoch—but they by cross or heaven left the world they belonged to outwardly. This had in view the world itself, and the rainbow was given in pledge, and appears in the throne, in Revelation; when in chapter 11:19 God is taking up the earth we have the ark of His covenant, and the Lord begins again with the Jews. Rev. 4 has a far wider range; He is Creator and all created for Him, and redeems out of nations, peoples, tongues, languages. And this opens a good deal the book of Revelation. In chapter 4 the throne is set in heaven; it is the heavenly throne making good in power the universal title. In chapter 11:19, the temple of God is opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant is seen, and then the Jewish people immediately come on the scene, and the wars and judgments. In chapter 5 angels and all even epi tes ges praise and glorify Him that sits on the throne; the elders and living creatures fall down before the Lamb who has redeemed.
-22. It was yet a remaining earth.