Genesis6chapter 6

This chapter is cut in two by the annual cycle, and the cut falls between the eighth verse and the ninth (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The first eight verses close the opening portion of the year, and the ninth verse opens the portion that carries the flood. A congregation therefore hears the sons of God, the hundred and twenty years and the favour shown to Noah on one Sabbath, and the building of the ark on the next. The card above carries both portions and the prophetic reading set beside each.

Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, and Radak from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

The sons of God of the second verse are the contested point of the chapter, and Rashi gives two readings of the phrase. The first is that they were the sons of princes and rulers (Rashi on Genesis 6:2:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 26:15). The second is that they were princely angels sent from God, who mixed with the daughters of men. He holds that the word for God carries authority wherever it stands in Scripture, and he reads the passage by that rule. A Christian reader meets both of those readings in his own commentaries, and this site names each with its holder.

Rashi reads the hundred and twenty years as the term of warning, and he reads the building of the ark as the warning itself. God could have saved Noah in many ways. The work was given to him so that his generation would watch it for a hundred and twenty years and ask what it was for (Rashi on Genesis 6:14:1, citing Sanhedrin 108b). Radak reads the same term as a lesson in patience. God knew they would not repent, and gave the years so that a man would learn to be slow with his neighbour (Radak on Genesis 6:5:1).

Rashi reads the corruption of the earth as lewdness and idolatry together (Rashi on Genesis 6:11:1, citing Sanhedrin 57a). He takes the corrupting of all flesh at its widest, holding that cattle, beasts and birds bred outside their own kind (Rashi on Genesis 6:12:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 28:8). Radak asks why the three sons are named again here, and answers that they were raised to walk in the way of their father, and were saved for their own righteousness (Radak on Genesis 6:10:1).

Ibn Ezra carries four comments on this chapter that the corpus holds by reference alone, and one comment of Rashi is held the same way. They are Ibn Ezra on Genesis 6:1:1, 6:1:2, 6:8:1 and 6:15:1, and Rashi on Genesis 6:19:1.

Rashi carries four sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The giants of the fourth verse are named from their fall. Rashi reports that they were called fallen ones because they fell and brought down the world with them (Rashi on Genesis 6:4:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 26:7). On the same passage he reports the saying of Rabbi Judan, that a bride was taken by one of the lords before her own wedding (Rashi on Genesis 6:2:2, citing Genesis Rabbah 26:5).

On the grief of God in the sixth verse Rashi reports a reading that turns the word toward comfort. God was consoled that man had been made on earth, since a heavenly being of the same mind would have drawn the host of heaven into rebellion (Rashi on Genesis 6:6:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 27:4). On the seventeenth verse he reports God agreeing with the angels who had questioned the making of man in the first place (Rashi on Genesis 6:17:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 31:12).

The light of the ark in the sixteenth verse is the insight most often repeated from this chapter. Rashi reports two opinions, that it was a window, and that it was "a precious stone that gave light to them" (Rashi on Genesis 6:16:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 31:11). He reports that the animals came to the ark of their own accord, and that Noah took in those the ark allowed to pass (Rashi on Genesis 6:20:1, citing Sanhedrin 108b). Radak adds that the predators among them ate no flesh while they were aboard (Radak on Genesis 6:21:1).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty three under Midrash and seven under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. Bereshit Rabbah reads the fourth verse at 26:7, the sixth at 27:4 and 32:7, and the seventh at 28:2 and 28:3. It reads the eighth verse at 29:1, the tenth at 26:2, the eleventh at 32:1, the thirteenth at 31:1 and 31:2, and the fourteenth at 31:8. It reads the fifteenth at 31:10 and 31:11, the eighteenth at 34:7, the twenty first at 30:8 and the twenty second at 32:5.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the fifth verse at 1:1 and 1:3, the ninth at 4:2 and 7:2, the tenth at 10:2, the twelfth at 5:3 and the fourteenth at 1:2. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the first verse at 10:5, the second at 20:2 and 9:24, the eighth at 5:3 and the seventeenth at 11:7. Bereshit Rabbati reads the eleventh verse at Parashat Noah 7, Midrash Lekach Tov reads the twentieth at Genesis 6:20:1, and Midrash Tanchuma is cited at Noach 11:3.