What Does Genesis 6:5 Mean?
And the LORD saw that the harm of humankind was great in the earth, and that every shaping of the thoughts of his heart was only harm all the day.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
What English calls “imagination” is the language of forming: the heart is shaping a life, not merely entertaining thoughts.
THE MEANING
The verse names an inner pattern that is total rather than occasional: what the heart keeps forming bends toward harm, filling the day. What takes shape within does not remain private; it becomes part of the condition of the earth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that harmful inner patterns are inconsequential because they remain unseen: the verse connects the heart’s continual formations with the world’s condition.
THE ROOT
יֵצֶר
yetser
GROWS FROM
יצר
yatsar
to form, shape, or fashion
The word translated “imagination” carries the sense of a formation or inclination, from the same root as shaping clay. Beside the word for thoughts and plans, it pictures the heart forming an inner direction, not merely hosting passing mental images.
ALSO GROWS
yatsar: to form or fashion
יָצַר
This is the verb used when the verse describes an inward formation.
yotser: a potter, or one who forms
יֹצֵר
The potter’s work makes the root’s shaping sense concrete: an inclination is something taking shape.
מַחְשְׁבֹת
machshevot
GROWS FROM
חשב
chashav
to think, reckon, devise, or plan
“Thoughts” can sound like passing ideas, but this word belongs to the language of devising and planning. Paired with “imagination,” it shows thought as something that forms intent, making the heart’s inward direction active rather than idle.
ALSO GROWS
chashav: to think, devise, or plan
חָשַׁב
The verb shows the deliberate activity contained in the word translated “thoughts.”
machashavah: a thought or plan
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This related noun makes the link between thought and intended direction explicit.
THE PATTERN
What continually forms within the heart shapes the moral direction of life.
And the LORD smelled the fragrance of rest, and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground for man's sake, for the shaping of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will not again strike down every living thing, as I have done.For from within, out of the heart of men, come evil weighings, fornications, thefts, murders,Because, having known God, they did not give him weight as God, nor did they give thanks; but they were made empty in their reckonings, and their unjoined heart was darkened.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.The verb translated “formed” here shares its Hebrew root, יצר (yatsar), meaning “to shape or form,” with “imagination” in Genesis 6:5. The human who is formed also forms inwardly: the root connects the shaping of a person with the shaping activity of the heart.
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