Journal On Lawn's Journal: Why so much destruction? (The Big Flood...) 3
Well its time for one of the largest history altering events of all time. An event that is largely remembered in cultures around the world. An event that, like the creation, is very contraversial. Creation has its "alt.origions.talk" but don't know where a simular discussion is happening over the flood. Just bits and pieces of sporadic discussion of believers surmounting hurdles, people who want to believe but can't get past certain hurdles, and those throwing up those hurdles as fast as they can.
If anyone has a good overview of that discussion, I'd appreciate the post. But here as is my nature I focus in on the scripture. It usually answers a lot of questions in and of itself.
I think the first and foremost question that needs to be answered is...
Why did the flood happen?
So where do you stand? Especially for the Christians out there, why did God who desires his people repent and follow him, who sent his son to die for our sins, wiped out the whole world? Being a Christian my self I have my own views, but I've come to appreciate the views of the people that wrote those passages origionally, the Jews. Often they have the insight that just makes it click.
Perhaps a few of you can come from simular backgrounds in flood-lore as Buddists, Hindu's or another religion with a simular story to explain why God does such a thing.
Throughout a majority of cultures is a story of a world wide flood with their answer to this question, and I'm interested in the diversity of answers you may provide. For me, of all the commentary on why the flood happened, probably the best reasoning is preserved in the holy writ we have today (Gen 6:5).
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
Maybe some of our hebrew scholars can answer me this, should I take it that the phrase "it repenteth me" is different then "I repent that"? Note how the subject and the subjunctives are reversed, and makes for a sentence that is awkward to understand.
Lets contrast this with a simular situation that happened to Moses...
And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
The simularities are obvious, the carrying on of the covenant through them and the destruction of the wicked people who have violated their covenants. A cleansing.
The differences are slight, one is a world destruction and one is a destruction of the covenant people. There are many ready reasons for this in scripture. First, God covenanted with Noah that the earth would no longer be destroyed by fire. Second, God established a new covenant with Abraham to be a might nation in the midst of gentiles rather then the anti-deluvian covenant of rule through patriarchal order, mentioned briefly when Able was killed and Seth took his place.
Another difference is what had happened to the righteous people. Before the flood, Enoch took the righteous people to heaven. After the flood at Sinai, the people who were supposed to be righteous had fallen.
Also before the flood watchers and giants threatened Enoch and Noah, as well as the other righteous people. Something very threatening though, as God chose to remove his people from them by both taking them up to heaven and drowning them.
I submit that the fear, the threat to the righteous was in the very corruption itself. The golden calf might best be described as a corruption of the covenant God had just established with his people. The corruption itself being the physical idol "copy" of God. Note it wasn't a replacing of God in the people's minds, but trying to make God into something they were used to having lived with the idols in Egypt for so long. They still had every intention of keeping their covenants but with the idol representation.
No doubt though they attempted to hijack the religion for their own purposes. In Genesis chapter 6 we find that previous to the flood "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." I take this to mean something very much like the golden calf, a false replacement religion had arisen that was a copy and a corruption. Perhaps the watchers had something to do with this, or perhaps the patriarchal leaders had simply degraded into apostacy. Maybe both. Its certainly possible that a simular hijacking was attempted, Enoch's people were taken for protection and the hijackers drowned.
Another hijacking happened with Saul the king, whom it is recorded that "it repenteth God that he should have made Saul King". A king is someone that is to be trusted. A position of authority that God instituted over Israel for leadership and safety, but it was not corrupted when Saul took the position for his own way.
Remember that odd little sentence "it repented God that he created man"? The one that seems kind of backward of how we might say "God repented for creating man?" Well, perhaps when we disect it the meaning will be made more clear. Lets replace "it" with its antecedant "the corruption of His way", and see.
And while we are at it, lets figure out what this word is that is being translated so awkwardly. According to Strong's concordance that word is "nacham" which appears in a few verses of scripture. Not the least of which involved in a prophecy about Noah himself (Gen 5:29)...
And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.
This seems to make this a janis-faced word, something that means both opposites (like the word "cleave"). It seems to mean both comfort when something goes wrong outside your control, or regret when something goes wrong that you had a part in. Perhaps we can take that at the root of both these meanings is a desire for change and reconciliation.
So "it repenteth the Lord" sounds like the corruption caused regret and a need for reconciliation for the safety of those that followed Him. Something they were meant to trust had been hijacked, and God had seen that it was being used against his purpose rather then for it.
Moo (Score:2)
5: And (He) saw Lord that [was] great [the] bad the man in [the] land, and all inclination thoughts of his heart [was] only bad all day.
6: And (He) was comforted Lord that [He] made (with) the man, and He was sad to His heart.
7: And (He) said Lord, "I will erase (with) the man which I created from on the face [of] the ground, from man until animal until crawlers and until bird [of] the heaven, because I am comforted that I made them."
8: And Noah found favor in [the] eyes of
Re:Moo (Score:2)
I don't know that I take ownership of translating it as "repent", in the above you can tell I am struggling with the KJV word choice especially since its translated as "comfort" in so many other places. I tend to think that rather there is something ment here by "repent", although perhaps archaic.
So tell me, while your at it the meaning of
And (He) was comforted Lord that [He] made (with) the man, and He was sad to His heart.
Becuase "And he was comforted Lord" sounds like he's addressing the Lord.
Re:Moo (Score:2)
In Hebrew, the verb may come before subject, so "Said I" is exactly the same as "I said". One pecularity about the Bible is, that when putting the verb before the person, it usually mentions "he" or "she", when it is actually not needed. Specifically, it could say, "v'uhmahr mohsheh", which means "and said Moses", instead however, it usually says, "vahyohmehr mohsheh" which literally means, "And he said Moses"