Genesis 6 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Genesis 6:1-10

1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with humans for ever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.’

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days – and also afterwards – when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.’ 8 But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.

9 This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

A. Find Out:

1. What change did God make? v.3
2. What had happened on the earth since Creation? v.5
3. How did the Lord feel about it? v.6
4. So what did He decide to do? v.7
5. How was Noah an exception? v.8
6. Why? v.9

B. Think:

1. Why did God limit the life spans of men?
2. How extensive was evil upon the earth at that time?
3. Consider again v.6. What sort of God is revealed?

C. Comment:

In the opening verses the indication is that men just decided themselves who or when they would marry and indeed how many they would marry (v.1,2). The indication is of rampant self-choice with no reference to God or any sense of propriety that God might have put in man. The Lord therefore limits the length of life span as a means of curbing somewhat this unrestrained living (v.3). Giants (Nephilim) seem to be the product (v.4). Men great in size, in action and in evil.

The picture of the state of the earth is tragic when we compare the peace, order and harmony that existed when God first made it. The picture is now of rampant evil with men disregarding God and doing what they want contrary to the way designed by God (v.5).

God’s response is not of anger but of anguish, grief, pain, of deep distress at what had come about (v.6). It was no longer a pleasure to Him, men would be destroying themselves and His world by their evil. The only course open is to stop it all continuing, to destroy what is (and perhaps start again). But in the midst of all this evil, there is hope in the form of one righteous man, Noah (v.8,9). He is all that is left of the good the Lord put on the earth. Again and again in Scripture, when the position seems hopeless God takes a righteous remnant and saves it.

D. Application?

Today try to catch a sense of the awfulness of the world as it had become and anguish for it.

Passage: Genesis 6:11-22

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: the ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark – you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.’

22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

A. Find Out:    

1. How was the earth described 3 times? v.11,12
2. How was the earth twice described? v.11 & 13
3. What was God going to do with it? v.13 & 17
4. What 4 instructions did the Lord give Noah?
   •  i) v.14    ii) v.18   iii) v.19    iv) v.21
5. How was he to get the creatures? v.20

B. Think:

1. Look up Matthew 24:37-39, Hebrews 11:7, 1 Peter 3:20, 2 Peter 2:5
2. How does the New Testament view Noah & the flood?
3. How, in your own words, had the earth changed from when God made it?
4. What obviously was God’s plan through Noah?

C. Comment:

The dictionary explains corrupt as “to make rotten, to contaminate, tainted, spoilt, altered for the worse”. All these words fully describe what had happened to the world since God had made it (v.11,12). “Violence” was the other word used to describe what had come onto the earth. Where God had made peace and harmony, man brought violence in every way. That which had been beautiful had been totally abused, and the situation was getting worse and worse. There was no point in letting it just carry on, so God decided to stop it and start over again with one man and his family, perhaps before this one man and his family also get corrupted (v.13,17,18).

Read Ezekiel 18:32 Understand when God destroys it is no joy but a necessity. There could be no other way. When cancer strikes, a radical operation to remove it is the only means of providing hope. This is a sobering piece of the world’s history, but God’s grace was there, as always, looking for a new start for man. With God, death is always followed by resurrection and the hope that comes with it.

D. Application?

1. Again, seek to sense something of the awfulness of what had happened to the earth.  
2. Thank God that He gave the earth another chance through Noah.