Your Time is Up (Gen 6:13)

The Flood

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¹³ God said to Noah, וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֜ים לְנֹ֗חַ

There are obviously no translation difficulties with this phrase. There are just a few things worth noting:

• The NJPS translation, my first go-to under normal circumstances, translates v. 12 as beginning with the word “When,” and ends the verse with a comma: “When God saw … God said.” As we saw last time, the Masoretic text that NJPS asserts it is translating puts a semi-paragraph break after v. 12.

• Oh, yes. Since the original human beings were dismissed from their jobs in Xanadu Park, YHWH has spoken to a human being only twice, to Cain in 4:6 and 4:9; elohim hasn’t spoken to anyone. As in 4:6, the fact that God is speaking to a human being is simply being taken for granted here. How it happened, and how the human being responded to a surprise of this kind, is not an issue. God is a character in the story, and characters sometimes speak to each other.

• This is by far the longest speech God (by either name) has yet made in the Bible, lasting through v. 21 — 9 verses. Who’s reporting these speeches? If God is dictating the Pentateuch to Moses, there’s “no problem,” except that it’s strange God is talking about himself in the 3^rd person. If, as seems more likely, someone is creating the appropriate words to put in the mouth of this character in the story, just what was going through this writer’s mind? I’m not taking this point any further just now, but it’s worth our keeping it in our minds.

• Very little more communication is reported in the Flood story:

  - YHWH tells Noah to get into the ark (7:1).

  - God tells Noah to get out of the ark (8:15).

  - In Gen 9:1–17 God speaks at length, perhaps matching what we are reading now.

More on all of these subjects when we get to the appropriate places. For now, let me just add these further details, in case you are imagining that “God said” must be one of the most common phrases in the Bible:

• “God said” [וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים] occurs only 25 times in the Bible.

• “God spoke” [וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים] occurs just three times in the Bible:

  - when God tells Noah to get out of the ark (8:15);

  - when God reveals the name YHWH to Moses (Exod 6:2);

  - when God speaks the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1).

• It is YHWH who does most of the talking: some 100 times with דבר ‘speak’ and some 200 times with אמר ‘say’.

Now let’s go on.

It occurs to me that the time is up for all animal life.

קֵ֤ץ כָּל־בָּשָׂר֙ בָּ֣א לְפָנַ֔י