Yetzer ha-Ra? (Gen 6:5)

Adam’s Aftermath

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⁵ and all the mental schemes humanity molded were nothing but evil all day long.

וְכָל־יֵ֙צֶר֙ מַחְשְׁבֹ֣ת לִבּ֔וֹ רַ֥ק רַ֖ע כָּל־הַיּֽוֹם׃

In this amazing half verse, we’ll meet four words for the first time in the Bible:

• יֵצֶר yétzer

• מַחֲשָׁבָה maḥshava

• לֵב lev

• רַק raq

There’s also an idiom that uses familiar words in a way we haven’t seen yet:

• כָּל־הַיּֽוֹם kol ha-yom

And we’re giving a special participation award to רע ra ‘evil’ (the adjective) and its teammate רָעָה ra’a ‘evil’ (the noun) from the first half of the verse. The noun ra’a is also new to us, and we haven’t seen the adjective either except when it was paired with טוב tov ‘good’ in 2:9, 2:17, 3:5, and 3:22. Did I mention that the letters y-tz-r (if not the noun yétzer) made a cameo appearance when YHWH God “molded” the first human (in 2:7–8) and then the birds and the beasts (in 2:19) with the verb יצר?

All right. Now that we’ve got some facts to play with, let’s talk about this verse.