A Man of Integrity (Gen 6:9)
The Flood
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9 who was unblemished in those ten generations. תָּמִ֥ים הָיָ֖ה בְּדֹֽרֹתָ֑יו
With this phrase, we encounter two more words about Noah that we haven’t seen yet in the Bible: תמים tamim and דור dor ‘generation’. That latter one looks deceptively simple; don’t be deceived. We’ll get to it shortly. First, tamim.
Even people innocent of any knowledge of Biblical Hebrew might think of cherubim and seraphim and wonder whether tamim isn’t a plural word, despite the fact that it’s describing a single individual. Relax, it isn’t. This is from a geminate root (where the last two letters are “twins”), תמם t‑m‑m ‘unblemished’.
Since we quoted Nahum Sarna on tzaddiq, here’s what he had to say in the second half of that comment about tamim:
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