Genesis 6:5-6

[papaspicy]

These verses have always bugged me:

Genesis 6:5-6: When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.

This comes from right before we are introduced to Noah and God has just expressed his desire for flooding the earth. What really bothers me is that God regrets. It just seems so out of character. Does’t regret mean that he didn’t see what was going to happen, that he is saddened by how things turned out, and that he wished he had never created man? Any comments?

 

[TOME]

I guess the best I could say is here in this passage we find a prime example of anthropromorphism (giving human qualities and characteristics to non-humans). The Holy Scriptures, while they are God’s revelation, is written by humans and here we find the author(s) attempting to express an understanding of God the only way he can by using human expressions and terms.

 

[jpy15026]

Douay Rheims:
6:5. And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times,

6:6. It *repented him that he had made man on the earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart,

*It repented him, etc. . .God, who is unchangeable, is not capable of repentance, grief, or any other passion. But these expressions are used to declare the enormity of the sins of men, which was so provoking as to determine their Creator to destroy these his creatures, whom before he had so much favoured.

 

[Genesis315]

It is very difficult for human beigns to understand the infinite God, so He often in His revelation uses human terms we can understand. I also echo the Bishop Challoner’s footnote in the DR cited above

 

[CRW]

These verses have always bugged me:

Genesis 6:5-6: When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.

This comes from right before we are introduced to Noah and God has just expressed his desire for flooding the earth. What really bothers me is that God regrets. It just seems so out of character. Does’t regret mean that he didn’t see what was going to happen, that he is saddened by how things turned out, and that he wished he had never created man? Any comments?

Our God, our Father’s love was so intense for man that his pain was similar to the displeasure we experience as parents when our children rebellious and disobedience inflicts the same pain on us. As parents we love our children without question, but how many parents have stated in times of troubles that they wish their children had not be born. God the Father was expressing his just and holy displeasure against sin and sinners, not his creation of man and his love of man.

 

[Valke2]

These verses have always bugged me:

Genesis 6:5-6: When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.

This comes from right before we are introduced to Noah and God has just expressed his desire for flooding the earth. What really bothers me is that God regrets. It just seems so out of character. Does’t regret mean that he didn’t see what was going to happen, that he is saddened by how things turned out, and that he wished he had never created man? Any comments?

Paradox. The omniprescent and free will. When you are dealing with the Endlessness that is God, you have to expect to run into a little paradox every now and then. After all we are finite beings and our scripture is attempting to comprehend something that cannot truly be comprehended.