By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé
Are you like me? When you run into a genealogy in Scripture, do you want to skim right through it, if not just skip it altogether? As Michael and I were planning the outline for this blog, we were almost finished when he added, “Oh and don’t forget the genealogy in this part of the Scripture we’re writing about.” My heart sank. Why, with so much solid Biblical meat coming up in this week’s blog, would we need to consider this highly repetitive genealogy tucked away in Genesis 5? Well, the answer is, “That’s why there are two of us writing this blog! And, I can state here on Blog # 60, that I learned a long time and many blogs ago to trust what Michael says. As we will see, this genealogy in question, that begins with Adam and ends with Noah, is of course, critical to understanding where we’ve been and where we’re going in the theme of this week’s blog. Truly, it is the bridge between the two.
You know the genealogy of which I’m speaking, I’m confident. It is one much too voluminous to relate in its entirety. For that reason, we will just include the beginning and the end:
“When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his likeness, in his own image, and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died..,”
(Genesis 5:3-5) NIV
“When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah and said, ‘He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed. After Noah was born, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.”
(Genesis 5:28-32) NIV
In between these first and last paragraphs, is the record of numerous generations of those who lived between Adam and Noah. That is key to remember. Also critical is that many of these individuals lived very long lives. Enosh lived 815 years, Kenan lived 840 years, Jared, 800 Methuselah, 969, and so forth.
The significant point is that, between the time of Adam, when, as set forth in last week’s blog, “People began to call on the name of the LORD,” (Genesis 4:26) NIV, and the time of Noah, a great deal of time passed. With this passage of time, the beautiful turn of mankind toward calling on the name of the LORD, or prayer, began to diminish. Actually, diminish is too mild a word. The same People who, over time, had reached out to God, now rejected Him – utterly! This, as Michael so well pointed out, this genealogy is central to establishing the passage of time and the evolution of disobedience. Speaking now, in the time of Noah,
“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race HAD BECOME on the earth, and that EVERY inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was ONLY EVIL ALL THE TIME.”
(emphasis added)
(Genesis 6:5) NIV
“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was FULL OF VIOLENCE. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for ALL THE PEOPLE on earth had corrupted their ways.”
(emphasis added)
(Genesis 6:11-12) NIV
Over the generations, set forth in the genealogy, there had been a sea change, a complete reversal of good, to the degree that, as cited above, EVERY thought was evil ALL the time. There was nothing either ambiguous or redeeming about it.
With God and Scriptural precedent, there is always a remnant, a pocket of righteousness. The remnant here? Noah and his family:
“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”
(Genesis 6:8) NIV
At this state of the reality of the world, what was God’s state of mind? It was regret. Regret! What is this, one might say! We can hardly imagine this, yet Scripture is clear that such is the case. Let’s review the supporting Biblical verses in two translations:
“The Lord REGRETTED that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was greatly troubled…’for I REGRET that I have made them.”
(emphasis added)
(Genesis 6:6,7) NIV
“And it REPENTED the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart…for it ‘REPENTETH me that I have made them.”
(emphasis added)
Genesis 5:6,7) KJV
Looking more deeply into the words of these verses, what is the Hebrew word for regret?
“The Hebrew word used here is yin’na’hem, from the root word necham. The word is used exclusively about emotions, a feeling of pain, sadness or unhappiness.”
(“ Got Questions,” Bible Reference, “What Does Genesis 6:6 Mean?)
This definition implies an emotion, but certainly not a mistake. God does not make mistakes. He was sad to an extreme degree. He felt regret.
This regret can only be viewed in conjunction with God’s power to see past the egregious sin of Noah’s day and down the centuries of time to a Roman cross with His Son, Jesus, on it, as a result of just that, egregious sin. Therefore, God knew that what He was seeing at the present would exact a cost beyond any accounting. As stated, its price was Jesus.
God saw not only the cross; He also saw Gethsemane. There, in the time of Noah, He could project ahead and hear the words of Jesus as he prayed to his Father from that Garden:
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death…’Going a little farther, he FELL WITH HIS FACE TO THE GROUND AND PRAYED, “My Father, if it is POSSIBLE, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
(emphasis added)
(Matthew 26:38-39) NIV
All too clearly, God saw His beloved and only Son, cast himself onto the ground, on his face, overwhelmed, and asking whether it was POSSIBLE to not have to endure this. Jesus was saying, “Can You help me? It’s all in Your hands. You’ve got to make the call. Are YOU WILLING this for me?” Wouldn’t any human parent be overcome even imagining such a scene, such an agony? Now, multiply an infinite number of times what the God of love, the Creator of love, the Almighty Father felt!
Did God, seeing the direct connection between this future, highly emotional plea of Jesus in Gethsemane and the outrageous and complete state of sin around Him, sin that would precipitate Gethsemane and the cross, did God feel regret that He had put all this in motion at Creation? He felt much regret, indeed! He regretted Creation itself!
Who is our God to us? Well, first of all, He is AUTHENTIC. We search for the real in this life. When we find it in a person, we know we can trust her or him. How much more do we seek authenticity in the Almighty, the one in whom we are trusting our eternity. This God is He for whom we are searching. He is real. He has emotions. He created emotions. And at that moment in Noah’s time, when He saw that EVERY THOUGHT was evil and that, if this continued, He would have to deny His Son the reprieve Jesus would be seeking in Gethsemane, He was sickened and authentic and full of regret!
But He also saw Noah, the remnant of righteousness. So, what was the solution? It will center on one of the words Jesus spoke , as he prayed prostrate to his Father. The word is POSSIBLE. God had a very hard call to make then. With Noah and his world enmeshed in sin, He had another agonizing decision. He would give the POSSIBILITIES every chance, the disobedient world every opportunity to right itself, but, should they fail to do so, there would be an ark ready in Noah’s future. God put aside His regret about Creation for what we will see was over a century. What prompted this? God’s authentic emotion of love and His restraint manifesting itself in second chances.
Michael said,
“God is so much more vast than we think.”
Yes, and this wisdom is why Michael chose the subject matter of God’s love in the OLD Testament. In today’s study, we have seen that complexity and that love. We have seen the balancing that God’s infinite intelligence is able to navigate as He looks at the day of Noah, yet never taking His eye off Jesus in Gethsemane. Weighing it all, He created a plan. Michael and I hope you will join us, again, next week, as that plan unfolds.
Lovely! Thanks.