“Humanity’s Evils” (Gen 6:5)

Adam’s Aftermath

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פ

Before we begin discussing v. 5, make sure you notice that פ at the head of today’s post. As we’ve seen here and here, that marks the end of a paragraph. Wherever on the line v. 4 ended, the scribe is supposed to leave the rest of the line blank and resume writing on the next line. (You’ll find a longer discussion here.)

Last time, we finally finished the long paragraph — full of semi-paragraphs indicated by the letter ס — that began with Genesis 3:22. To sum up where we are in the big picture:

• Each of the days of creation in Version 1 was given a paragraph of its own: Genesis 1 and the beginning of Genesis 2.

• The next paragraph was Version 2 of creation: the rest of Genesis 2 and most of Genesis 3.

• Then came the story of Cain, introduced by the expulsion of humanity from the garden, and concluding with the story of Lemekh and then a break — a paragraph break, in the Leningrad Codex (see here, right-most column on the left page, about halfway down); a semi-paragraph in today’s standard Jewish texts.

• The Genealogy of Adam follows and then, with no discernible break in Jewish versions of the text, the first four verses of Genesis 6, containing …

  • the mythological episode about the mixing of humans and gods;

  • the declaration that humans would now live no longer than 120 years; and

  • the parenthesis and footnote (as I understand them) in v. 4.

We’re now beginning a 4-verse section that both starts (see above) and ends with a פ. This is the conclusion of the first Jewish “lectionary,” Parashat Bereshit, the first Torah reading of the yearly cycle. This indeed is the introduction to the Flood story that some people think begins in 6:1. Here we go.

⁵ YHWH saw how myriad were humanity’s evils on earth

 ‏ וַיַּ֣רְא יְ׳הוָ֔ה כִּ֥י רַבָּ֛ה רָעַ֥ת הָאָדָ֖ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ