Erasure (Gen 6:7)

Adam’s Aftermath

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⁷ YHWH thought: וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְ׳הוָ֗ה

It’s been a while since we read “God thought, Let there be light” (1:3), so those who were not reading back in 2022 can go here for a discussion of my translation of these two words. The soundbite version of it is this: וַיֹּ֣אמֶר va-yómer means “he said,” but אמר aleph‑m‑r is also the standard way to describe someone as thinking rather than saying something out loud. For a refresher about “YHWH,” see here, here, and here.

Whenever God — by whatever name — starts thinking, it is time to batten down the hatches, and that’s true this time as well:

Let me erase from the face of the earth the earthy stuff that I created.

 אֶמְחֶ֨ה אֶת־הָאָדָ֤ם אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָ֙אתִי֙ מֵעַל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֲדָמָ֔ה

There’s a lot going on here, perhaps (as I have translated it) more than meets the eye. Let’s start with מחה, the first word of YHWH’s thought, which we’re seeing for the first time in this verse. DCH makes eminently clear what’s going to happen: