The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
11. corrupt ] The full strength of the word would rather be given by “corrupted.” LXX , Lat. corrupta est, “was marred, ruined.” “Before God,” i.e. according to the standard of His judgement. “God” is here ha-Elohim, i.e. the God, the Elohim, absolutely.
violence ] The particular form of wickedness represented by this word, here and in Gen 6:13, is doubtless meant to be impious insolence and active disregard of all law of right and wrong. LXX and Lat. iniquitate miss the specific thought of “violence.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gen 6:11-13
The earth also was corrupt
Corruption and violence, twin evils
If succeeding generations inquire, wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto the work of His hands?
What meaneth the heat of this great anger? Be it known that it was not for a small matter: The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. Here are two words used to express the wickedness of the world, corruption and violence, both which are repeated, and dwelt upon in Gen 6:12-13. The former refers, I conceive, to their having debased and depraved the true religion. This was the natural consequence of the junction between the sons of God and the daughters of men. Whenever the Church is become one with the world, the corruption of true religion has invariably followed: for if wicked men have a religion, it must needs be such as to accord with their inclinations. Hence arose all the heresies of the early ages of Christianity; hence the grand Romish apostasy; and in short every corruption of the true religion in past or present times. The latter of these terms is expressive of their conduct towards one another. The fear of God, and the regard of man are closely connected; and where the one is given up, the other will soon follow. Indeed, it appears to be the decree of the eternal God, that when men have cast off His fear, they shall not continue long in amity one with another. And He has only to let the laws of nature take their course in order to effect it; for when men depart from God, the principle of union is lost, and self-love governs everything: and being LOVERS OF THEIR OWN SELVES, they will be covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Such a flood of wickedness is at any time sufficient to deluge a world with misery. If these things did not then break forth in national wars as they do with us, it was merely because the world was not as yet divided into nations; the springs of domestic and social life were poisoned, the tender ties of blood and affinity violated, and quarrels, intrigues, oppressions, robberies, and murders pervaded the abodes of man. (A. Fuller.)
Lessons
1. Apostasy from God and pollution of worship, is the corruption of men.
2. Such corruption in Gods face is high provocation.
3. Violent injury to man accompanieth apostasy from God.
4. Fulness of such iniquity makes a world ripe for judgment (Gen 6:11).
5. God must see and mark iniquity done in His face.
6. God layeth open all corruption of men, which He seeth.
7. Man is a self-corrupter; he pollutes his own way.
8. The habitation of sinners aggravates their corruption (Gen 6:12).
9. God revealeth His wrath before He strikes. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Corruption of man
Salter used to say: In regard to our corruptions we may learn something from the difference of glasses. You behold yourselves in your common looking glasses, and see yourselves so fine that you admire your persons and dress. But when you view yourself in a microscope, how much may you behold in that fine skin to be ashamed of; what disfigurement to the eye! and instead of smoothness, irregularity, uncomeliness, and even impurity. So, if you will look upon yourself through the glass of faith, that glass would show you much of the corruption of your sinful nature still cleaving to you, your tempers crooked, your graces misshapen and deformed, and so much corruption cleaving to every action of your lives that would make you sin sick that you have known God so long, and are like Him so little.
The earth must be destroyed
The earth was corrupted, and full of violence, and all flesh had depraved its way upon the earth; therefore the end of all flesh was resolved, together with the earth. The earth is, in the Bible, not considered as a mere passive object; it is the habitation of man; it beholds his deeds of virtue and of baseness; it is, therefore, like the eternal heavens, invoked as a witness in solemn exhortations; it cries up to heaven if it is soiled with blood; it vomits out the wicked inhabitants. But the earth has also furnished the matter from which man was framed; there is, therefore, a certain mutual relation between both; if man is corrupted, the earth shares his degradation; if the one is exterminated, the other participates in the ruin; Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed together with their impious inhabitants; the Israelites were threatened, that when they should be led away as captives for their iniquity, their once blooming land would be converted into a dreary desert of thorns and thistles; whilst, at the return of the pious and penitent into their land, even the inhospitable wilderness would be changed into beautiful gardens and proud cedar forests; and just as the first parents were, after their fall, doomed to exhaust their strength on a curse-laden soil; thus the generation of Noah was annihilated, together with the earth which had seen and suffered their iniquity. The Persian faith teaches that, in whatever country the sacredness of matrimony is violated, that country perishes, together with its inhabitants. The nearer man is to the state of nature, the more mysterious and inseparable appears to him his connection with the earth and its silently working powers; the earth is the great mother of all men, who produces, nourishes, and may destroy them; and the heathen nations have based upon these conceptions many of their most beautiful myths, too universally known to require a detailed allusion. But the animals must perish, because they had also beheld the iniquity of man; every witness of the degradation was to be removed; the history of man should commence a new epoch. If crimes were committed through the instrumentality of animals, the latter were also killed: an ox which had caused the death of a man, was destroyed; if a Hebrew town adopted idolatrous worship, its inhabitants were destroyed with their cattle; whilst piety and faith were attended by prosperity among the beasts; the avarice of Achan was punished by death, and the destruction of his family and his property; when the Amalekites were to be extirpated, the animals were included in the fatal decree; and when the Ninevites did penance by fasting and humiliation, the beasts shared the same acts of external grief. The horror against bloodshed was so intense, that every reminiscence of it was to be eradicated; some Indian tribes pursue with their united force the wild beast which has killed a man, and the family of the murdered is an abomination and a disgrace till they have killed that or another beast of the same species; and other ancient nations went a step still farther, and doomed even inanimate objects (as an axe) with which a crime had been perpetrated to ignominious treatment, if the author of the misdeed could not be discovered (see notes on Exo 21:28-32); and if, among the Hindoos, a man is killed by an accidental fall from a tree, all his relations assemble, cut it down, and reduce it to chips, which they scatter to the winds. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. The earth also was corrupt] See Clarke on Ge 6:5.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The earth is here put for its inhabitants, as 1Ki 10:24; Eze 14:13.
Before God, or, before the face of God; q.d. in despite and contempt of God, and of his presence and justice. Compare Gen 10:9, and Gen 13:13; q. d. They sinned openly and impudently without shame, boldly and resolutely without any fear of God.
In the latter part of the verse,
the earth is put for the place, or the inhabited parts of it. So the same word is twice used in a differing sense in one and the same verse. See the like Mat 8:22.
Violence, or, injustice, fraud, rapine, oppression; for all these this word signifies. Some conceive that these two branches note the universal corruption of mankind, in reference to all their duties.
1. Towards God and his worship, which they corrupted by horrible superstition, and by idolatry, which is called corruption, Exo 32:7; Deu 32:5; Jdg 2:19.
2. Towards men, in the duties of righteousness.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. the earth was filled withviolenceIn the absence of any well-regulated government it iseasy to imagine what evils would arise. Men did what was right intheir own eyes, and, having no fear of God, destruction and miserywere in their ways.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The earth also was corrupt before God,…. That is, the inhabitants of the earth were corrupt in their lives and conversations; they were corrupt both in principle and practice, and did abominable things; and those corruptions were, according to Jarchi, uncleanness and idolatry; they were corrupt in the worship of God, worshipping the creature more, or besides the Creator; and they were corrupt in their manners and behaviour to one another, being guilty of fornication and adultery, and other enormous crimes; of some against God, and of others against their neighbours; and these they committed openly and impudently, without any fear of God, or dread of his wrath and displeasure, and in contempt of him, his will and laws:
and the earth was filled with violence; with doing injury to the persons and properties of men; with oppression and cruelty, by tyrannical decrees and unrighteous judgments; or with rapines and robberies, as the Targums and Jarchi; and with rapes, as Aben Ezra adds: the account that Lucian x gives from tradition agrees with this; that the present race of men is not the first, they totally perished by a flood; and those men were very insolent and addicted to unjust actions; for they neither kept their oaths, nor were hospitable to strangers, nor gave ear to suppliants, for which reason they were destroyed.
x De Dea Syria.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Depravity of the World. | B. C. 2448. |
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
The wickedness of that generation is here again spoken of, either as a foil to Noah’s piety–he was just and perfect, when all the earth was corrupt; or as a further justification of God’s resolution to destroy the world, which he was now about to communicate to his servant Noah. 1. All kinds of sin was found among them, for it is said (v. 11) that the earth was, (1.) Corrupt before God, that is, in the matters of God’s worship; either they had other gods before him, or they worshipped him by images, or they were corrupt and wicked in despite and contempt of God, daring him and defying him to his face. (2.) The earth was also filled with violence and injustice towards men. There was no order nor regular government; no man was safe in the possession of that which he had the most clear and incontestable right to, no, not the most innocent life; there was nothing but murders, rapes, and rapine. Note, Wickedness, as it is the shame of human nature, so it is the ruin of human society. Take away conscience and the fear of God, and men become beasts and devils to one another, like the fishes of the sea, where the greater devour the less. Sin fills the earth with violence, and so turns the world into a wilderness, into a cock-pit. 2. The proof and evidence of it were undeniable; for God looked upon the earth, and was himself an eye-witness of the corruption that was in it, of which before, v. 5. The righteous Judge in all his judgments proceeds upon the infallible certainty of his own omniscience, Ps. xxxiii. 13. 3. That which most aggravated the matter was the universal spreading of the contagion: All flesh had corrupted his way. It was not some particular nations or cities that were thus wicked, but the whole world of mankind were so; there was none that did good, no, not one besides Noah. Note, When wickedness has become general and universal ruin is not far off; while there is a remnant of praying people in a nation, to empty the measure as it fills, judgments may be kept off a great while; but when all hands are at work to pull down the fences by sin, and none stand in the gap to make up the breach, what can be expected but an inundation of wrath?
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
11. The earth also was corrupt before God. In the former clause of this verse Moses describes that impious contempt of God, which had left no longer any religion in the world; but the light of equity being extinct, all men had plunged into sin. In the second clause he declares, that the love of oppression, that frauds, injuries, rapines, and all kinds of injustice, prevailed. And these are the fruits of impiety, that men, when they have revolted from God, — forgetful of mutual equity among themselves, — are carried forward to insane ferocity, to rapines, and to oppressions of all sorts. God again declares that he had seen this; in order that he may commend his longsuffering to us. The earth is here put for its inhabitants; and the explanation immediately follows, ‘that all flesh had corrupted its way.’ Yet the word flesh is not here understood as before, in a bad sense; but is meant for men, without any mark of censure: as in other places of Scripture,
‘
All flesh shall see the glory of the Lord,’ (Isa 40:5.)
‘
Let all flesh be silent before the Lord,’ (Zec 2:13.)
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) The earth.This is the larger word, and it occurs no less than six times in these three verses, thus indicating a more widespread calamity than if admh only had been used, as in Gen. 6:7. But the earth that was corrupt before God was not the whole material globe, but that part which man, notably the gibborim of Gen. 6:4, had filled with violence. Whithersoever mans violence had spread, there his home and all his works, his builded cities, his tilled land, his cattle and stores, must be entirely swept away. An absolutely new beginning was to be made by Noah, such as Adam had to undertake when he was expelled from Paradise. The reason of this necessity is next given.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11-13. The earth also was corrupt This verb, in the same form, is used in Exo 8:24, to describe the land of Egypt corrupted by the swarms of flies, the black, blood-sucking multitudes that made the land uninhabitable. It is also used in Jer 13:7, of a girdle rotted in the ground, which symbolized to the prophet the awful sin of idolatrous Israel . Earth, or rather the land, is used by metonomy for the inhabitants of the land, as in the last clause of Gen 6:13. The expression is repeated and thus explained in the following verse .
Before God In the three successive verses this sinful corruption and violence is described in words of increasing vigour and vividness, as going on before the very eyes of God.
Violence A chaos of sinful destructive passion raged through the inhabited world.
God looked upon the earth, and, behold A sublime and solemn anthropomorphism. The universal destruction of the sinful race rises before God’s eye as a vivid fearful vision, and he describes what he sees to the solitary righteous man who “walked with him” in confidential communion.
Through them Hebrews, from before their face. Violence heralded their steps wherever they trod.
I will destroy them Hebrews I am destroying them, even (the inhabitants of) the earth. The determination to destroy having been formed, the event is spoken of as already in process of execution.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Corruption in the Earth ( Gen 6:11-13 )
Gen 6:11
‘And the earth (or inhabited world or land) was corrupt before God (Elohim), and the earth (or land) was filled with violence.’
This would appear to be a direct result of Gen 6:1-4 and clearly involved ‘the mighty men and men of renown’, who were not so much ‘heroes’ as terrorists and tyrants. What has happened has distorted man’s whole being. His behaviour has become corrupt. The word for ‘violence’ denotes an oppression which is arbitrary by nature. Men no longer just defend themselves, violence has gone to excess. Wanton murder has become rife. This is the final stage of man’s descent. First Cain, then Lamech, and now the whole ‘earth’ (or land). It is unrestrained and widespread.
It must be noted that whatever view we take of the Flood, whether as global, as covering all places where mankind dwelt (but not strictly global), or as covering only the ‘whole world’ of Noah, it is seen as total within its sphere. There has to be a totally new beginning.
Gen 6:12
‘And God (Elohim) saw the earth (or land) and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth (or land).’
This is not just repetition of verse 11. While there is a certain repetitiveness typical of ancient stories, it adds the fact that, not only was the earth or land corrupt, but that God was making Himself fully aware of the reality of the situation. ‘God, the Creator and Judge, saw’ it, and saw that it affected ‘all flesh’, and that none, apart from Noah and his family, were exempt. And seeing it He came to the ultimate decision. It could not be allowed to go on any longer.
But the repetitiveness does serve to bring home the message that is being given – it was like this, and God saw that it was like this. (This was why repetition was used in what was originally oral teaching. People liked repetition, as is evident in myths elsewhere which constantly contained such repetitions, for it brought home the particular points and enabled an element of mental participation like the chorus to a song). The use of the word ‘flesh’ takes us back to Gen 6:2. Man is now unwilling to submit to the control of God’s Spirit. Mankind is now but flesh.
Gen 6:13
‘And God (Elohim) said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh (literally ‘the end of all flesh has come before me’), for the earth (or land) is filled with violence through them. Consider then, I will destroy them with the earth (or land).’
Elohim, The Creator and Judge now communicates His decision to the one who walks with Him. He will destroy these men of extreme and uncontrollable violence and begin again.
Note again the stress on man as flesh (true even if ‘all flesh’ is a stereotyped phrase). The phrase also includes the animal world (e.g. Gen 6:17-19; Gen 7:15-16). By his violence man has shown himself as bestial in his behaviour. He who had been appointed to control the ravages of the animal world has now shown himself to be one with them. He is but flesh. This confirms God’s description of man in Gen 6:2. Thus the whole account is a unity.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Gen 6:11. The earth also was corruptfilled with violence Instead of also the Hebrew may be rendered, with rather more propriety, and the earth; that is, all the men upon the earth (except Noah, &c.) were corrupt before God; i.e.. were become totally impious and irreligious, having thrown off all reverence to the true God, and become either entirely profane and atheistical, or else gross idolaters: the word here used is generally applied to the corruption of idolatry. And the violence wherewith the earth was filled, plainly means those notorious acts of rapine, injustice, and oppression, which were committed by that irreligious race. This description of the original corruption is well explained by the account which St. Paul gives us of the heathen idolatry, and its flagitious consequences, Rom 1:21; Rom 1:32. And the comparison which St. Peter and St. Jude make of the heretics and apostates of their times, with the sinners before the flood, confirms that the last had forsaken the true worship of God.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gen 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
Ver. 11. The earth also was corrupt before God. ] Or, rotten, putrid, and stank again. Sin is an offence to all God’s senses; yea, to his very soul, as he complains in Isa 1:1-16 . Oh that it were so to ours! then would we not hide it under our tongues, as a child doth sugar, and harbour it in our hearts; yea, let it eat of our meat, and drink of our cup, and lie in our bosoms, as the poor man’s lamb did in Nathan’s parable. 2Sa 12:3 Lust was but a stranger to David, as the prophet there intimates 2Sa 12:4 At other times, and when himself, “I hate vain thoughts,” saith he, Psa 119:113 yea, “every false way,” Psa 119:104 as the vomit of a dog, as the devil’s excrements, as the putrefaction of a dead soul, dead in trespasses; dead and rotten, as here, stinking ( ), worse before God, than Lazarus was or could be, after he had lain four days in the grave. Joh 11:39
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 6:11-12
11Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
Gen 6:11-12 God’s will was for mankind and animals to fill the earth but sin filled (BDB 569, KB 583, Niphal IMPERFECT) the earth with violence and evil (cf. Gen 6:13; Psa 14:1-3; Rom 3:10-18). No longer is the very good of Gen 1:31 an appropriate description. This is not the world that God intended it to be!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
corrupt: destroyed by being debased.
violence: the Figure of speech Metonymy. App-6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
before: Gen 7:1, Gen 10:9, Gen 13:13, 2Ch 34:27, Luk 1:6, Rom 2:13, Rom 3:19
filled: Psa 11:5, Psa 55:9, Psa 140:11, Isa 60:18, Jer 6:7, Eze 8:17, Eze 28:16, Hos 4:1, Hos 4:2, Hab 1:2, Hab 2:8, Hab 2:17
Reciprocal: Gen 6:13 – filled Exo 32:7 – corrupted Deu 9:12 – corrupted 1Sa 2:17 – before Job 22:15 – the old way Psa 14:1 – They are Psa 17:4 – works Psa 53:1 – Corrupt Ecc 7:10 – wisely Ecc 7:29 – they Isa 24:5 – defiled Isa 59:6 – their works Eze 12:19 – because Eze 18:7 – hath spoiled Zec 5:2 – the length Act 21:35 – for Rom 5:13 – until
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Noah and the Ark
Gen 6:11-22
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
There is a verse in the New Testament which reads: “As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
1. One cannot but marvel that the Lord went on and specified the eating and drinking, the marrying and giving in marriage, as certain parallelisms between Noah’s day and the day of the Lord’s Return. He was, of course, speaking not merely of the fact that they ate, or that they married. He referred to the method and the ideals of eating and drinking, and of marrying and giving in marriage. Those are the things which we see before us at this very hour. The marriage bond has become almost a jest, and the ideals of eating and drinking have become that of luxuriating and feasting with revelry.
2. Christ, also, said, “They * * knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” The people in the days of the flood accordingly disbelieved the testimony of Noah as to the destruction of the earth’s peoples by the deluge. They spurned the very thought as an impossibility. So it is today, the world knows the warning of the Lord’s imminent Coming, and it has heard the cry of tribulation which is about to fall. The world, however, with a smile of unbelief goes on its way as thoughtlessly as did the men of Noah’s day.
In Thessalonians, we read, “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” The world is likened unto those who sleep in the night; to them the Coming of the Lord will be as a thief. We, who believe, however, are of the day, and the hour of His Coming will not overtake us as a thief.
3. A third parallelism between the days of Noah and the days of Christ’s Coming is seen in world conditions. In the days of Noah the earth was filled with violence. All flesh has corrupted his way upon the earth.
In the days of the Coming of the Son of Man, “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.” “Perilous times will come.” Men are, indeed, lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. The earth is fast ripening in wickedness, and God in mercy to the human race must soon come in judgment.
4. God gave abundant warnings in the days of Noah, so also, does He give warnings in our day. The longsuffering of God waited in Noah’s day, as Noah preached righteousness, and called upon a world of sinners to repent. The Lord our God is warning the people now; and the long-suffering of God is once more waiting, ere the cry is heard, “Thrust in your sickle and reap.” God is giving one last long and loud call, commanding men everywhere to repent.
We, to whom the warning message has been given, must hasten with our words of warning, for God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the Truth.
I. A DESCRIPTION OF A PERFECT MAN (Gen 6:9)
1. Noah’s character. Noah was a just man. How blessed it is that in the midst of darkness, there was light! In the midst of all impurity, there was a man who was pure. In the midst of injustice and violence, there was a man who was just.
We saw once in Pittsburgh, Pa., in the center of the factory and mining districts, where every building was almost black with smoke and dust, and every countenance was besmirched and soiled with soot-we saw a beautiful flower, as white as snow, unsullied and unmarred. We plucked it, and as we looked at its white petals we marveled that such purity could dwell untouched mid such environment. So it was in Noah’s day. Mid a world grown old in sin, and corrupted in wickedness, Noah stood forth a just man, and perfect in his generation.
2. Noah walked with God. Other men in Noah’s day were walking according to the lusts of the flesh, according to the prince of the power of darkness, but Noah walked with God. Other men went along with the tide; they placed their oars in their boat and drifted down the stream of public immoralities. Noah, however, turned his face toward the light, and toward the rising sun. He turned his ship upstream, and against public opinion, he pulled for the heights of that purer, better air.
II. A MAN WHO WALKED WITH GOD (Gen 6:9, l.c)
Why should we, who live in the pollution of the present hour, imagine that it is impossible to walk among men and yet to walk with God?
1. We may be in the world and yet not be of the world. Our Lord Jesus has saved us out of this present evil generation. He has told us very plainly that the world will hate us. It will have no place where we can lay our head. There is, However, another side to this question.
2. We may be in the world, and yet we may walk with God. Noah did this, Enoch did this, David did this, Paul did this, thousands of men of our own generation are doing this. We may, also, walk in the light of His countenance, in a communion with the Almighty that is unbroken and unmarred.
3. Walking with God suggests several things.
(1) A holy comradeship. How blessed that we may not only know God, but that we may know Him in the intimacy of companionship!
(2) A co-operative undertaking. We should walk with God in service. “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” The word “fellowship in this Scripture suggests co-partnership. It means that we are called into business with Christ Jesus.
III. A MAN TO WHOM GOD REVEALED HIS PURPOSES (Gen 6:13)
God said unto Noah, “The end of all flesh is come before Me; * * I will destroy them with the earth.”
1. God led Noah into the innermost secrets of His plan. It is not to every one that God will thus reveal the blueprints which mark out the structure of His designs. To a man, however, who is perfect and just, and who walks with God-to such an one God will reveal Himself.
2. God delights in telling His bondslaves of the things to come. If God told Noah, will He not also tell us? Perhaps the expression, “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man,” again may be applied. God told Noah that the flood was coming: He tells us that the tribulation is coming. Rev 1:1-3, tells us how God gave unto Christ, “To shew unto his SERVANTS things which must shortly come to pass.” How else could we warn men of the coming of certain destruction, if we, ourselves, knew not of it? God has told us, that we may tell to others that which is about to come to pass. How else could we prepare ourselves unto the hour of His Coming, if we knew it not? God loves His own, and He wants them to be robed, and ready when He comes.
3. How may we discover God’s will, and what He is about to do? If we would know from God, Himself, His secrets, we must dwell in the secret place. A little boy was so intent on selling his newspapers, and so carried away with the rush of traffic that he failed to hear the warning siren of the auto, and was trampled down.
We stood on the streets of Philadelphia and observed the throngs rushing hither and thither oblivious to the fact that above their very heads the church chimes we’re playing, “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” If we would know God’s plans and purposes we must go apart and walk with Him.
IV. A MAN WHO WROUGHT THE WORKS OF GOD (Gen 6:14)
1. Man’s correlation with God, in the work of man’s redemption. Working together with God. How wonderful it must have been to Noah to have been a co-laborer with God, working under Divine orders and with Divine approbation! This was true in Noah’s case, and it should be true with us. God has said, “Unto every man his work.” We are to preach the preaching that He bids us. We are to go where we are commanded.
Noah had instructions which were positive and plain. God told him the details upon which he should build the ark. He was to make rooms, a window, and a door. He was to make a lower, a second, and a third story to the ark. He was to make it of a certain kind of wood, of a certain length, and a certain breadth. He was to pitch it, within and without, with pitch.
Our commission in our service for Christ is just as detailed. We are to work according to the pattern which God places in our hand.
2. The far-reaching results of man’s ministry. Noah not only saved himself and his family through the ark, which he builded, but he conserved a race, innumerable, which sprang from his loins. Noah, in his obedience and comradeship with the Almighty, became God’s instrument through which God kept His promise and pledge made in the Garden, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.
The Apostle Paul said, “I magnify mine office.” How marvelous it is to be linked up with. God so intimately in the redemption of man! We may not become an Ark, a Saviour, by which men may be saved; but we can proclaim the message of redemption. We can go to the ends of the earth with its story.
V. A MAN WHO OBEYED GOD IMPLICITLY (Gen 6:22)
Many years after Noah, Moses lived. Noah was commanded to build an ark, Moses was commanded to build a Tabernacle. Of Noah it is written, “According to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Open now your Bibles to Exo 40:16, and you will read, “Thus did Moses: according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he.” The words spoken of Noah are exactly the same as those spoken of Moses. In Exodus forty we read seven times that Moses did as the Lord commanded him.
1. The inner meaning of God’s demand for obedience. We are about to consider the ark itself. We believe that the ark was a typical building; that God commanded it to be built in a certain way, because it symbolized things which pertained to salvation.
The same thing was true of the Tabernacle. It was true to a larger extent, to finer details. Only once it was said of Noah, “According to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Seven times, however, we read, that Moses did as the Lord commanded him. The Tabernacle, therefore, takes precedence, typically, over the ark.
We read, in fact, in the Book of Hebrews of how God told Moses, “See that thou make it according to the pattern shewed thee in the mount.” We may not enlarge upon these wonderful types, but we do urge that we should obey all the commands of God, exactly as they are given, and this we should doubly do, when His commands relate to ordinances and acts which pre-figure and symbolize salvation truths. If we fail in our obedience, we will break a type, and, therefore, we will spoil the truth of the gospel message.
2. The glory of obedience is its completeness. To do part of what we are told, and not all, is to mar the beauty of the part we do. There is a little verse in Joshua that says, “That thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.” Let us fulfil our obedience, until we stand perfect, and complete, in all the revealed will of God.
VI. A MAN PROTECTED FROM COMING DISASTER (Gen 7:1)
1. A loving invitation. God said, “Come thou * * into the ark.” God will not suffer His own to perish with the wicked. He always prepares a way to escape. There are some who have an idea that the saints will pass through the tribulation period, partaking of the wrath. We cannot see this, inasmuch as God hath not appointed us unto wrath.
It is easy to understand how God’s children will be called upon to suffer tribulation in the world, and how the world may hate them. It is, nevertheless, impossible to conceive how one who knows God, and who walks with God, can suffer judgments which fall from on high.
God was about to send dire judgments upon the earth, but to Noah He seemed to say, “Come * * enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.”
God will protect certain ones of Israel, by hiding them under His wing. He will protect His saints of the Church, by taking them up above the tribulation, where they shall be forever with the Lord.
2. An inclusive invitation. God said unto Noah, “Come thou, and all thy house into the ark.” God gave unto Noah his own.
As to Noah and all his house, we cannot but feel that they stood with him in his faith.
We read how Joshua said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We read of the jailer, who believed in God with all his house. We read of Abraham, “I know [Abraham], that he will command his children and his household after him.” Thank God for Christian homes!
VII. THE ARK AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE (Gen 6:14-16)
It will be impossible to discover all of the details of this wonderful typology.
1. The ark was typical of Christ the Saviour. The ark stands for salvation. In it Noah was safely housed against the waters which prevailed upon the whole earth. In Christ we are safely housed against the wrath of God which will fall upon the ungodly.
2. The ark was typical of security. When Noah went into the ark, God shut the door. There was no chance of that door giving way. The door signified both that the wicked could not enter in, and that Noah could not pass without.
To one redemption had become impossible, the last call had been given; the doom had been sealed. He who rejects Christ and the proffers of salvation, during his earth life, will find a closed door in the life to come. He who is saved will find himself secure in Christ for evermore.
3. The ark and its window. From the window, Noah and his family could look above at the wonders of God’s heaven. To the saved enclosed in Christ, there is an open window, even the window of prophecy, through which we may behold foregleams of the glories of the riches of God’s grace, which await us in the ages to come.
4. The ark was pitched within and without. The Hebrew word for “pitch” is the word “Atonement.” We are made safe in Christ, our Ark, because of His Calvary work. The Atonement is not only the message of salvation from the world, which lies without, but it is the basis of every blessing which is ours in the Heavenlies to come.
5. The ark and its gopher wood. The gopher wood brings before us the fact that Christ became flesh. Thus proceeds the wonderful symbolic message of the ark.
6. Pairs of every living thing of beast and bird and creeping thing were saved along with Noah. All of this suggests to us, in no uncertain way, that when the Millennium comes the whole creation will enter in to the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and will be delivered from its travailing together in pain even until now.
7. The ark with its three floors. This brings before us the various stages of blessing which come to us who are saved.
8. The ark and its one door. This tells us that there is none other name given under Heaven and among men, whereby we must be saved.
AN ILLUSTRATION
“MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE”
The other evening I was riding home after a heavy day’s work. I felt very wearied, and sore depressed, when swiftly, and suddenly as a lightning flash, that text came to me. “My grace is sufficient for thee.” I reached home and looked it up in the original, and at last it came to me in this way, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” and I said, “I should think it is, Lord,” and burst out laughing. I never fully understood what the holy laughter of Abraham was until then. It seemed to make unbelief so absurd. It was as though some little fish, being very thirsty, was troubled about drinking the river dry, and Father Thames said, “Drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient for thee.” Or, it seemed like a little mouse in the granaries of Egypt, after the seven years of plenty, fearing it might die of famine; Joseph might say, “Cheer up, little mouse, my granaries are sufficient for thee.” Again I imagined a man away up yonder, on a lofty mountain, saying to himself, “I breathe so many cubic feet of air every year, I fear I shall exhaust the oxygen in the atmosphere,” but the earth might say, “Breathe away, O man, and fill thy lungs ever, my atmosphere is sufficient for thee.” Oh, brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls to Heaven, but great faith will bring Heaven to your souls.-C. H. Spurgeon.
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Gen 6:11. The earth Put for its inhabitants; was corrupt before God In matters of Gods worship; either having other gods before him, or worshipping him by images; or before the face of God, whose eye was upon it, and in despite and contempt of his presence and justice. They sinned openly and impudently, without shame, and boldly and resolutely, without any fear of God. The earth also was filled with violence and injustice toward men; there was no order, nor regular government; no man was safe in the possession of that which he had the most clear right to; there was nothing but murders, rapes, and rapines.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with {k} violence.
(k) Meaning, that all were given to the contempt of God, and oppression of their neighbours.