Ruination (Gen 6:12)

The Flood

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¹² God saw the Earth, and wow! it had gone to ruin.

וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְהִנֵּ֣ה נִשְׁחָ֑תָה

The challenges of translating this particular phrase have already been met, so it took just a moment to translate. We discussed שׁחת (theme root of the intro and the outro to the Flood story) here, and the rest of the phrase mimics God’s evaluation of Version 1 of Creation:

^{Gen 1:31} God saw all that He had made, and wow! it was really good.

A comparison of the Hebrew will show you just how alike these two phrases are. You don’t even need to be able to read the Hebrew to see it. The bold type will show you:

• ^{Gen 1:31} וַיַּ֤רְא אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֔ה וְהִנֵּה־ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד

• ^{Gen 6:12} וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְהִנֵּ֣ה נִשְׁחָ֑תָה

If you are surprised to see the Bible saying “Wow!” you can find our long-ago discussion of that here. As you’ll see there, “God saw” occurs seven times in Genesis 1. That is no coincidence, and the resemblance of our verse to 1:31 is no coincidence either. Version 1 of Creation is the priestly version of that story — most likely that of the (later) priestly writer of the Holiness Code, Leviticus 17-27, whom I presume to be the compiler/composer of the Torah as a whole, certainly the composer of the Primeval History.

Now too we are for the moment still in the priestly version of the Flood story. We’ll have more to say about that as we move forward, but the simplest and quickest indication of that is to notice that God is called by his job title, אלהים elohim, and not by his personal name YHWH. That is why the likeness between 1:31 and 6:12 is no coincidence. The Flood, in this version of the story, is not just a plumbing problem — it is a reversal of the original creation, which has failed.

What he saw was that all flesh had ruined its way on the Earth.

כִּֽי־הִשְׁחִ֧ית כָּל־בָּשָׂ֛ר אֶת־דַּרְכּ֖וֹ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ ס