A Daily Genesis

Genesis 6:8-10

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[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 6:8 . . But Noah found favor with The Lord.[/B]

The word for "favor" is from [I]chen[/I] (khane) and means[B]:[/B] graciousness. Translators sometimes render chen as grace. It can be either grace or favor; but the important thing is that The Lord didn't find chen with Noah. No, just the opposite-- Noah found chen with The Lord.

Webster's defines "graciousness" as merciful, compassionate, kind, courteous, cordial, affable, genial, and sociable. Those are all good qualities, and the very things you would expect to see in someone you loved and trusted-- like your spouse or a very close friend.

[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 6:9 . .This is the line of Noah.-- Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his era; Noah walked with God.[/B]

Is that verse saying Noah was flawless? No; perfection in the Bible means something altogether different than what you'd expect. The Hebrew word for "blameless" is [I]tamiym[/I] (taw-meem') which just simply means entire; in other words; no pieces missing and everything in working order; for example[B]:
[/B]
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yhvh appeared to him and said: I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. (Gen 17:1-2)

Well; I can assure you that Mr[B].[/B] Abram was never flawless; nevertheless he was blameless; and he was also a prophet; which in the Old Testament indicates a divinely motivated man. So then; what we're looking at in the "blameless" man is a sinner whose sins are not an issue. Pretty amazing.

No doubt Noah had plenty of sinful thoughts in his head right along with everybody else before the Flood, and no doubt those thoughts contributed their fair share towards the sadness God felt because of man's wickedness; but nevertheless; Noah was blameless-- and that's because unlike Cain who walked away from God, Noah walked with God; in other words[B]:[/B] Noah let himself be illuminated by the light instead of shielding himself from the light.

"This is the condemnation[B]:[/B] that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." (John 3:19-20)

People walking in the light don't object to having their evil thoughts exposed because they can get them expunged in a matter of seconds.

"I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself[B]:[/B] "I will confess my rebellion to The Lord" and you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Therefore, let all the godly confess their rebellion to you while there is time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment." (Ps 32:5-6)

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just; and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1John 1:8-10)

And that's the secret to a blameless walk with the Bible's God.

"If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1John 1:6-7)

[B][SIZE=1]NOTE[/SIZE]:[/B] The koiné Greek word translated "cleanseth" does not have the precise same meaning as the word for "justify" which means to render or to pronounce innocent. In other words[B]:[/B] confession doesn't gain the confessing person an acquittal; it merely gains them a scrubbing to remove sin's contamination.

You can see this same principle at work in the rituals of Yom Kippur. The slain goat obtains decontamination for the people (Lev 16:30) but their sins go unpunished with the escaping goat that gets away alive.

In other words[B]:[/B] the people's sins evade justice viz[B]:[/B] they're still out there somewhere hanging over their heads like a sword of Damocles until such a time as they themselves, or somebody, or something is executed for their sins because it's only by means of the death penalty that sins can be taken off the books. Well; God's plan for dealing with that pesky little technicality is on display in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.

Did Noah know about Christ all the way back then? He sure did.

"Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow." (1Pet 1:10-11)

Seeing as how Abel was a prophet (Luke 11:50-51) then he too was aware of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. Pretty amazing.

The other thing said of Noah was that he was righteous. The Hebrew word is [I]tsaddiyq[/I] (tsad-deek') which means[B]:[/B] just.

Webster's provides several definitions of "just", but perhaps the ones best suited for our purpose are: conscientious, honest, honorable, right, scrupulous, true, dependable, reliable, tried, trustworthy, dispassionate, equal, equitable, impartial, nondiscriminatory, objective, unbiased, uncolored, and unprejudiced. So then, Noah was not only religious to his fingertips; but he was a pretty decent guy to boot.

The most incredible thing about Noah was his degree of piety in a world gone mad with evil. He must have endured an enormous amount of opposition, ridicule, criticism, and thoughtless remarks. Yet he persisted and didn't cave in to the thinking of his neighbors and friends; nor of his brothers and sisters, nor of his nieces and nephews, nor of any of the rest of his kin. Only his wife, and his three sons and their wives responded to Noah's preaching; yet he continued to warn people about the Flood right up to the end.

To the majority of modern intellectuals, Noah is merely a mythical character, and to them his ark and its animals are nothing but a story-book menagerie for children's coloring books. To them, it is much too naïve to give any serious consideration to Noah being an historical person. However, later writers of the Bible felt differently. God lists Noah among three of the most righteous men in Bible history.

"Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it. Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness: testifies Yhvh God." (Ezk 14:13-14)

Noah was actually a nobody in his day; eclipsed by the nephiyl types. They got all the press, the publicity, and the notoriety while God's man went marginalized and largely ignored.

[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 6:10 . . Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.[/B]

Were those the only kids Noah had? And no daughters? I seriously doubt it. Noah was six hundred when the flood began. It is unlikely that a healthy, hard working, robust man would live that long without engendering a much larger family than three; especially in those days without birth control. But these three boys are the only ones that count now because they're going on the ark with their dad.

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