Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and this week we are gonna be continuing on into the flood narrative of Genesis six, and we're gonna talk about verses 17 and 18. My main point is basically to exegete these two verses, but in addition to that, I'm gonna get into a little bit of deeper ideas here about God's wrath.
[00:00:39] Now, of course, we do not have the word wrath in the flood narrative. What we see instead is that God regrets or that he is sorry that he creates man, and this is a reason for the flood. So it is fair to ask whether or not God's wrath fits into this context. But of course, that's gonna depend on your definition of wrath to begin with.
[00:01:03] Now, I am not talking about wrath in some sort of vindictive way. I'm not really using it in an overly emotional way because you know, a lot of people will say that God can't have wrath because how can a loving God be wrathful? In our minds, we have these two ideas of love and wrath, and they're a little bit opposite. And so we can't combine them in the same idea.
[00:01:30] And of course, we also have the ideas of classical theism where some people don't want to see God being an emotional being at all because emotions require change and all of these ideas, right. Well, I'm not trying to speak against classical theism, first of all, but I don't think we should be importing a later idea that comes up within Greek philosophy.
[00:01:56] The idea of classical theism is just not part of the matrix of Genesis. So I'm not really concerned about importing that. What I am trying to say is that when I'm speaking about wrath, I'm not just speaking about emotions. The term wrath is definitely used in Scripture to apply to God's judgment action. And even though it's not used in the flood narrative at all, I still think that because the concept is a little bit wider than just emotions, we can see the idea here. Because wrath is tied to judgment and the flood is obviously a judgment.
[00:02:39] But then we bring the idea of law into things and how God's law needs to be satisfied and if somebody sins, they need to be punished because of that sin. So we have an entire matrix of ideas that is brought along into our worldview of what wrath is.
[00:02:58] But the question is, is the way that we think about wrath the same way that the Bible describes it? My suggestion to you is that this section of Genesis six that we're looking at is actually really very insightful to how we can view this whole idea. I'm arguing this because even though we don't see the word wrath, Genesis one through 11 is what is laying out the theology for the entire rest of the Hebrew Bible.
[00:03:28] Again, sometimes these ideas are proto in nature. So just like we don't see temple or tabernacle language directly regarding Eden, just like we don't see Adam directly referred to as a priest, we have those ideas embedded into the story that then moves forward into history, and we get those ideas that are structured and formalized at a later time.
[00:03:56] And it's not that we need to import all of the later ideas into the earlier text. But if there is something that is truly foundational to the idea of Scripture, then we really ought to be seeing it in these first chapters of Genesis. And I argue that we do. That is basically my point of this podcast here.
[00:04:18] My basic idea for the conversation today is that Genesis six verses 17 and 18, which might seem kind of weird to combine these two verses in one episode, but I hope you'll see why I'm gonna do so. My claim is that this is where divine judgment, de creation, preservation, and covenant are brought together in a concentrated form. And that by seeing this narrative in this small little snapshot here in the flood, then that's going to help us understand the nature of God, the character of God, how he deals with humanity when things are not going right, and how judgment and punishment and retribution and mercy are all put together in one form here.
[00:05:09] So if you open your Bible and you look at these verses, you're gonna see that verse 17 announces a comprehensive destruction, and that is in the form of the flood, of course. Then verse 18 goes on to sharply turn the narrative toward that preserved life, named people, and covenantal continuity. And those two things always come together when we're talking about judgment in the Bible. There's always judgment against things that are not right, but preservation through that judgment.
[00:05:47] And what's fascinating is that the means of destruction is also the means of deliverance. We have the flood, which is the first major judgment that we see. That's not to say there aren't previous judgments. But here it has built up to the point where we really see something that amounts to the kind of wrath that we see later on in Scripture as well.
[00:06:13] We see this paralleled very well in the episode with the Red Sea in Exodus. The Red Sea is the means of deliverance for the people of God, but it is also the means of destruction for the Egyptians who are trying to kill the people of God.
[00:06:31] Of course, we see this when we get into the prophets and they're talking about the exile. The historical upheaval that destroys the arrogant Israelites as well as the arrogant nations becomes the pattern through which the remnant emerges. It is a pattern of purification, as well, and that parallels really well with the flood narrative.
[00:06:54] And then further into the New Testament, we also see Jesus judging and saving in a single act. He takes the cup, not because he is substituting for us, but because that judgment vindicates and saves the righteous, which obviously is Jesus. He goes through that, but we also participate in that with him because we are in him and we are united with him. And by being united to the perfect Israelite who goes through the judgment and is the righteous remnant who perseveres faithfully through that judgment, then we are saved.
[00:07:37] This is going to play into our picture in Genesis six and the flood, where the flood comes as a judgment on people and Noah and his family are saved and preserved by being within God's covenant, participating in that because Noah is the one who made the Ark. He is the one who had to step into the Ark to be preserved. The Ark is lifted on the flood waters, and this is the means of preservation through the destruction.
[00:08:07] Okay, so before we get into the actual text of Genesis six 17 through 18, we're gonna step back and see how this fits in with the previous verses. In verses 11 and 12, we have the diagnosis: corruption and violence filling the earth. We have repeated shahat language here. Verse 11 says, the earth was corrupt before God. The earth was filled with violence. These are similar ideas here. Verse 12 repeats and intensifies the corruption language where God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. So there is a heavy repetition of this root: corrupt, corruption, destroy, and ruin. Those are all related in Hebrew.
[00:09:01] So God is destroying what has already become ruined, and God judges a world that's already bent towards self-destruction. So this Hebrew root is doing two things here. It's describing the world that is ruined and corrupted, and it's also describing how God will ruin and destroy that. And so punishment is linked to the condition that exists.
[00:09:28] I mean, what is the alternative? The alternative would be something like a parent who sees their child do something, and the parent is then going to punish that child in a way that it has nothing to do with what the child did. Like let's say that your child hits one of their friends. Well, if your punishment for that act is to take away their time with watching TV or something, that is not really directly related to the child hitting the other child. So there's kind of a distinctive difference sometimes in how we apply our punishments. But here in the flood, these things are mushed together and God is judging the world in a way that is already corrupt and ruined. So the ideas are very related.
[00:10:17] And of course, violence is a key explanation of the corruption. The earth is filled of hamas. This is usually translated as a violence, but it can be connected with the world that has gone before, that we've seen since Cain, and that was escalated with Lamech. Where we have fratricide, we have vengeance, we have murder, and there's this idea of escalating bloodshed. But murder is not the only way we could see this violence. Because the Bible really frontlines the idea of social violence quite frequently. So the way that we're treating each other and actual oppression and things, that could also be economic.
[00:11:01] And another question is how violence and this corruption are related because all flesh is corrupt. Does that mean that all flesh is just being murderous and violent in a bloody way? Or is the relationship between violence and corruption a little bit more fuzzy than we would normally see it in English?
[00:11:23] As with many things, it doesn't have to be an either- or, and it can be a both- and. But it really is crucial to see how the all flesh corrupting its way includes both animals and humans. So it's very inclusive, and so the narrative scope is wider than just bad people. It is creation level. And what that specifically looks like, we can't really know, especially when this word violence has a pretty broad application.
[00:11:53] But in any case, this repeated word play on corruption and destruction and how that does connect into violence is going to be key to how we see this story embedded into the rest of Scripture. That's part of why I'm making these connections with the idea of wrath, because you'll see the same kinds of language in the prophets when they're describing the exile.
[00:12:17] And remember, I've pointed out before that the corruption of the way is not only status, biology, or something like that, but it is tied to conduct and behavior, like a path of living out your life.
[00:12:35] And so then we come to verse 13 as a kind of transition point. The end of all flesh has come before God, for the earth is filled with violence because of them, and God is about to destroy them with the earth. He is destroying them with something that is tied to their actual behavior and what they've already corrupted.
[00:12:58] We might call this natural consequences, though of course this is God doing it intentionally. So again, it could be a both- and kind of situation. God's instances of judgment don't have to be him throwing lightning bolts from heaven. But judgment can actually come from our own result.
[00:13:18] And so I've talked before about this with the cup of wrath, and this plays into a lot of what I've said there. People are being given over into what they are already doing. So, if that is an overarching kind of definition of wrath, we might say, then the flood narrative absolutely plays its part in this idea. Even if it doesn't use the word wrath, God is giving them over to what they want.
[00:13:46] We do have the flood that is an instance of divine judgment that God enacts in an intentional way. It's not just that God throws up his hands and just leaves them all to it. The flood actually is something that is not simply a consequence of the actions, okay? So there is an intentionality of God here, but this language about how God is going to destroy them with the earth. That's crucial here in verse 13.
[00:14:16] I'm gonna connect that down into verse 17, but after verse 13, interestingly enough, this is where we get the instructions for the ark. And I'm going to suggest that the ordering here is significant in the text. So there is an oracle of destruction. God is telling us that he is going to destroy the earth and there's a reason for that, but the means of preservation are detailed before the actual laying out of how he's gonna do it.
[00:14:47] Because notice in verse 13, there's no mention of rain. There's no mention of a flood, but there is the mention of the destruction with the earth.
[00:14:59] So isn't that interesting that we have this idea of God sees Noah as righteous, God is pulling Noah to the side and saying, I'm gonna save you. He doesn't tell him that there's going to be a flood. We don't have that in the text yet. We don't have the idea of the flood waters until after the Ark insructions. Wouldn't it make a little more sense to say, Hey, by the way, I'm gonna destroy the earth with a flood, now you have to build an Ark.
[00:15:29] But what we have instead is God is saying, I'm gonna destroy all flesh with the earth. By the way, make an Ark. And then after the Ark instructions is when we have the information that is specific about the flood waters. So judgment is certain, it is called upon. The means of preservation is being given and prepared. And then only after that do we get the detailed specifics of how the destruction is gonna happen.
[00:16:00] I think that there is not necessarily a chiasm between Genesis six verses 13 and 17, but I do think that verse 13 and verse 17 form an inclusio pattern, and that that inclusio pattern is chiaistically structured, at least in concept.
[00:16:22] So Genesis six, verse 13 says, quote, " And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth." End quote.
[00:16:38] The two things I want you to notice in this verse is the end of all flesh comes before the words at the end of destruction with the earth. So there's the end, then the destruction. So we have the judgment of what will happen and then the means of it.
[00:16:58] Then let's move to verse 17, which says, quote "For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die." End quote.
[00:17:16] So you see verse 17 flips the concepts here. Verse 13 gives the judgment and then the means. Verse 17 comes back and says the same thing, but in more detail. But it gives first the means and then the overall trajectory. So verse 13, end of all flesh, then destroy them with the earth. Verse 17, the flood of waters upon the earth, and then we get destroy all flesh and everything shall die. So you see how those ideas are flipped in these verses?
[00:17:56] And in between these two verses are all of the instructions for the Ark. I think this structure right here is very intentional and I think it's pointing to something very important. And then after verse 17, we get the idea of covenant, and I don't think any of this is accidental.
[00:18:15] I think there is a very clear idea that is being presented here where we have the book ends, the two ends of the inclusio, of the oracle of death. Then inside that oracle of death, we have the means of it, which involve the earth, because everything on the earth is corrupted, everything is going according to their own way. And so the idea, again, is being given over to what you're already doing.
[00:18:44] And then in between all of that, the middle of that is how things are preserved. The means of preservation is through the destruction. Not just, yes, you're gonna be saved in the end, but the destruction is how you are saved. And that is part of the picture. And then covenant is mentioned at the end of all of that to wrap this entire idea up and come to a conclusion where this is the opposite of death.
[00:19:16] The opposite of death is life, but it's really covenant life in God. And that might all seem really obvious, and it's like, well, no, duh. But is it though? Because the way that we think of the opposite of death is resurrected life, and rightly so, because that is what we have on this side of the incarnation and work of Jesus. We have now the hope of resurrection and embodied life. But in Genesis, the hope is not in physical resurrection because they're not yet thinking about that.
[00:19:54] And I'm making that a bold claim because I think that's what the data shows. I don't think that we have anything in the Bronze Age or before that where anybody is talking about physical resurrected life. That does not mean they don't have an idea of the afterlife. That does not mean they don't have an idea of life with God that continues in some form. But it means they're thinking of it differently.
[00:20:21] And the answer they have in response to one of our hardest questions of what happens with death and how are things continued? Their answer to that is simply different from ours in particular ways, but it's also the same as ours. Because their answer is covenant life with God. And why do we get resurrected? How do we get resurrected? That happens because we are in covenant life, united with Christ, and Christ is the one who defeated death. Christ is the one who went through the judgment in a perfect way, and so we participate in that because we are in him.
[00:21:03] And kind of my point here is that in a way we have very similar things, even though it's vastly different in the flood narrative as it is with us as Christians. Salvation comes through judgment. It's not apart from it. And what we might call the mechanism, even though I hate using that word, the mechanism of destruction becomes the means of deliverance. That is the case in the flood narrative. That is the case in the Exodus. That is the case from the exile and with Jesus and our ultimate vindication in resurrected life. These are all very similar pictures, even though they have their own contexts and you can't just take the one and say that somebody talking about another one is talking about the exact same thing.
[00:21:56] All right, so let's get into verse 17 and 18 a little bit more deeply now, because verse 17 does not introduce judgment from nowhere. It gives a definite instrument that really was not made clear previously, even though we might not have noticed that it wasn't made clear previously because we're like, oh, we're reading Genesis six. Of course, this is about the flood. Well, when is the flood first mentioned? It doesn't come until after the Ark.
[00:22:25] And that's a fascinating point of detail that I think a lot of us miss when we just read through this very quickly. But let's start at the beginning of verse 17. Depending on your translation, it might look a little bit different than other translations. Some of our translations unfortunately kind of mask the Hebrew under here, and I mean, fair enough. Because even if you see the Hebrew under there, you're not necessarily gonna understand why it has what it has.
[00:22:53] But one way you could translate the beginning of verse 17 is to say, " and I, behold, I." There's this really strange repetition here. Another way we could literally translate this would be something like , "and as for me, behold me ." Or more idiomatically we could say, " and I, behold I, am bringing." And so many English versions will capture the force with "I, even I," or something like, "as for me, I myself am bringing."
[00:23:31] So we have this front loaded clause that really has a first person emphasis. We don't get a verb first. We get a subject before the action. And you might think, well, that's how a sentence works. But that's really not how all Hebrew sentences work.
[00:23:48] We could have just had something a little bit more straightforward like, "I will send a flood" or "there will be a flood," but instead we have an emphatic, kind of weighty formulation here. So what does this " and I" contribute to the verse? Well, there's a divine initiative here. The flood isn't being foregrounded first. It's being presented as this really intentional divine act.
[00:24:16] And now that of course matters when we talk about the idea of the wrath of God. Does it have to be an either or? When we get into things like the prophets and the wrath is the nations and the nations' actions against Israel. And it's like, well, is God just using those as big chess pieces on the map of the earth? A lot of people do think of it like that but no matter how you're understanding God's wrath, it is obviously an intentional divine act.
[00:24:48] Now, what about this "behold," or "here am I" or "look" kind of language that we have here? This phrase in Hebrew often carries a force like, "here am I." But in this instance, it's not functioning like a response to a call, like where we have Abraham saying it or Isaiah, but it intensifies the presence of God and the immediacy of his declaration. So we have a vivid kind of confrontational force here. " Look, I am the one doing this."
[00:25:24] In passages like Genesis 22, Exodus three, one Samuel three, and Isaiah six, this same phrase again, functions as a response formula, and the sense in those places is readiness, attentiveness, availability to listen or obey.
[00:25:46] And so the contrast of this here in Genesis six, verse 17, with God saying, "here I am," is really quite fascinating when you see it in this Hebraic light. Is God responding to a call the same way that Abraham and Moses and Samuel and Isaiah do? I mean, kind of! Maybe that is how we should see it. God is responding to the corruption and violence of the earth.
[00:26:15] Okay, and then we get to the verb. "I am bringing," or "I am about to bring," again, focused on God's divine action. And it's placing the flood in a theological context.
[00:26:29] And then we ask, what is God bringing? What kind of flood is this? And the actual word used, the flood waters. The reason you'll see different translations kind of use some interesting language here is because this is a pretty rare word. Genesis is not using a generic word.
[00:26:49] It is not just saying waters, it's not just saying inundation. It names an event with a pretty distinctive term. And so this is one of the places where the wording itself helps make the flood feel singular, even though it quite obviously is a very singular event in general. But the terminology also points to that. You'll see translations like the "flood of waters," the "flood waters," or the "deluge." I've even seen the "deluge of waters."
[00:27:22] And this is a funny actual point here to me because I remember back in my days in high school. Of course, I was raised LDS and as an LDS teenager, you are usually put into some sort of, they call them seminary classes. And they go much deeper than your usual youth group. To the point that it's fascinating to me that as an LDS person, I kind of knew a lot more of the Bible than a lot of my Christian peers did because they didn't have that level of education.
[00:27:53] Now, of course, it's within the context of the LDS theology and all of that, but when it came to the Old Testament, in particular, LDS theology really draws upon a lot of evangelical theology. So a lot of what I learned wasn't necessarily wrong, although of course they kind of twisted the Hebrew in order to fit it into particularly the Book of Mormon.
[00:28:19] So I just remember this one day. And I think it was the Book of Mormon class, because I remember my teacher, just the way he said, " river of water," and he was pointing out that, look, the Book of Mormon is obviously translated from actual ancient language because of the way that it parallels how Hebrew uses this word.
[00:28:42] And I don't remember him pointing directly to Genesis six, verse 17, but I'm pretty sure this is the basis of the idea that he was trying to bring out. Now, of course, I am not claiming at all that the Book of Mormon is actually translated from any ancient text. What I do think is that the Book of Mormon really does have very deliberate design patterns, and it does mirror Scripture in a lot of places.
[00:29:12] That does not prove any kind of ancient language. It just means that people can see the patterns even in English. So is "river of water" a particularly Hebraic phrase? No, because this word flood waters here is pretty darn unique. So again, you know, LDS theologians were pulling from evangelical insight and trying to make a particular case for what they were trying to say. But really quite twisting the Hebrew as they were doing so.
[00:29:49] Anyway, just a little bit of interesting scope of my experience. And of course they would do this all the time with the Old Testament as well. The most frustrating thing about the Old Testament course was that I didn't know any Hebrew, and so I couldn't test any of their claims. And this was back before the prevalence of the ability to go into an interlinear yourself, even if I knew how to do that or that such a thing even existed. But LDS theologians love to draw upon secular theology that claims that El and Yahweh are two deities. So again, another way of twisting the actual Hebraic understanding of things in the Old Testament to use for their own purposes.
[00:30:36] But at any rate, my point here is that this word that underlies our English translation of floodwaters is a very distinctive, biblical word that is just not used very often. It's used in Psalm 29, verse 10, which is important because that also parallels and brings up flood imagery.
[00:30:57] Of course, there's not just one word here. It is two words. It's mabbul mayim, literally something like the flood of waters or the deluge of waters. That's where my good old LDS teacher was drawing upon this. So if we already have the word deluge, then why are we adding the term waters? Well, of course we can't really specifically know the intent of the author, but this does make it more expansive and it makes it a little bit more weighty.
[00:31:28] And of course, we have a few options here that people see this as. First of all, we have it specifying the medium of what the flood is. The flood is not a bunch of aliens from another planet, but it is a flood of waters. Another option is that the expanded phrase may simply be part of the elevated style of the narrative and it contributes to the grandeur and the force of the announcement.
[00:31:57] Another option we have is that the phrase functions as a set expression within the flood narrative. And a set expression is something where we're going to look at intertextuality and they're gonna use a particular set expression in order to make sure that the reader or the hearer makes the connection. So would we call this a technical term? I think we kind of can, yes. But that only really works because we only have it in a few places.
[00:32:26] And the problem is we are not quite entirely sure on the etymology and things like that. And I bring that up because a lot of times we want to pull up etymology of terms and try to make a comparison analysis. And sometimes we're kind of overclaiming with that. Again, I'm not gonna put a butterfly on my toast. So etymology is not the be all, end all of things.
[00:32:52] So this word mabbul can be part of a broader Semitic flood vocabulary, or particularly Akkadian flood terminology. But there is a little bit of uncertainty there because there's also internal Hebrew etymological proposals. Especially from a root that means to flow or to stream or carry along. So in other words, an etymology can't always settle a particular point, especially when the word is rare and it's concentrated in particular ways.
[00:33:25] Let us move on into Genesis six, verse 17 and talk about the destroying all flesh language. This is not the means of judgment, but the scope of it. So we have the flood itself and it moves on into the living world that it's going to engulf. Again, we have this destruction language that parallels back into before the Ark instructions.
[00:33:51] And the term "all flesh" is a repeated flood expression that reoccurs through the flood narrative in several chapters. Of course, we have it here in chapter six a number of times. We also have it showing up two or three times in chapter seven. And we see it in Genesis eight, verse 17, I believe. So it's part of the narrative's repeated vocabulary. And I think it is pointing to the fact that not only Noah and his family are being saved on the Ark, but we also have the animals that are included as well.
[00:34:25] So again, the language of judgment is broader than just humans. But if you look at the structure of Noah saving the animals as well, you do kind of have a hierarchy. You have Noah and his wife, and his sons, and his son's wives, and then we have the animals. So there's kind of this hierarchy of stewardship we might say.
[00:34:51] Now note that it's not telling Noah to only bring the animals that are not violent. That's kind of interesting. And I mean, maybe we could kind of presume that the animals that come to the Ark are all going to be the pure in their generation animals and all of that. But that's really kind of pressing the point if you ask me.
[00:35:13] And then we have the phrase that is in relation to this, all flesh is immediately qualified by that which has the breath or spirit of life. So, you know, we're not talking about fish here for one thing. That's something that people like to point out. And of course, you know, the fish aren't gonna be destroyed by the flood anyway.
[00:35:34] We've got a focus here on land animals and humans. And most people who are talking about the flood are going to just think that this is only restricting things to air- breathing land creatures and that's kind of the point. And you know, maybe that is the case. Obviously, like I said, fish aren't going to be destroyed in the flood except that of course we do understand that a lot of fish would be destroyed if the flood is going to be mixing the waters. Like not everything lives in salt water and everything lives in fresh water. When you have a violent upheaval and floods, even fish are gonna die.
[00:36:14] There is also a possibility that this is highlighting creatures on earth versus spiritual beings, which had their part to play in the narrative as well. There is a suggestion that fish are related in the ancient mind to spiritual beings. So just a point I'll throw out there, because I don't have time to really get into that in particular here in this episode, but really an interesting option.
[00:36:41] One of the things that I do think is most interesting is that it's not pointing out a targeted strike against violent animals or against animals who eat other animals or something along those lines.
[00:36:55] So the flood isn't really necessarily working as a targeted strike that only hits the wicked. And that's uncomfortable to us. Like why is God destroying innocent creatures in a flood just because some of them are violent? Now of course we have all flesh and all things being corrupted. And if you wanna take that literally and say that everything is so wicked that it just has to be destroyed and that's all there is to it, well, that is one way to read it. But again, we don't have Noah just taking in nonviolent animals here. That's not the description we have.
[00:37:36] The description we have is a totalizing judgment on the entire living world under heaven, and that kind of includes Noah and his family because they are within the flood, but they're preserved. Now, why does that matter?
[00:37:51] Well, that matters to my overall point about God's wrath and judgment because God's wrath and his judgment does fall upon the many, and it's not always targeted. You get over into the exile and the prophets. It is not just the wicked Israelites who go into exile. Some of them are innocent and they are called to go into the exile and live faithful lives nonetheless. They are not to rise up against their captors and free themselves or something like that. They are called to be faithful.
[00:38:27] And there is a good bit of language in the prophets where the faithful will be vindicated even though they are part of this judgment. Jeremiah 49 verse 12 is a really strong place to see this. It says, quote, " For thus, says the Lord. If those who did not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, will you go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, but you must drink." End quote.
[00:38:56] So the overall point of this verse is still people who do deserve the judgment, but it's pointing out that people who don't deserve to drink the cup of wrath still drink it. But if you are faithful, then you will be vindicated. That is why we have so much language of the remnant in the prophets. And you know, that's how we have Jesus who participates in that cup. But he is vindicated because he is the ultimate innocent one.
[00:39:27] Now a really interesting point about this part of verse 17 about the breath or the spirit of life is, which one of those are you choosing? We're talking about breath of life, where it's, you know, an animal that breathes air, or is this referencing spirit? Now, some of this might relate to your broader theology of humans and all of that, but it's simply the fact that the Old Testament brings out the idea that humans and animals have a lot to connect themselves with regards to soul, nefesh, and spirit.
[00:40:05] So while it might be a little bit more comfortable for us to translate this as a breath of life, because it just gets a little bit more biology in there, the word is ruach, which is either breath or spirit. And it's certainly a wider and more flexible word than our flat English words. And so again, I, I get how the natural immediate translation is to go with because we're talking about living creatures that are subject to death in a water flood, but it directly connects with creation language that we have in Genesis two. And it connects with how animals are said to have nefesh, and so it gets really fuzzy.
[00:40:47] So I, I do think that this phrase has that creation resonance and that it evokes God-given life. I think it reminds the reader that the flood threatens life that comes from God, because this is exactly the same expression that we have in Genesis two. And so to say that it means something different here than it does in Genesis two, that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me personally.
[00:41:13] Now, does this mean about some sort of indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Well, that goes a little bit too far in the other direction. I do think that what we should be pulling up into this concept with this whole idea of judgment, and as it goes into verse 18, we're gonna be talking about covenant as well, remember. I think that bringing in the Holy Spirit into the equation on some level is really warranted here, and that we're kind of reducing that context if we only go with the biology of breath.
[00:41:46] And I mean, it could be the case that the animating breath and the animating spirit, it's not an either or because it marks the beings who are living. It marks the idea of living life as opposed to plants which do not have the breath.
[00:42:03] But again, as we're reading Genesis six, in light of it establishing what we have in the rest of Scripture, and we're seeing this as a canonical opening toward later ideas that do connect water and life and spirit, I think that is a more forward- looking reading. We're not taking something and reading it back into it, but again, we're looking forward into the revelation we get later.
[00:42:31] And so the clustering of water and life- breath and covenant and preservation does create conceptual patterns that later Scripture develops. So when you start talking about things like baptism and purification and spirit and new creation and covenant in the New Testament, this phrase is part of that conceptual cluster.
[00:42:55] Now again, we're not directly teaching Christian water and spirit baptism here, but it's laying that conceptual groundwork, and I think that's really important for us to notice because of how the New Testament goes on to develop the ideas of covenant and how that relates to our baptism and being in Christ.
[00:43:16] And it matters structurally in Genesis six verse 17 because again, God is bringing the flood of waters to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven. And so the sentence is narrowing and it's intensifying as it goes. All flesh is broad. In which is the breath of life, it makes it a little bit more concrete and connected to the creation account and the de creation and new creation that's happening here.
[00:43:50] And you go into Genesis chapter seven, and we get this repeated. The phrase is used of everyone entering the Ark and of those dying on the dry land. As we see the undertones of de creation here in the flood, we don't have that word just like we don't have the word wrath, but the pattern is really impossible to miss.
[00:44:11] The flood is presented not just as a punishment, but as an undoing of the ordered creation. And there's preservation within that. So it is not just that the flood is destructive, but it is constructive in creating a new world afterwards.
[00:44:29] All right, now let's go into verse 18 and see how this connects to what I've been talking about. The decisive piece here, " But I will establish my covenant with you" is pretty crucial. First of all, we have the opening with, "but," so it's contrasting something. God is bringing the deluge to destroy all flesh under heaven with everything on the earth perishing. But I will establish my covenant with you.
[00:44:59] So the covenant is contrasted with the destruction and the death and perishing. The covenant is what makes the difference between the destruction and the preserved future. So that is what matters here. It's a direct answer to the universality of verse 17. This is the first use of the word covenant, and it's not just a theological idea.
[00:45:25] If all flesh is going to perish, then how does life continue? If we have death, then how do we have life? So covenant is tied to survival. It's tied to Noah and his household and entry into the Ark and life carried through judgment. While the animals are not said to be in covenant with God, they are also preserved because of their relationship to Noah.
[00:45:51] So covenant is God's answer to the impending world's judgment and being in covenant is how you are saved through that judgment. Do you see how this is going to apply to our idea of wrath as being a thing that people are gonna go through, but you are saved through it if you are in faithful covenant with God?
[00:46:13] But the important thing here is participating in that covenant and being in the thing or the person that is going to save you. Covenant is functioning in relation to preservation through the judgment. And if we don't have the judgment, we don't have the covenant. It is inseparable from the embodied rescue of Noah and his family.
[00:46:39] So the covenant statement is answering the narrative problem that is created by verse 17. So we might say, well, Noah already knows how he's going to survive the flood, but the real answer is covenant. The real answer is not just, Hey, if you build a boat, you'll be able to get through this because you know, other people could have watched Noah build a boat and say, well, huh, let's also build a boat and maybe we will also be saved.
[00:47:07] But the point is not that you're being saved because you built a boat, you managed to ride out the storm, but you're being saved because you are in covenant with God.
[00:47:18] Now the other interesting point here is that God will establish my covenant. Now there's a couple of different options here, and the first thing to notice though is that this is establish and not cut a covenant. So there's some interesting language there and scholars are gonna debate whether this term establish the covenant is really establishing and making it, or whether it's confirming it.
[00:47:45] And that's a really interesting idea because again, if you listen to all of my conversations about covenant in the past, covenant does not just start at the formalization of the thing, but it begins before that. Covenant is part of the matrix of situation where the people call upon God to be saved and God is responding to that call and then saving them. The covenant is not just ratifying the paper or signing your name on the tablet. The covenant really begins far earlier than that with a relationship, but it gets formalized later.
[00:48:24] And this is also why marriage in the ancient world is a good example of a covenant because first you have the betrothal where it's basically already a done deal. A betrothal, you were already married, but it wasn't consummated yet. If you were betrothed, it wasn't like you could just break it off for any reason whatsoever. So the betrothal happens, but the marriage happens later. And so that's kind of how we might see this idea. The covenant is already made in general, but it's going to be ratified in particular ways at particular point of time.
[00:49:03] So that's why we have this conversation here on whether this is establishing the covenant right this minute. God is making that covenant right there, or whether he is confirming something that he's already promised earlier. And as you might guess, I'm kind of leaning towards the confirming idea myself.
[00:49:23] However you time it, God is pledging the future for Noah in the midst of universal judgment. And the covenant statement, again, is not detachable from the entry of the Ark. It's not abstract, it's not unconditional, it is concrete. And Noah's gonna have to do something in order to be part of that covenant.
[00:49:45] And I've already mentioned the kind of hierarchy that we have here. The covenant is with Noah. His wife, his sons, and his son's wives. And I do think that includes all of them. But I think the hierarchy also matters. It includes the whole household and includes the named persons.
[00:50:06] But the future of the world is now funneled through that one family. And that is what we see over and over with these covenant language in the Old Testament. And it's very interesting that it's not just Noah and his household, but it names Noah and his wife and his sons and his son's wives. I mean, it doesn't name them. And that's why I think you can see that hierarchy, because the covenant plays out in relation to Noah. Noah's the only one who's specifically named, but we do have the specifics of actually saying, Hey, even your son's wives are included here.
[00:50:44] And again, his son's wives are not gonna be of the same genetic material. So, so much for the idea of perfect DNA here.
[00:50:54] And while the animals, again, are not included in the covenant, they're brought into the situation because of their relationship to Noah and Noah's faithfulness in preserving them, bringing them into the Ark. And the household is also important because you're not gonna get any kind of continuation of the line without a household, without families actually perpetuating the people after the flood.
[00:51:19] Now, immediately they are told to come into the Ark, but this phrase actually happens several times in the narrative. So again, it's not just a snapshot of, okay, now everybody onto the Ark. But there is an intentionality here of the connection of coming into the Ark with being in covenant. Like the covenant promise is embodied in the Ark entry, and they belong together and they're gonna be preserved together.
[00:51:48] And all of that is because of God's faithfulness, even though the family has to do something like make the boat and go into the ark. We have verse 13, we have verse 17. We have the Ark sandwiched in between those things as well as the means of destruction. And after all of that, that is when we get covenant language.
[00:52:11] I'll just call you back into my previous episode about the building of the Ark and how it is more a divinely ordered zone of preserved life than we're really seeing it as a seaworthy vessel.
[00:52:23] Alright, I'm gonna start wrapping this up here, but I want to point out a few canonical trajectories. Now, again, we don't wanna get too overwhelming here. We're not pretending that Genesis is saying everything that later Scripture is gonna say. It's laying down a pattern and that the later texts and the later authors are gonna gather up that pattern. So we're not gonna bring baptism strictly back into here, but we're gonna see why the flood becomes a pattern for baptism.
[00:52:54] Genesis six has already put several things on the table in relation to one another. Water as judgment. Preserved life through judgment. Named covenantal continuity. And life language bound up with the creatures who survive or perish. So this is exactly why later Scripture can build upon this image. Of course, the strongest part we have here is in first Peter, chapter three, where Peter says, Noah and the flood correspond to baptism. And that means the Noah pattern is not just our invention today, but it's a canonical trajectory that is recognized in the New Testament itself.
[00:53:36] We get really caught up in the idea of one Peter three, where just like Noah was saved through water, baptism, which now corresponds to this, is gonna save you. And so we're like, wait, is baptism something that is essential to salvation? Is it part of our salvation in a way that if we aren't baptized, we can't be saved?
[00:53:57] If nothing else, what we can see is the judgment and preservation connections here. Because Noah is not the only water passage that is used like this in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, Israel was baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, which means the sea crossing is also gathered into baptismal language. In Romans six, we see that baptism is described as passage into Christ's death and into new life.
[00:54:26] So put together, the New Testament gives us a broader pattern. God's people are passing through the waters, judgment or death is involved, and a new form of life and identity emerges on the other side. That pattern is clear and really distinctively brought out in the New Testament.
[00:54:45] One interesting kind of conversation here is that a lot of people want to divorce the idea of water baptism and spirit baptism in many of these passages in the New Testament. And say, well, when it's talking about salvation and we're bringing salvation language into it, the only baptism that actually matters is Spirit baptism and not water baptism.
[00:55:10] But I have to ask if we're gonna separate those two things out as being diametrically opposed to one another in a sense where one of them is salvific and the other is not, then how are we even getting to the idea of Spirit baptism without the idea of water baptism?
[00:55:29] It just seems a little bit overly apologetic and trying to get us away from the idea that our doing something physical like a water baptism can play a part in our salvation. And to be clear, I am not saying that you need a particular type of baptism for God to save you. But I'm also not saying that water baptism doesn't matter because here's the thing, if the pattern reaches this far back into Scripture and is recapitulated in many instances over and over as a pattern of God's judgment and salvation through that, then why would we not want to participate in that, first of all?
[00:56:13] Why would we want to reject that in our own Christian practice and say, well, Christian baptism by water doesn't really matter 'cause it's only a symbol after all. If it is in fact part of this recapitulated pattern, then why reject that?
[00:56:32] Again, this is why I bring out ideas like the concept of magic. Magic is kind of a type of technology. You put something in, you get something out. You get baptized, then you get saved. That would be a magical view of this, but nothing in Scripture is magical.
[00:56:57] Nothing in Scripture happens because, well, I did the right thing and therefore I'm getting the right results. That is not how the sacrificial system is said to work. That is not how anything is said to work at all. It is not a magical thing. You are not doing something to force God's hand. You are not doing something to merit salvation. You are doing something because you are participating in the relational activity of God with man. And this is shown time and time again in various ways. And your baptism is part of a recapitulation of those same instances.
[00:57:41] Now, I'm not saying that Scripture does not recapitulate things in non-obvious and non-literal ways because it does do that as well. But baptism as being part of this salvation language... honestly, I think a lot of the problem is that we have an overemphasis on soteriology today. Like everything has to be about salvation and about how you achieve salvation.
[00:58:09] But if you look at the narrative text and you look at the story of salvation history at large, salvation is definitely a broad, overarching meta narrative here. But it's not this technical thing that has mechanisms and restrictions in a way that we kind of put it like. Oh, we have to do this, and you have to do that. You have to say the Jesus Prayer, at least, right? Or you have to say the Jesus prayer and be baptized. Or you have to say the Jesus prayer, you have to be baptized, you have to take communion, and you have to actually go to church every week. We're kind of putting all of these ideas of participation in the life of God into a legalistic bucket, honestly. And it's kind of skirting along the lines of magic if you ask me when you do that.
[00:59:03] And I think that's kind of why a lot of evangelicals will pull away from the idea of certain things being necessary because they don't wanna treat it like magic. And fair enough, that's the right thing to do. But they also kind of can't get away from the idea that it's all mechanistic and there's gotta be ways that this actually works together and things like that.
[00:59:29] Well, if you just entirely, and I mean entirely, throw out the idea of mechanism and replace it with the idea of relationship and covenant, I think that gets us a little bit closer. And I think that's why all of this stuff matters. Because seeing the idea of God's wrath actually play out in Scripture and in history as an actual reality and as a thing that God intentionally does, but that is also connected to our playing out the ends of our desire and that those don't have to be an either or thing, then it's not really about mechanism, and it becomes more about reality and relationship to God and our heart allegiance to him.
[01:00:18] But being allegiant to God doesn't mean we do nothing. It means we look at the story of what God is doing and we ask, how is God interacting with man and what is our response to that? And we should want our response to mirror and be a part of the people of God through time. And that plays out in different times in different contexts, but it also is very similar and has the same meaning in each one.
[01:00:50] So we have salvation in the flood through judgment via covenant obedience. We have the same thing going on in the Exodus. We have the same thing going on when the people enter the land. When they're in covenantal alignment with God and they trust him and they trust what God is doing, then the outcome is life and flourishing in the land or the promised situation that is going on in their context.
[01:01:20] So even when the people go into exile, if they're not in the land anymore, they can still choose to live out their lives in faithful allegiance to God within that covenant situation. And Jesus comes along and once again kind of shatters people's perceptions and says, guess what? You don't have to be a temple going Jew in order to be in covenant, in order to attain life with God. That is attained through being in Christ. And it does look different in the early church than it had in any time before.
[01:01:57] That doesn't negate the times before as the people were still participating in the life of God in their own context. So you know, we often get this question of how are people saved before Jesus? Because to us the way we are saved is to be in Jesus. And rightly so, that is the way we are saved. But prior to that, people were saved in similar ways, but in a different context. And those contexts matter. They teach us things. They lay the foundation for what we have now and what we'll have in the future.
[01:02:38] I was just really fascinated this week to see that diving into two simple verses that even at first glance don't really seem all that connected together, how well they actually expand the story of Scripture and help to lay out this pattern that we see in Scripture and in history itself.
[01:02:59] And look, I know that it can look sometimes like we're just kind of pulling out details we want and making up something we want to see here. But I think that's part of the importance of the patterns and the recapitulation that we see in different contexts. Because again, it's not magic. It's not about everybody has to do this same exact thing. The question is, in your context, where you are right now, how does this play out and how does it play out in the pattern that has been established since the beginning of Genesis?
[01:03:39] Studying the Bible in context actually is, it's fascinating how well that does move into church history and church interpretation and things like that. And that is why Scripture functions as a rule of faith for us. We don't need to reject tradition, we don't need to reject historical theology, but we ask how that fits into the pattern that Scripture lays out.
[01:04:05] And it's helpful that Scripture lays it out in many different ways, in different contexts. Because again, it's not about magic. It's not about mechanism. It's not about a particular technology where you put something in and you get something out. It's about relationship with God. And that's why I really, a lot of times focus on this idea of covenant.
[01:04:28] And I almost don't wanna use the word covenant as much as I do because it does end up in that kind of Christianese idea where we forget what it means. And when I explain that it means being in relationship to God, then you know, sometimes we get the opposite problem of saying, oh, well then it's just this really fuzzy thing where all you have to do is pray to God and you are good.
[01:04:51] But that's not really the full picture either because it's a relationship with God and with his people, and how that's played out in history. And so it's both simple and also very multilayered and difficult to wrap your mind around. At least for me, it has been. It's been very englightening and opening to me to understand things in context.
[01:05:14] And I feel like there's all these layers, and the layers are, again, very similar. They're kind of doing the same thing, but they're also very particular, and each one teaches us something different. If we took out any of these pieces of Scripture, we wouldn't necessarily be missing the arc of the story, but we'd be missing essential teaching elements that lead to what we have in Christ and what we have in the church, and what we can look forward to in the eschaton.
[01:05:44] Now what would be really interesting is to go into other flood myths and ask how, if at all, do they interact with the idea of biblical covenant. Now, I don't have time to do all of that today, and I will say, especially in Mesopotamia, there are flood traditions that have post flood divine promises. We have gods that make oaths. We have blessings. We have new arrangements. But as far as I know, Genesis is unique and unusual in making a formal, explicit covenant with a sign, just like we see in the flood story.
[01:06:23] Just because there's a divine oath or a promise doesn't make it a covenant. I'm just not seeing strong evidence for formal covenant with the deity flood endings, that parallel Genesis. The Greek story is a pretty good example. Now, the Greek story probably actually arises from the Mesopotamian stories itself. But we have Zeus sending a flood. We have Ducalion and Pyrra who survive. And after the flood, they offer a sacrifice. They consult divine guidance about repopulating humanity. So there's a lot of parallels here. But it's really not framed as a covenant or an oath of non destruction like we have in Genesis.
[01:07:06] And we have a few other parallels that kind of go along in other global flood stories. But really, I have not found a real covenant situation outside of Genesis, and that's really fascinating, but should not be surprising because covenant in the Old Testament is very seated within its context, which is why we have to understand it because if we understand covenant outside of that. Or even in later church tradition, which has kind of moved away from the idea of covenant into some other things that are a little bit more like liturgy and worship and things like that, that are connected to Covenant, but they're not exactly the same. They don't teach us the same thing. So if we're not understanding covenant in this ancient Near Eastern context, we're just missing out on a lot of details we could be understanding here.
[01:08:00] So at any rate, I'm gonna end here for this episode. I hope you enjoyed this exegesis of the text. I'm sure some of you at least have some questions now on what am I talking about with regards to how we can understand wrath and judgment and things like that.
[01:08:20] Honestly, I don't think you have to have scholarly resources in order to understand this. I think that you can go into the text yourself. And you can do your own word studies. Not just a word study, but a frame semantics word study where you're pulling up related concepts. And going to words like wrath, judgment, justice, and all of these kinds of ideas, and see what the text itself is telling you.
[01:08:51] Again, not just a word study. You have to do conceptual studies that bring full data to the idea. Because again, when we think of the idea of wrath, we have a whole framework that comes along with that. So you have to kind of try to ditch your framework by doing this work of pulling up these words and doing something like a frame semantic study. So that you can see the concept behind it, and you can see the matrix of ideas that exist in the ancient mind that are not quite the same as the way we're thinking of it. Because if we're bringing our ideas of law code and justice as only about retribution, then we are going to miss the plot. We just are.
[01:09:38] When you bring in, however, the concept of justice as making things right and justice as punishing the oppressor who is unrepentant and vindicating the one being oppressed, then suddenly your picture of wrath becomes vastly different. Because wrath is associated with that judgment. And then when you bring that into the work of Jesus and you ask, how did Jesus live out this situation.
[01:10:10] And actually I want to make a little bit of a correction in a previous episode I did when I was talking about the cups of Gethsemane. And I kind of went the direction, or I kind of explained a direction where Jesus really didn't experience the Father's wrath. And I actually would correct that and say that I think he did.
[01:10:31] But at any rate, I will leave all of that for you to ponder and consider. And appreciate you guys for listening to the episode. As always, I appreciate everyone who helps to support me either by sharing the episodes or supporting me on Patreon or PayPal or in my biblical theology community. I really deeply appreciate all of that. Thank you all for everything that you do for the Body of Christ, and I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.
