Cd – Noah Was a Righteous Man, Blameless Among the People of His Time 6: 9-12

Noah Was a Righteous Man, Blameless Among
the People of His Time and He Walked With God
6: 9-12

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time and he walked with God DIG: How was Noah different than those of his time? How extensive had the corruption grown? How did Noah avoid the temptations of his day? How many other people were protected with him? Who were they?

REFLECT: Was it right to wipe out that many people? Why did God do it? When was the last time you opposed the evil in the world even though you were in the minority? Can you identify with Noah? How so?

Parashah 2: Noach (Noah) 6:9-11:32
(see my commentary on Deuteronomy, to see link click Af – Parashah)

The Key People include Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their wives, Canaan, Terah, Abram, Nahor, Haran, Lot, Sarai, and Milcah. The name Noah means comfort. The rabbis teach that he was a comfort to himself, a comfort to the world, a comfort to his fathers, a comfort to his children, a comfort to celestial beings and to mortals; a comfort in this world and the world to come (Bereshit Rabbah 30:5).

The Scenes include the mountains of Ararat, the plains of Shinar, Ur of the Chaldeans, and Haran.

The Main Events include the Ark and the Flood, the Covenant, the rainbow, the vineyard fiasco, Shem’s blessing, the Tower of Bab’el, and Terach’s move. The wicked generations of Cain and the ungodly mixture of the human and demonic through the Nephilim caused the world to be entirely steeped in anarchy and violence. So, after nine generations, ADONAI had “had enough” and was ready to wipe humanity from the face of the earth. However, God recognized Noah (from the godly line of Seth) as a righteous man, and graciously made provision to save him from the wrath to come. This parashah bridges the gap between pre-historic times and the beginning of recorded human history.

Noah is described in three complimentary ways in 6:9. First, Noah, like John the Baptist (Mark 6:20) and Simeon (Luke 2:25), was a righteous man. The word righteous, or tzaddik, is the act of God, whereby, negatively, He forgives the sins of believers and, positively, He declares them righteous by transferring to their account all the obedience and righteousness of Christ by faith (Luke 18:9-14). It is not a reward for anything good they have done, there is no way that they can earn it because it is an utterly undeserved free gift of God’s mercy (Romans 3:24; Titus 3:7). It is an internal condition, and it happens at the point of salvation (see my commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Bw –What God Does for Us at the Moment of Faith).

Secondly, Noah, like Abraham (17:1) and Job (Job 1:1) and Jacob (25:27) was also perfect (NKJ) or blameless (NIV) among the people of his time. The word perfect, or tammim, means without blemish and used in the book of Leviticus, Chapters 1, 3 and 10 for sacrificial offerings. In Leviticus 3:1 and 6 it means without defect, and emphasizes an outward condition. Therefore, Noah was inwardly and outwardly right before God, among the people of his time, meaning, unlike others of his generation, he was not contaminated by the intermarriage of demonic angels. In fact his was the most righteous of the ten generations starting with Adam. So he is described as being both righteous and without defect. When used together these two words emphasize a holy righteousness (Job 12:4; Proverbs 11:5).

And thirdly, like Enoch (5:22 and 24), Noah walked with Elohim, the God of righteousness (6:9b). That means he obeyed God’s commands. The writer of Hebrews makes the same point. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith (Hebrews 11:7). It took faith to build an ark on dry land when it had never rained.

The Hebrew text in 6:9 has exactly ten words that begin and end with the name Noah. Perhaps Moses is pointing to the fact that Noah formed the tenth generation from Adam and must have wanted to give Noah as much attention as possible.

In 6:10 we are told about the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Shem means name. Ham in Hebrew is cham, which means warm or hot, and Japheth, which in Hebrew is yaphed, which means fair or beautiful. The order listed here is not necessarily the order of birth. The twelve sons of Jacob are listed ten times and they are always in a different order, and the order is always significant. This is not a big deal here, but it will be when we get to Abraham. By Jewish tradition, Noah’s wife was Naamah, the daughter of Lamech. Noah might have had other sons and daughters who were not righteous, but we just don’t know. Although these three sons had been mentioned earlier in 5:32, their reference here points to the fact that they were also righteous believers, and along with theirwives, were saved from the Flood. Kefa tells us: God did not spare the ancient world when He brought the Flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others (Second Peter 2:5). But why was God going to send the Flood?

Mankind had corrupted Elohim’s creation and gone their own way (to see a video on life before the Flood click here). In 6:11 and 12 Moshe describes the corrupted state of the earth. The Hebrew word for corrupt, or shachath, is a very strong word and is often translated destroy. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence (Hebrew: hamas). How appropriate! Many members of the Hamas are Arab Muslims living within the borders of Isra’el. They have killed dozens and have wounded hundreds of Israelites in suicide bus attacks and other fanatical acts of violence. I am not suggesting that there is a linguistic connection between the name of the Arabic group “Hamas” and this word used here in Bereshit. There is none. Nor, was there any political groups called Hamas in Noah’s day. However, the corruption, destruction and violence which so characterizes modern day Hamas is a perfect illustration of the type of violence that was being perpetrated in the days just before ADONAI unleashed His wrath by sending the Flood. It is rather uncanny that the word is similar for both!

At that time the world was corrupted by the intermarriage of fallen demonic angels and human women (6:1-4). The violence was a result of the corruption and shows the extent of Satan’s success. Elohim, the God of creation and destruction, saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people of the earth had corrupted their ways. It is interesting that 6:12 marks the middle point of Chapters 1 through 11. Although the earth had forgotten God, God was still trying to salvage the earth. Only four women were not corrupted by the intermarriage, Mrs. Noah and the wives of the three sons. But the end had come; there was no alternative. God has decided to destroy all mankind and to make Noah and his family the ancestors of a new humanity.¹⁰⁴