Genesis 6

What happens: The "sons of God/the gods" take human wives. YHWH limits human lifespan to 120 years. The nephilim are on the land. YHWH sees total human evil, regrets making humanity, and resolves to destroy. But Noah finds favor. God instructs Noah to build an ark (a box-like vessel) with specific dimensions, announces the flood, establishes the first covenant, and commands Noah to bring animals aboard.

Key themes: The "sons of God" — three possible meanings preserved (divine beings, human rulers, or the line of Seth); the nephilim (kept as the Hebrew term, not "giants"); a genuinely uncertain verb (remain/contend); divine regret (the same root as Noah's name); "God saw" inverted (creation: "saw that good" → here: "saw that great was the evil"); violence as the named sin; the ark as a sealed container, not a ship; a wordplay in which the word for the pitch sealant shares its root with the word for ritual atonement.

Watch for: The destruction order (6:7) reverses the creation order; YHWH appears in vv.1–8 (emotional, relational), Elohim in vv.9–22 (instructional, covenantal); the first occurrence of the word covenant in the Bible — announced before its terms are disclosed; "two from all" (6:19) vs. "seven pairs" of clean animals (7:2) — an internal tension the TT preserves.

Connection: The "comfort/regret" root links 5:29 (Noah = comfort) with 6:6 (YHWH regretted). The flood reverses Day 2's water-separation (1:6–7), making the flood a de-creation event continued in Chapters 7–8.

¹And it was when the human began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, ²and the sons of God/the gods saw the daughters of the human, that they were good, and they took for themselves women from all whom they chose. ³And YHWH said, "My spirit shall not remain/contend in the human forever, in that he is also flesh; and his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." ⁴The nephilim were on the land in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God/the gods came to the daughters of the human, and they bore to them — they are the mighty ones who were from of old, men of the name.

⁵And YHWH saw that great was the evil of the human on the land, and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the day. ⁶And YHWH regretted that he had made the human on the land, and it grieved him to his heart. ⁷And YHWH said, "I will wipe the human whom I created from upon the face of the ground, from human to livestock to creeping thing to bird of the sky, for I regret that I made them." ⁸But Noach (Noah) found favor in the eyes of YHWH.

⁹These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, whole in his generations; with God walked Noah. ¹⁰And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Cham (Ham), and Yafet (Japheth). ¹¹And the land was corrupt before God, and the land was filled with violence. ¹²And God saw the land, and see, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the land. ¹³And God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before me, for the land is filled with violence because of them, and see, I am destroying them with the land.

¹⁴Make for yourself a tebah of gopher wood; rooms you shall make in the tebah, and you shall cover it inside and outside with kopher. ¹⁵And this is how you shall make it: three hundred cubits the length of the tebah, fifty cubits its breadth, and thirty cubits its height. ¹⁶A tsohar you shall make for the tebah, and to a cubit you shall finish it from above, and the door of the tebah you shall set in its side; lower, second, and third decks you shall make it.

¹⁷And I, see, I am bringing the flood of waters upon the land, to destroy all flesh in which is breath of life from under the sky; everything which is on the land shall die. ¹⁸But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the tebah — you and your sons and your woman and the women of your sons with you. ¹⁹And from all the living, from all flesh, two from all you shall bring into the tebah to keep alive with you; male and female they shall be. ²⁰From the bird to its kind, and from the livestock to its kind, from every creeping thing of the ground to its kind, two from all shall come to you to keep alive. ²¹And you, take for yourself from all food which is eaten, and gather it to yourself, and it shall be for food for you and for them." ²²And Noah did according to all that God commanded him; so he did.