Genesis 6:6 “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
It seems more and more I am being asked about the Nephilim or giants in Genesis 6. I believe much of the interest comes from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the fact that the Book of Enoch was found to be written in Aramaic. In the nineteenth century the Book of Enoch was discovered but was written in Coptic, one of the latest stages of the Egyptian language. Now we have an earlier version of the Book which is quoted in the Book of Jude and referenced by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 11:10, “For this cause ought the woman to have power on [her] head because of the angels.” This is often interpreted that a woman is to keep her head covered so as not to seduce the angels. This is why woman used to wear hats to church all the time, didn’t want those angels getting lustful thoughts. Actually it is the Book of Enoch that talks about angels having their way with women resulting in the birth of demigods or hybrid humans which was the reason for the flood. The Book of Enoch was once considered inspired and regularly studied by the Jews during the first century. Today many have built a platform and sold bestselling books on the topic of the Nephilim and their association with UFOs and aliens which they consider to be demonic.
If asked about the Nephilim I usually mutter something unintelligible and move on to the next question. I prefer not to go there, my specialty is in Biblical languages and not Ufology. However, I have been reading the Aramaic version of the Book of Enoch which has proved to be quite an entertaining study and led me back to Genesis 6:6 which seems to be the crux of the story of the flood which has become so popular today with the Nephilim connection and will most likely become even more popular with Hollywood’s release of its epic movie Noah.
This is a very curious verse because on the surface it appears that God regrets creating man because of his wickedness. I remember as a child my Sunday school teachers saying that God destroyed man because of his wickedness by water, next time he will destroy him by fire. Even as a child I could not help but think, “Poor God, He just can’t seem to get it right, man always ends up wicked. We are really bad today, so God must really regret having created man.” I don’t know about you but this idea of God regretting or repenting that He created man just did not add up. The commentators I have read usually end up saying something unintelligible (to me at least) and quickly move on.
When you look at this in the Hebrew it is even more perplexing. The word used for repentance is nacham. The Hebrew word for repentance as we understand repentance is shuv where we get the word teshuvah which is the major theme of the High Holidays and means a turning away from sin. The word nacham means grief. We all know that Godly sorrow works or brings repentance (II Corinthians 7:10), but that tells us that Godly sorrow is not repentance, it only brings about repentance. Actually, there is no word in English even in other Western languages which can adequately translate nacham because it includes so many different nuances. The Koreans have a word called Han which is an expression of their culture and is quite similar to nacham in it embodiment of regret, grief, grudge, hatred or lamentation.
What makes nacham difficult to translate is that it expresses grief, comfort, compassion and hope all in one word. This is what God felt in Genesis 6:6 about creating man. It is only our Western arrogance that causes us to throw in the word repentance to express nacham and our refusal to admit that the English language does not carry the poetic quality of the Semitic languages to express four emotional concepts in one word.
To rightly and adequately translate this verse we must admit that the English language is inferior to the Semitic language in its poetic expressions and use four English words to express just one Semitic word. In this case we should render Genesis 6:6 as, “And the Lord felt grief, comfort, compassion and hope because he made man from the ground.” Then the last phrase uses an old Semitic idiom which is another poetic expression that has no equal in the English language, “It grieved Him at this heart.” Actually, it is more correctly rendered, “And He was grieving unto His heart.” In other words the grief was directed to His heart.
I was listening to some radio talk shows where people were calling in commenting of the grief expressed by the families of Americans lost in the Washington State landslide and the grief expressed by the families for those lost in the Malaysian Airline crash. The Orientals sounded hysterical in their grief while the Western families calmly expressed their grief with chocked voices. There was even the suggestion that we Americans were somehow more superior because we could control our grief. Grief is grief no matter what culture you are from. We Americans, however, work very hard at trying to keep our grief away from our hearts so we can put on a brave show. Also, we know that once our grief reaches our hearts, we will feel the immense pain. As long as we can keep our grief away from our hearts, we are safe. The Orientals realize that that is impossible and make no such attempt to hold it back, they know it will eventually reach their hearts, so they just let their grief flow to their hearts. When grief reaches your heart that is when you begin to wail and weep uncontrollably. But still, that is not what it means to grieve to the heart. One rabbi explained it this way, “It is a grief so deep, that you cannot even weep.”
I recall a mother telling how she felt when she heard her son overdosed on drugs. Up to that point she had no idea that he was even on drugs. What she described was nacham and grief to the heart. All at the same time she felt grief over her son’s plight, but at the same relief that he was still alive, compassion for her son’s state, and hope that he would recover (nacham). Then she sat down and just grieved to her heart. The grief was so great that she could not even cry, she just sat there in state of shock.
That is what happened to God in Genesis 6:6, that is what happens to God when you sin, He is stricken with grief over your plight, but He is relieved that you are aware of your sin, he feels compassion over the situation that sin put you in and he feels hope that you will receive the cleansing blood of His son. Then He just sits back and is grieved to His heart, He is so overwhelmed by grief, the grief is so deep that He cannot even weep for us.
Ok, take Genesis 6 and have good time trying to figure out just what these sons of God and Nephilim were, but for my money I would like spend my time mediating on Genesis 6:6 and how much God grieves when I fall into sin. If you ask me about Genesis 6, that will be my reply.
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