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the two parties, and that from sensual motives. We read that "the sons of God saw the
daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they
chose."^13 At that time the earth must have been in a great measure peopled,^14 and its
state is thus described, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually."
This means more than the total corruption of our nature, as we should now describe
it, and refers to the universal prevalence of open, daring sin, and rebellion against
God, brought about when the separation between the Sethites and the Cainites ceased.
With the exception of Noah there was none in that generation "to call upon the name
of Jehovah." "In those days there were 'giants' (in Hebrew: Nephilim) in the earth...
. the same were the mighty men (or heroes) which were of old, the men of renown."
Properly speaking, these Nephilim were "men of violence," or tyrants, as Luther
renders it, the root of the word meaning, "to fall upon."^15 In short, it was a period of
violence, of might against right, of rapine, lust, and universal unbelief of the promise.
With the virtual extinction of the Sethite faith and worship no further hope remained,
and that generation required to be wholly swept away in judgment.
And yet, though not only the justice of God, but even His faithfulness to His gracious
promise demanded this, the tender loving-kindness of Jehovah appears in such
expressions as these: "It repented Jehovah that He had made man on the earth, and it
grieved Him" - literally, "it pained into His heart." The one term, of course, explains
the other. When we read that God repented, it is only our human way of speaking,
for, as Calvin says, "nothing happens by accident, or that has not been foreseen." It
brings before our minds "the sorrow of Divine love over the sins of man," in the
words of Calvin, "that when the terrible sins of man offend God, it is not otherwise
than as if His heart had been wounded by extreme sorrow." The consequence was,
that God declared He would destroy "from the face of the earth both man and beast,"
- the latter, owing to the peculiar connection in which creation was placed with man,
as being its lord, which involved it in the ruin and punishment that befell man. But
long before that sentence was actually executed, God had declared, "My Spirit shall
not always strive with man," - or rather, "dwell with man," "bear rule," or "preside,"
among them, - "for that he also is flesh," or, as some have rendered it, "since in his
erring," or aberration, he has become wholly "carnal, sensual, devilish;" "yet his days
shall be an hundred and twenty years;" that is, a further space of a hundred and
twenty years would in mercy be granted them, before the final judgments should
burst. It was during these hundred and twenty years that "the long-suffering of God
waited," "while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved
by water."
(^)