YHWH Speaks! (Gen 7:1)

The Flood

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^7:1 YHWH said to Noah, וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְ׳הוָה֙ לְנֹ֔חַ

God (אלהים elohim) has been the featured divinity since 6:9, when we began reading the story I’ve titled “The Flood.” Now we (re)turn to YHWH, the divinity who “liked” Noah in 6:8.

Ronald Hendel’s brand-new Genesis commentary in the Anchor Bible series — more precisely, his commentary on the Primeval History of Genesis 1–11 — does not read the text in order, as we’ve been doing on this Substack. Instead, he presents the J and P versions of the Flood story on their own. In his reading, 6:5–8 are the introduction to the J version. In our reading, those verses were the second half of “Adam’s Aftermath.”

Hendel’s perspective says that the J story originally began this way (using my translation):

^6:5 YHWH saw how myriad were humanity’s evils on earth and all the mental schemes humanity molded were nothing but evil all day long. ⁶ YHWH changed his attitude about having made human beings on Earth, and his mind was filled with grievous anguish. ⁷ YHWH thought: Let me erase from the face of the earth the earthy stuff that I created, because I have changed my attitude about having made them. ⁸ But YHWH liked Noah. ^7:1 YHWH said to Noah …

You and your whole family, get into the box בֹּֽא־אַתָּ֥ה וְכָל־בֵּיתְךָ֖ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה

Uh … what box? That is, if we try to disentangle J and P from the biblical text as we have it now, we run into some problems that require explanation. Here’s Hendel: