Translation commentary on Genesis 6:5

Verse 5 begins with the common Hebrew connective, which is not represented in Revised Standard Version. However, others understand it as “When” (Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, New English Bible, Moffatt), and so verse 5 may be translated in some languages as a subordinate clause: “When the LORD saw….”

The LORD saw is the first of three events in which God reacts to wickedness. In the creation story God saw the things he created and they were good. By contrast God now sees the state of his creation (humanity), and he is sorry.

That the wickedness of man was great is the first of two clauses that represent what God saw. This is the first occurrence of the word translated wickedness in Genesis. Its verb form means “to be bad,” and the noun form suggests a state rather than an action. Therefore the basic condition of humanity is said to be corrupt, bad, evil. Was great refers to the degree or extent of the corrupt condition of people, and so Good News Translation translates “how wicked….” In the earth or “on earth” serves to make the reference to wickedness a universal condition for human beings, who are said in verse 1 to have spread all over the world.

In some languages a verb for seeing is not used with abstract nouns such as wickedness. Accordingly it may be necessary to say, for example, “The LORD knew, became aware, understood, found out….” Another good possibility is to say “The LORD saw the people, that they were very bad” or “The LORD saw the conduct of the people, that it was very bad.”

The second half of this verse parallels the first half by saying something very similar but in a fuller expression, thus making the whole verse more emphatic. To reinforce the close relationship between the two halves, the verb saw in the first half serves also for the second half.

Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, an awkward rendering in English, matches wickedness of man in the first line. Imagination translates a word meaning purpose or intention.

In thoughts of his heart the heart is the organ of the body associated in Hebrew with willing, deciding, and so is similar to “mind” in English. We are dealing here with two elements, one of which has to do with thinking, planning, or scheming, and the other with the purposes behind such thoughts or plans. New English Bible renders these two elements “thoughts and inclinations,” New International Version has “inclinations of the thoughts,” and New Jerusalem Bible “his heart contrived nothing but wicked schemes.”

In some languages the equivalent of heart in this context is “innermost,” “stomach,” “liver,” or “bowels”; and the whole expression is similar to “They filled their stomachs with evil plans” or “Their livers boiled over with wicked schemes.” In many languages both imagination and thoughts of his heart are expressed by a term of broader meaning that is literally “thoughts”; and this single term, qualified by “every” or “all,” will be sufficient in translation.

Was only evil continually says that people’s thoughts and schemes had evil purposes, not just occasionally but all the time. Continually translates the Hebrew for “all the day,” an idiom used frequently in poetic contexts and meaning “all the time, never stopping.”

We may translate the second half of the verse, for example, as “and that all their thoughts were always evil” or “and that the things they thought and the schemes they made in their hearts were always evil.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

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