to see · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
wickedness
רָעַ֥תra.'At
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · noun, common feminine singular construct
man
הָאָדָ֖םha.'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
great
רַבָּ֛הra.Bah
H7227
abundant (in quantity · adjective, feminine singular absolute
earth
בָּאָ֑רֶץba.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
imagination
יֵ֙צֶר֙ye.tzer
H3336
a form · noun, common masculine singular construct
thoughts
מַחְשְׁבֹ֣תmach.she.Vot
H4284
a contrivance · noun, common feminine plural construct
heart
לִבּ֔וֹli.Bo
H3820
the heart · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
only
רַ֥קrak
H7535
properly · adverb
evil
רַ֖עra'
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
continually
הַיּֽוֹםhai.Yom
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
Romans 1:28-31 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not con…
Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
Jeremiah 4:14 O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Ephesians 2:1-3 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Ecclesiastes 9:3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is fu…
Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imag…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 6:4-5
We have here a further account of the corruption of the old world. When the sons of God had matched with the daughters of men, though it was very displeasing to God, yet he did not immediately cut them off, but waited to see what would be the issue of these marriages, and which side the children would take after; and it proved (as usually it does), that they took after the worst side. Here is,
I. The temptation they were under to oppress and do violence. They were giants, and they were men of renown; they became too hard for all about them, and carried all before them, 1. With their great bulk, as the sons of Anak, Num 13:33. 2. With their great name, as the king of Assyria, Isa 37:11. These…
God saw it . . . repented . . . grieved--God cannot change (Mal 3:6; Jam 1:17); but, by language suited to our nature and experience, He is described as about to alter His visible procedure towards mankind--from being merciful and long-suffering, He was about to show Himself a God of judgment; and, as that impious race had filled up the measure of their iniquities, He was about to introduce a terrible display of His justice (Ecc 8:11).
Adam Clarke on Genesis 6:5
The wickedness of man was great - What an awful character does God give of the inhabitants of the antediluvian world! 1. They were flesh, (Gen 6:3), wholly sensual, the desires of the mind overwhelmed and lost in the desires of the flesh, their souls no longer discerning their high destiny, but ever minding earthly things, so that they were sensualized, brutalized, and become flesh; incarnated so as not to retain God in their knowledge, and they lived, seeking their portion in this life. 2. They were in a state of wickedness. All was corrupt within, and all unrighteous without; neither the science nor practice of religion existed. Piety was gone, and every form of sound words had disappeared…
After Moses spoke about the mighty men who were born into the tribe of Cain, whose women, even though beautiful, were nevertheless smaller than the sons of Seth, he then said, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was always evil," for in the years given to them for repentance they had increased their sins. "The wickedness of mankind was great in the earth," that is, evil extended and spread throughout both those tribes. "The inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was always evil," for their sins were not committed only occasionally, but their sins were incessant. Night and day they would not desist from their wicked thoughts.
But God, seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that every thought of their hearts was only evil continually, regretted that He had made man on the earth. He is said to have regretted, not because God, like man, truly regrets any of His actions, whose judgment on all things is as fixed as His foreknowledge is certain; but Scripture uses such words in order to insinuate itself to us more familiarly, we who are accustomed to change anything we undertake and transfer it into something else only by repenting: even though divine providence, for those perceiving with a serene mind, appears to administer all things with the most certain order. Nevertheless, Scripture fits and adapts itself to the humble understanding of the slower minds, of whom the far greater number is, so that it says as if by the repentance of God, those things taken away which begin to exist, and do not continue as long as they were hoped to last: similar to which is what follows.
And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth. And they said one to another: 'The earth made without inhabitant cries the voice of their cryingst up to the gates of heaven. And now to you, the holy ones of heaven, the souls of men make their suit, saying, "Bring our cause before the Most High."' And they said to the Lord of the ages: 'Lord of lords, God of gods, King of kings, and God of the ages, the throne of Thy glory (standeth) unto all the generations of the ages, and Thy name holy and glorious and blessed unto all the ages! Thou hast made all things, and power over all things hast Thou: and all things are naked and open in Thy sight, and Thou seest all things, and nothing can hide itself from Thee. Thou seest what Azazel hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn: And Semjaza, to whom Thou hast given authority to bear rule over his associates. And they have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins. And the women have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness. And now, behold, the souls of those who have died are crying and making their suit to the gates of heaven, and their lamentations have ascended: and cannot cease because of the lawless deeds which are wrought on the earth. And Thou knowest all things before they come to pass, and Thou seest these things and Thou dost suffer them, and Thou dost not say to us what we are to do to them in regard to these.' Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spake, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: 'Go to Noah and tell him in my name "Hide thyself!" and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world.' And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place…
Dictionary and topics
Noah — Rest, (Heb. Noah) the grandson of Methuselah (Gen. 5:25-29), who was for two hundred and fifty years contemporary with Adam, and the son of Lamech, who was about fifty years old at the time of Adam’s…
Sin — Is “any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God” (1 John 3:4; Rom. 4:15), in the inward state and habit of the soul, as well as in the outward conduct of the life, whether by…
Antediluvians · Wickedness of — Wickedness of
Deluge, The · Sent as a punishment for the extreme wickedness of man — Sent as a punishment for the extreme wickedness of man
Depravity Of Man · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Fall Of Man, The · Man in consequence of: Evil in heart — Man in consequence of: Evil in heart
Heart, Character Of The Unrenewed · Full of evil imaginations — Full of evil imaginations
Imagination · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Obduracy (Hardness) · .The antedi — .The antedi
Reprobacy · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Sin · All the imaginations of the unrenewed heart are — All the imaginations of the unrenewed heart are
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth,.... That it spread throughout the earth, wherever it was inhabited by men, both among the posterity of Cain and Seth, and who indeed now were mixed together, and become one people: this respects actual transgressions, the wicked actions of men, and those of the grosser sort, which were "multiplied" (r) as the word also signifies; they were both great in quality and great in quantity; they were frequently committed, and that everywhere; the degeneracy was become universal; there was a flood of impiety that spread and covered the whole earth, before the deluge of waters came, and which was the cause of it: this God saw, not only by his…
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great. Moses prosecutes the subject to which he had just alluded, that God was neither too harsh, nor precipitate in exacting punishment from the wicked men of the world. And he introduces God as speaking after the manner of men, by a figure which ascribes human affections to God; [269] because he could not otherwise express what was very important to be known; namely, that God was not induced hastily, or for a slight cause, to destroy the world. For by the word saw, he indicates long continued patience; as if he would say, that God had not proclaimed his sentence to destroy men, until after having well observed, and long considered, their case, he…
The genealogies in Gen 4 and 5, which trace the development of the human race through two fundamentally different lines, headed by Cain and Seth, are accompanied by a description of their moral development, and the statement that through marriages between the "sons of God" (Elohim) and the "daughters of men," the wickedness became so great, that God determined to destroy the men whom He had created. This description applies to the whole human race, and presupposes the intercourse or marriage of the Cainites with the Sethites.
Gen 6:1-2
Gen 6:1-2 relates to the increase of men generally (האדם, without any restriction), i.e., of the whole human race; and whilst the moral corruption is represen…
everything they thought or imagined (literally every intention of the thoughts of their hearts): In the Old Testament, the heart is the core of volition, thought, and morality (see Prov 4:23). Wicked actions stem from a corrupt inner life. • consistently and totally evil: Strong language captures the pervasiveness, depth, and persistence of human wickedness. Human nature continued to be corrupt even after the flood (see Gen 8:21).
Rashi on Genesis 6:4
הנפילים THE GIANTS — Thy were called נפילים because they fell (נפלו) and caused the downfall of (הפילו) the world (Genesis Rabbah 26:7).
In Hebrew the giants are usually called בימים ההם .ענקים IN THOSE DAYS — In the days of the generations of Enosh and the sons of Cain (Genesis Rabbah 26:7).
וגם אחרי כן AND ALSO AFTER THAT — Although they witnessed the destruction of the generation of Enosh when the Ocean rose and flooded a third part of the world, yet the generation of the Flood did not humble itself and take a lesson from them (Genesis Rabbah 26).
אשר יבאו WHEN [THE SONS OF GOD] CAME IN, they (the women) bore children, giants like them (the fathers) (Genesis Rabbah 26:7).
הגבורים MIGH…