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Verse 21. - The dedicated and initiated child grew up, like an Old Testament Timothy let us hope, to possess, illustrate, and proclaim the piety which was the distinguishing characteristic of the holy line. At the comparatively early age of sixty-five he begat ("forbidding to marry" being unknown then) Methuselah. Man of a dart (Gesenius), man of military arms (Furst), man of the missile (Murphy), man of the sending forth - sc. of water (Wordsworth), man of growth (Delitzsch). And Enoch walked with God (Elohim). The phrase, used also of Noah, (Genesis 6:9), and by Micah (Genesis 6:8. Cf. the similar expressions, "to walk before God," Genesis 17:1; Psalm 116:9, and "to walk after God," Deuteronomy 13:4; Ephesians 5:1), portrays a life of singularly elevated piety; not merely a constant realization of the Divine presence, or even a perpetual effort at holy obedience, but also "a maintenance of the most confidential intercourse with the personal God (Keil). It implies a situation of nearness to God, if not in place at least in spirit; a character of likeness to God (Amos 3:3), and a life of converse with God. Following the LXX. (εὐηρὲστησε δὲ Ἐνὼχ τῷ θεῷ), the writer to the Hebrews describes it as a life that was "pleasing to God," as springing from the root of faith (Hebrews 11:5). Yet though pre-eminently spiritual and contemplative, Jude tells us (vers. 14, 15) the patriarch s life had its active and aggressive outlook towards the evil times in which he lived. After he begat Methuselah. "Which intimates that he did not begin to be eminent for piety till about that time; at first he walked as other men' (Henry). Procopius Gazeus goes beyond this, and thinks that before his son's birth Enoch was "a wicked liver," but then repented. The historian's language, however, does not necessarily imply that his piety was so late in commencing and it is more pleasing to think that from his youth upwards he was "as a shining star for virtue and holiness (Willet). Three hundred years. As his piety began early, so likewise did it continue long; it was not intermittent and fluctuating, but steadfast and persevering (cf. Job 17:9; Proverbs 4:18; 1 Corinthians 15:58). And begat sons and daughters. "Hence it is undeniably evident that the stats and use of matrimony doth very well agree with the severest course of holiness, and with the office of a prophet or preacher" (Peele). And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. "A year of years" (Henry); "the same period as that of the revolution of the earth round the sun. After he had finished his course, revolving round him who is the true light, which is God, in the orbit of duty, he was approved by God, and taken to him" (Wordsworth). Modern critics have discovered in the age of Enoch traces of a mythical origin. They conclude the entire list of names to be not older than the time of the Babylonian Nabonassar, and believe it to be not improbable that "the Babylonians regulated the calendar with the assistance of an Indian astrologer or ganaka (arithmetician) of the town of Chanoge" (Von Bohlen). But "it would be strange indeed if just in the life of Enoch, which represents the purest and sublimest unity with God, a heathen and astrological element were intentionally introduced;" and, besides, "it is almost generally admitted that our list contains no astronomical numbers that the years which it specifies refer to the lives of individuals, not to periods of the world; and that none of all these figures is in any way reducible "to a chronological, system" (Kalisch). And Enoch walked with God. "Non otiosa ταυτολογία," but an emphatic repetition, indicative of the ground of what follows. And he was not. Literally, and not he (cf. Genesis 12:36; Jeremiah 31:15; καὶ οὐχ εὐρίσκετο LXX.). "Not absolutely he was not, but relatively he was not extant in the sphere of sense." "Non amplius inter mortales apparuit" (Rosenmüller). "If this phrase does not denote annihilation, much less does the phrase "and he died." The one denotes absence from the world of sense, and the other indicates the ordinary way in which the soul departs from this world" (Murphy). For God (Elohim) took him. Cf. 2 Kings 2:3, 5, 9, 10, where the same word לָקַח is used of Elijah's translation; ὁτι μετέθηκεν αὐτὸν ὁ θέος, LXX.). Though the writer to the Hebrews (Genesis 11:5) adopts the paraphrase of the LXX., yet his language must be accepted as conveying the exact sense of the words of Moses. Analyzed, it teaches

(1) that the patriarch Enoch did not see death, as did all the other worthies in the catalogue; and

(2) that in some mysterious way "he was taken up from this temporal life and transfigured into life eternal, as those of the faithful will be who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment" (Keil). The case of Elijah, who was also taken up, and who afterwards appeared in glory on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17; Mark 9; Luke 9.), appears to determine the locality into which Enoch was translated (which Kaliseh willingly leaves to antiquaries to decide) to be neither the terrestrial Eden (certain Popish writers) nor the heavenly paradise where the pious dead are now assembled - sheol (Delitzsch and Lange), but the realm of celestial glory (Keil). That the departure of the good man was witnessed by his contemporaries we may infer from what occurred in the case of Elijah; and, indeed, unless it had been so it is difficult to see how it could have served the end for which apparently it was designed, which was not solely to reward Enoch's piety, but to demonstrate the certainty and to stimulate the hope of immortality. That the memory of an event so remarkable should have survived not merely in Jewish (Ecclus. 44:16) and Christian tradition (Jude 1:15), but also in heathen fable, is nothing marvelous. The Book of Enoch, compiled probably by a Jew in the days of Herod the Great, describes the patriarch as exhorting, his son Methuselah and all his contemporaries to reform their evil ways; as penetrating with his prophetic eye into the remote future, and exploring all mysteries in earth and heaven; as passing a retired life after the birth of his eldest son in intercourse with the angels and in meditation on Divine matters; and as at length being translated to heaven in order to reappear in the time of the Messiah, leaving behind him a number, of writings on religion and morality. The Book of Jubilees relates that he was carried into paradise, where he writes down the judgment of all men, their wickedness and eternal punishment" (Kalisch). Arabic legend declares him to have been the inventor of writing and arithmetic. The Phrygian sagsannacus (Ἀνακος: "nomen detortum ab Chanoch") is said by Stephanus Byzantinus, and Suidas, who corrupts the name into Nannacus, to have lived before the flood of Deucalion, to have attained an age of more than 300 years, to have foreseen the flood, gathered all the people into a temple and made supplication to God, and finally to have been translated into heaven. "Classical writers also mention such translations into heaven; they assign this distinction among others to Hercules, to Ganymede, and to Romutus (54:1:16: "nec deinde in terris fuit"). But it was awarded to them either for their valor or their physical beauty, and not, as the translation of Enoch, for "a pious and religious life." Nor is "the idea of a translation to heaven limited to the old world; it was familiar to the tribes of Central America; the chronicles of Guatemala record four progenitors of mankind who were suddenly raised to heaven; and the documents add that those first men came to Guatemala from the other side of the sea, from the East" (cf. Rosenmüller and Kalisch, in loco).

Verses 25-32. - The shortest life was followed by the longest, Methuselah begetting, at the advanced age of 187, Lamech, - strong or young man (Gesenius); overthrower, wild man (Furst); man of, prayer (Murphy), - continuing after his son s birth 782 years, and at last succumbing to the stroke of death in the 969th year of his age, the year of the Flood. Lamech, by whom the line was carried forward, was similarly far advanced when he begat a son, at the age of 182, and called his name Noah, - "rest," from nuach, to rest (cf. Genesis 8:4), - not "The Sailor," from the Latin no, and the Greek ναῦς (Bohlen), but at the same time explaining it by saying, This same shall comfort - na-cham, to pant, groan, Piel to comfort. "Nuach and nacham are stems not immediately connected, but they both point back to a common root, nch, signifying to sigh, breathe, rest, lie down" (Murphy) - us concerning our work and toil of our hands. To say that Lamech anticipated nothing more than that the youthful Noah would assist him in the cultivation of the soil (Murphy) is to put too little into, and to allege that" this prophecy his father uttered of him, as he that should be a figure of Christ in his building of the ark, and offering of sacrifice, whereby God smelled a sweet savor of rest, and said he would not curse the ground any more for man's sake, Genesis 8:21" (Ainsworth), is to extract too much from his language. Possibly he had nothing but a dim, vague expectation of some good thing - the destruction of sinners in the Flood (Chrysostom), the use of the plough (R. Solomon), the grant of animal food (Kalisch), the invention of the arts and implements of husbandry (Sherlock, Bush) - that God was about to bestow upon his weary heritage; or at most a hope that the promise would be fulfilled in his son s day (Bonar), if not in his son himself (Calovius). The fulfillment of that promise he connects with a recall of the penal curse which Jehovah had pronounced upon the soil. Because of the ground which the Lord - Jehovah, by whom the curse had Been pronounced (Genesis 3:17) - hath cursed. The clause is not a Jehovistic interpolation (Bleek, Davidson, Colenso), but a proof "that the Elohistic theory is unfounded" ('Speaker's Commentary').

Verse 32. - And Noah was five hundred years old. Literally, a son of 500 years, i.e. going in his 500th year (cf. Genesis 7:6; Genesis 16:1). The son of a year (Exodus 12:5) means "strictly within the first year of the life" (Ainsworth). And Noah begat - i.e. began to beget (cf. Genesis 11:26) - Shem, - name (Gesenius), fame (Furst) - Ham, - chain; hot (Gesenius, Murphy), dark-colored (Furst) - and Japheth - spreading (Gesenius, Murphy); beautiful, denoting the white-colored race (Furst). That the sons are mentioned in the order of their ages (Knobel, Kalisch, Keil, Colenso) may seem to be deducible

(1) from the fact that they usually stand in this order (cf. Genesis 6:10; Genesis 7:13; Genesis 9:18; Genesis 10:1; 1 Chronicles 1:4);

(2) from the circumstance that it is commonly the eldest son's birth which is stated in the preceding list, though this is open to doubt;

(3) from Genesis 10:21, which, according to Calvin, Knobel, Keil, and others, describes Shem as Japheth's elder brother; and Genesis 9:24, which, according to Keil, affirms Ham to be the younger son of Noah;

(4) from Genesis 10:2-31, in which the order is reversed, but not otherwise altered. But there is reason to believe that Japheth was the eldest and Ham the youngest of the patriarch's children (Michaelis, Clarke, Murphy, Wordsworth, Quarry). According to Genesis 11:10 Shem was born 97 years before the Flood, while (Genesis 6:11) Noah was 600 years old at the time of the Flood. Hence, if Noah began to beget children in his 500th year, and Shem was born in Noah's 503rd year, the probability is that the firstborn son was Japheth. In accordance with this Genesis 10:21 is understood by LXX., Vulgate, Michaelis, Lange, Quarry, and others to assert the priority in respect of age of Japheth. In the narrative ahem is placed first as being spiritually, though not physically, the firstborn. Ranke perceives in the mention of the three sons an indication that each was subsequently "to lay the foundation of a new beginning."

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. The chronology of the present chapter represents man as having been in existence at the time of the Deluge exactly 1656 years. According to the Septuagint, which Josephus follows except in one particular (the age of Lamech), and which proceeds, again with two exceptions (the age of Jared, which it leaves untouched, and that of Lamech, which it increases by six), upon the principle of adding 100 to the Hebrew numbers, the age of man at the date of that catastrophe was 2262 (vide Chronological Table). The dates of the Samaritan Pentateuch, being manifestly incorrect, need not be considered. Adding to the above dates the subsequent chronological periods from the Deluge to the call of Abram (Hebrew, 367; LXX, 1017), from the call of Abram to the exodus from Egypt (430 years according to one calculation, LXX.; 730 according to another, Kalisch), from the exodus to the birth of Christ (1645, Hales; 1593, Jackson; 1491, Ussher; 1531, Petavius; 1320, Bunsen), the antiquity of man, according to the Biblical account, is not less than 5652 and not more than 7536 years. The conclusion thus reached, however, is somewhat scornfully repudiated by modern science, as affording, on either alter. native, an altogether inadequate term of existence for the human race. 1. The evidence of geology is supposed irrefragably to attest that man must have been upon the earth at least 1000 centuries, and probably ten times as long (Wallace on 'Natural Selection,' p. 303). The data for this deduction, as stated by Sir Charles Lyell, are chiefly the discovery, in recent and post Pliocene formations of alleged great antiquity, of fossil human remains and flint implements along with bones of the mammoth and other animals long since extinct ('Antiquity of Man,' Genesis 1. - 19.). But

(1) "So far as research has been prosecuted in the different quarters of the globe, no remains of man or of his works have been discovered till we come to the lake-silts, the peat-mosses, the river-gravels, and the cave-earths of the post-tertiary period," which seems at least an indirect confirmation of the Biblical record.

(2) "The tree canoes, stone hatchets, flint implements, and occasional fragments of the human skeleton," upon which so much is based, "have been chiefly discovered within the limited area of Southern and Western Europe," while "we have scarcely any information from the corresponding deposits of other regions;" consequently, "till these other regions shall have been examined - and especially Asia, where man flourished long prior to his civilization in Europe - it were premature to hazard any opinion as to man's first appearance on the globe."

(3) "It is true that the antiquity of some of the containing deposits, especially the river drifts, is open to question, and it is also quite possible that the remains of the extinct quadrupeds may in some instances have been reasserted from older accumulations."

(4) "Historically we have no means of arriving at the age of these deposits; geologically we can only approximate the time by comparison with existing operations; while palaeontologically - the differences between these extinct pachyderms and those still existing are not greater than that which appears between the several living species, and would therefore indicate no great palaeontological antiquity - nothing that may not have taken place within a few thousand years of the ordinarily received chronology" (Page on 'The Philosophy of Geology,' Genesis 12. pp. 114-117). With these undesigned replies from a late eminent authority in geological science, the Bible student will do well to pause before displacing the currently-received age of man by the fabulous duration claimed for him by the first-named writers.

Verses 1, 2. - And it came to pass. Literally, it was; not in immediate sequence to the preceding chapter, but at some earlier point in the antediluvian period; perhaps about the time of Enoch (corresponding to that of Lamech the Cainite), if not in the days of Enos. Havernick joins the passage with Genesis 4:26. When men - ha'adham, i.e. the human race in general, and not the posterity of Cain in particular (Ainsworth, Rosenmüller, Bush) - began to multiply - in virtue of the Divine blessing (Genesis 1:28) - on (or over) the face of the earth. "Alluding to the population spreading itself out as well as increasing" (Bonar). And daughters were born unto them. Not referring to any special increase of the female sex (Lange), but simply indicating the quarter whence the danger to the pious Sethites rose: "who became snares to the race of Seth" (Wordsworth). That the sons of God. Bene-ha Elohim.

1. Not young men of the upper ranks, as distinguished from maidens of humble birth (Onk., Jon., Sym., Aben Ezra); an opinion which "may now be regarded as exploded" (Lange).

2. Still less the angels (LXX., - some MSS. having ἄγγελοι τοῦ θεοῦ, - Philo, Josephus, Justin Martyr, Clement, Tertullian, Luther, Gesenius, Rosenmüller, Von Bohlen, Ewald, Baumgarten, Delitzsch, Kurtz, Hengstenberg, Alford); for

(1) they are either good angels, in which case they might be rightly styled sons of God (Psalm 29:1; Psalm 89:7; Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Job 38:7; Daniel 3:25), though it is doubtful if this expression does not denote their official rather than natural relationship to God, but it is certain they would not be guilty of the sin here referred to; or they are bad angels, in which ease they might readily enough commit the sin, if it were possible, but certainly they would not be called "the sons of God."

(2) The statement of Jude (vers. 6, 7), though seemingly in favor of this interpretation, does not necessarily require it; since (α) it is uncertain Whether the phrase "τὸν ὅμοιον τούτοις τρόπον ἐκπορνεύσασαι καὶ ἀπελθοῦσαι ὀπίσω σαρκὸς ἑτέρας refers to the angels or to "αἱ περὶ αὐτὰς πόλεις," in which case the antecedent of τούτοις will not be the ἀγγέλοι of ver. 6, but Σόδομα καὶ Γόμοῥῤα of ver. 7; (β) if even it refers to the angels it does not follow that the parallel between the cities and the angels consisted in the "going after strange flesh," and not rather in the fact that both departed from God, "the sin of the apostate angels being in God s view a sin of like kind spiritually with Sodom's going away from God's order of nature after strange flesh" (Fausset); (γ) again, granting that Jude's language describes the sin of the angels as one of carnal fornication with the daughters of men, the sin of which the sons of Elohim are represented as guilty is not πορνεία, but the forming of unhallowed matrimonial alliances. Hence

(3) the assertion of our Lord in Luke 20:35 is inconsistent with the hypothesis that by the sons of God are meant the angels; and

(4) consistent exegesis requires that only extreme urgency, in fact absolute necessity (neither of which can be alleged here), should cause the sons of God to be looked for elsewhere than among the members of the human race.

3. The third interpretation, therefore, which regards the sons of God as the pious Sethites (Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, Augustine, Jerome, Calvin, Keil, Havernick, Lange, Murphy, Wordsworth, Quarry, 'Speaker's Commentary'), though not without its difficulties, has the most to recommend it.

(1) It is natural, and not monstrous.

(2) It is Scriptural, and not mythical (cf. Numbers 25; Judges 3; 1 Kings 11, 16; Revelation 2, for sins of a similar description).

(3) It accords with the designation subsequently given to the pious followers of God (cf. Deuteronomy 14:1; Deuteronomy 32:5; Psalm 73:15; Proverbs 14:26; Luke 3:38; Romans 8:14; Galatians 3:26).

(4) It has a historical basis in the fact that Seth was regarded by his mother as a son from God (Genesis 4:25), and in the circumstance that already the Sethites had begun to call themselves by the name of Jehovah (Genesis 4:26). Dathius translates, "qui de nomine Dei vocabantur."

(5) It is sufficient as an hypothesis, and therefore is entitled to the preference. Saw the daughters of men (not of the Cainitic race exclusively, but of men generally) that they were fair, and had regard to this alone in contracting marriages. "Instead of looking at the spiritual kinsmanship, they had an eye only to the pleasure of sense" (Lange). "What the historian condemns is not that regard was had to beauty, but that mera libido regnaverit in the choice of wives" (Calvin). And they took them wives. Lakachisha," a standing expression throughout the Old Testament for the marriage relationship established by God at the creation, is never applied to πορνεία, or the simple act of physical connection, which is sufficient of itself to exclude any reference to angels" (Keil; cf. Genesis 4:19; Genesis 12:19; Genesis 19:14; Exodus 6:25; 1 Samuel 25:43). Of all whom they chose. The emphasis on טִכֹּל (of all) signifies that, guided by a love of merely sensual attractions, they did not confine themselves to the beautiful daughters of the Sethite race, but selected their brides from the fair women of the Cainites, and perhaps with a preference for these. The opinion that they selected "both virgins and wives, they cared, not, whom," and "took them by violence (Willet), is not warranted by the language of the historian. The sons of God were neither the Nephilim nor the Gibborim afterwards described, but the parents of the latter. The evil indicated is simply that of promiscuous marriages without regard to spiritual character.

Verse 3. - And the Lord - Jehovah; not because due to the Jehovist (Tuch, Bleek, Colenso), but because the sin above specified was a direct violation of the footing of grace on which the Sethites stood - said, - to himself, i.e. purposed, - My spirit - neither "ira, seu rigida Dei justitia" (Venema), nor "the Divine spirit of life bestowed upon man, the principle of physical and ethical, natural and spiritual life" (Keil); but the Holy Ghost, the Ruach Elohim of Genesis 1:2 - shall not always strive. London: -

1. Shall not dwell (LXX., οὐ μὴ καταμείνη; Vulgate, non permanebit; Syriac, Onkelos).

2. Shall not be humbled, i.e. by dwelling in men (Gesenius, Tuch).

3. More probably, shall not rule (De Wette, Delitzsch, Kalisch, Furst), or shall not judge (οὐ κρίνει), as the consequence of ruling (Symmachus, Rosenmüller, Keil), or shall not contend in judgment (arguere, reprehendere; cf. Ecclesiastes 6:10), i.e. strive with a man by moral force (Calvin, Michaelis, Dathe, 'Speaker's Commentary,' Murphy, Bush). With man, for that he also - beshaggam. Either be, shaggam, inf. of shagag, to wander, with pron. surf. = "in their wandering" (Gesenius, Tuch, Keil) - the meaning being that men by their straying had proved themselves to be flesh, though a plural suffix with a singular pronoun following is inadmissible in Hebrew (Kalisch); or be, sh (contracted from asher), and gain (also) = quoniam. Cf. Judges 5:7; Judges 6:17; Song of Solomon 1:7 (A.V.). Though an Aramaic particle, "it must never be forgotten that Aramaisms are to be expected either in the most modern or in the most ancient portions of Scripture" ('Speaker's Commentary) - is flesh, not "transitory beings" (Gesenius, Rosenmüller, Tuch), or corporeal beings (Kalisch), but sinful beings; bashar being already employed in its ethical signification, like σάρξ in the New Testament, to denote "man's materiality as rendered ungodly by sin" (Keil). "The doctrine of the carnal mind (Romans 8.) is merely the outgrowth, of the thought expressed in this passage ' (Murphy). Yet his days - not the individual's (Kalisch), which were not immediately curtailed to the limit mentioned, and, even after the Flood, extended far beyond it (vide Genesis 11.); but the races, which were only to be prolonged in gracious respite (Calvin) - shall be an hundred and twenty years. Tuch, Colenso, and others, supposing this to have been said by God in Noah's 500th year, find a respite only of 100 years, instead of 120; but the historian does not assert that it was then God either formed or announced this determination.

Verse 4. - There were. Not became, or arose, as if the giants were the fruit of the previously-mentioned misalliances; but already existed contemporaneously with the sons of God (cf. Keil, Havernick, and Lange). Giants. Nephilim, from naphal, to fall; hence supposed to describe the offspring of the daughters of men and the fallen angels (Hoffman, Delitzsch). The LXX, translate by γίγαντες; whence the "giants" of the A.V. and Vulgate, which Luther rejects as fabulous; but Kalisch, on the strength of Numbers 13:33, accepts as the certain import of the term. More probable is the interpretation which understands them as men of violence, roving, lawless gallants, "who fall on others;" robbers, or tyrants (Aquila, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, Luther, Calvin, Kurtz, Keil,. Murphy, 'Speaker's Commentary'). That they were "monsters, prodigies" (Tueh, Knobel), may be rejected, though it is not unlikely they were men of large physical stature, like the Anakim, Rephaim, and others (cf. Numbers 13:33). In the earth. Not merely on it, but largely occupying the populated region. In those days. Previously referred to, i.e. of the mixed marriages. And also - i.e. in addition to these nephilim - after that, - i.e. after their up-rising - when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men. Ha'gibborim, literally, the strong, impetuous, heroes (cf. Genesis 10:8). "They were probably more refined in manners and exalted in thought than their predecessors of pure Cainite descent" (Murphy). Which were of old. Not "of the world," as a note of character, taking olam as equivalent αἰὼν to but a note of time, the narrator reporting from his own standpoint. Men of renown. Literally, men of the name; "the first nobility of the world, honorable robbers, who boasted of their wickedness" (Calvin) or gallants, whose names were often in men's mouths (Murphy). For contrary phrase, "men of no name," see Job 30:8.

Verse 5. - And God (Jehovah, which should have been rendered 'the Lord') saw - indicative of the long-continued patience (Calvin) of the Deity, under whose immediate cognizance the great experiment of the primeval age of the world was wrought out - that the wickedness (ra'ath; from the root raa, to make a loud noise, to rage, hence to be wicked) of man (literally, of the Adam: this was the first aggravation of the wickedness which God beheld; it was the tumultuous rebellion of the being whom he had created in his own image) was great (it was no slight iniquity, but a wide-spread, firmly-rooted, and deeply-staining corruption, the second aggravation) in the earth. This was the third aggravation; it was in the world which he had made, and not only in it, but pervading it so "that integrity possessed no longer a single corner" (Calvin). And that every imagination - yetzer, a device, like pottery ware, from yatza, to fashion as a potter (Genesis 2:7; Genesis 8:19). Cf. yotzer, a potter, used of God (Psalm 94:9, 20). Hence the fashioned purpose (ἐνθύμησις) as distinguished from the thought out of which it springs - "a distinction not generally or constantly recognized by the mental philosopher, though of essential importance in the theory of the mind" (Murphy) - of the thoughts - mahshevoth; from hashal, to think, to meditate = ἔννοια; cf. Hebrews 9:12 (T. Lewis) - of his heart - or, the heart, the seat of the affections and emotions of the mind. Cf. Judges 16:15 (love); Proverbs 31:11 (confidence); Proverbs 5:12 (contempt); Psalm 104:15 (joy). Here "the feeling, or deep mother heart, the state of soul, lying below all, and giving moral character to all (Lewis). Cf. the psychological division of Hebrews 4:12 was only evil continually. Literally, every day. "If this is not total depravity, how can language express it?" Though the phrase does not mean "from infancy," yet "the general doctrine" (of man's total and universal depravity) "is properly and consistently elicited hence" (Calvin).

Verse 6. - And it repented the Lord. Yinnahem; from naham, to pant, to groan; Niph., to lament, to grieve bemuse of the misery of others, also because of one's own actions; whence to repent (cf. German, rouen; English, rue: Gesenius); = "it grieved him at his heart." "Verbum nostae pravitatae accommodatum" (Chrysostom); "non est perturbatio, sod judi-cium, quo irrogatur pinna;" and again, "poenitudo Dei est mutandorum immutabilis ratio" (Augustine). "Deus est immutabilis; sed cum ii, quos eurat, mutantur, murat ipse res, prout ils expedit quos eurat" (Justin Martyr: Latin Version). "The repentance here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him (Calvin). "The repentance of God does not presuppose any variableness in his nature or purposes" Keil). "A peculiarly strong anthropathic expression, which, however, presents the truth that God, in consistency with his immutability, assumes a changed position in respect to changed man" (Lange). That he had made man on the earth. i.e. that he had created man at all, and in particular that he had settled him on the earth. And it grieved him at his heart. A touching indication that God did not hate man, and a clear proof that, though the Divine purpose is immutable, the Divine nature is not impassible.