Attitude Check Redux (Gen 6:6)

Adam’s Aftermath

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⁶ YHWH changed his attitude about having made human beings on Earth,

 וַיִּנָּ֣חֶם יְ׳הוָ֔ה כִּֽי־עָשָׂ֥ה אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֖ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ

Back in 5:29, we read that Lemekh gave his son the name Noah, saying, “This one will change our attitude about the grievous way we were made: from the ground that YHWH condemned.” New readers who find this translation unusual can read more about it here, here, and here.

The first of those three posts will take you to an extended discussion of the verb נחם n‑ḥ‑m ‘change [someone’s] mind’. As I explained there — where it’s more common to translate נחם as “comfort us” — it’s clear from 1 Samuel 15 that the basic meaning of the verb is to change one’s mind in general, not specifically changing from grief to acceptance.

Here in v. 6 we see YHWH changing his mind about having made human beings. Or should I have said “earthlings”? That’s how I translated adam back in 1:26, where God thought, Let’s make an earthling. Yes, that was “P” and this is “J,” but I’m still assuming that the writer who combined earlier material into the composition we have was doing so with care and literary skill.

Another thing that seems to bother some people … okay, like Maimonides, is the idea that God might change his mind. The God of the philosophers does not change. As we saw in that earlier post, the prophet Samuel wasn’t too happy about it either, though God told him explicitly that he had changed his mind.