What Does Genesis 6:7 Mean?
And the LORD said, I will wipe out humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the ground, from humankind to beast, to creeping things, and to birds of the heavens, for I relent of having made them.
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 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.THE KEY
Here, “destroy” is the language of wiping life from the ground, while the maker’s own word carries regret.
THE MEANING
You stand before a sentence in which the maker names the wiping away of the human and animal life he made. The word for regret carries sorrow or relenting, yet it sits beside a declaration of destruction without softening it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves any easy equation of regret with rescue: here, regret accompanies the announced wiping away of the life God made.
THE ROOT
אֶמְחֶה
ʾemḥeh
GROWS FROM
מחה
māḥâ
Wipe away, blot out, erase.
“wipe out” in this verse is ʾemḥeh. The word translated “destroy” carries the force of wiping something away. The same root can describe blotting a name from a book, so the verse speaks in the language of erasure from the face of the ground.
ALSO GROWS
māḥîtî: Wipe out every living thing.
מָחִיתִי
The same root extends the announced wiping away from human beings to all living things.
ʾemḥennû: Blot a person’s name out of a book.
אֶמְחֶנּוּ
The root can erase a name as well as life from the ground, revealing the breadth of its image.
נִחַמְתִּי
niḥamtî
GROWS FROM
נחם
nāḥam
Regret or relent; in another Hebrew stem, comfort or console.
“I relent of having made them” in this verse is niḥamtî. English “repenteth” can sound like a change of conduct, while נָחַם carries the sense of regret or relenting. The same root also gives the word for comfort, placing the maker’s decision in the register of grief even as the verse declares destruction.
ALSO GROWS
niḥamtî: Regret or be sorry.
נִחַמְתִּי
This form of the root also names regret over an act of setting something in motion.
naḥămû: Console or comfort.
נַחֲמוּ
The same root can describe comfort given amid grief, revealing a range that English separates from regret.
אָדָם
ʾādām
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
Human, joined by sound and word-family to אֲדָמָה, ground or soil.
“humankind” in this verse is ʾādām. אָדָם (adam, human) echoes אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground or soil), binding the human name to the ground. The verse says the wiping away is from the face of that ground, joining the human being and the earth in one image.
ALSO GROWS
ʾādām: A human being.
אָדָם
The verse names the human as part of the life made and threatened with removal.
ʾădāmāh: The ground or soil.
אֲדָמָה
The echo between adam and adamah ties humanity to the very ground from which the verse says life will be wiped away.
THE PATTERN
Created life is received from God and remains within the giver’s power to end.
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.You hide your face, and they are shaken; you gather in their breath, and they breathe out and return to their dust.Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, for he himself gives to all life and breath and all things.THE THREAD
And every standing thing that was upon the face of the ground was wiped out, from humankind to cattle, to the creeping thing, and to the birds of the heavens, and they were wiped from the earth. Only Noah, and those with him in the ark, were left.“Destroyed” here and in Genesis 6:7 comes from מחה (māḥâ, wipe away). The later verse names the wiping away across living beings on the ground, making the force of the earlier word plain.
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