Interpreting the Flood Story - God's Response(s) to Human Depravity.

(1) ויקרא את שמו נח, לאמור זה ינחמנו ממעשינו, our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 25,2)....

According to our sages Lemech must have been a great prophet, for how else could he predict that Noach, his son, would turn out to be a boon to mankind? What did he see or know that caused him to make such a prediction? According to Tanchuma Bereshit 11, people did not know what a plough was and they had to do all their work on the soil by hand. Noach invented the plough, thus becoming a great benefactor of mankind. He trained oxen and donkeys to pull a ploughshare, thus easing the labour the farmers had to perform. This was the relief and consolation he provided for all of the human species.

(29) And he (Lemech, his father) named him Noah, saying, “This one will provide us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which יהוה placed under a curse.”

CHAPTER 6

(1) When humankind began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, (2) the [males among the] divine beings saw how pleasing the human women were and took wives from among those who delighted them.— (3) יהוה said, “My breath shall not abide in humankind forever, since it too is flesh; let the days allowed them be one hundred and twenty years.”— (4) It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth—when divine beings cohabited with the human women, who bore them offspring. Such were the heroes of old, the men of renown.

(5) יהוה saw how great was human wickedness on earth—how every plan devised by the human mind was nothing but evil all the time. (6) And יהוה regretted having made humankind on earth. With a sorrowful heart, (7) יהוה said, “I will blot out from the earth humankind whom I created—humans together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.” (8) But Noah found favor with יהוה.

PARSHAT NOAH

(9) This is the line of Noah.—Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God.— (10) Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (11) The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness. (12) When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth,

(13) God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth. (14) Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make it an ark with compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch. (15) This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. (16) Make an opening for daylight in the ark, and terminate it within a cubit of the top. Put the entrance to the ark in its side; make it with bottom, second, and third decks. (17) “For My part, I am about to bring the Flood—waters upon the earth—to destroy all flesh under the sky in which there is breath of life; everything on earth shall perish.

(18) But I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, with your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives. (19) And of all that lives, of all flesh, you shall take two of each into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male and female. (20) From birds of every kind, cattle of every kind, every kind of creeping thing on earth, two of each shall come to you to stay alive. (21) For your part, take of everything that is eaten and store it away, to serve as food for you and for them.” (22) Noah did so; just as God commanded him, so he did.

CHAPTER 7

(1) Then יהוה said to Noah, “Go into the ark, with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation. (2) Of every pure animal you shall take seven pairs, males and their mates, and of every animal that is not pure, two, a male and its mate; (3) of the birds of the sky also, seven pairs, male and female, to keep seed alive upon all the earth. (4) For in seven days’ time I will make it rain upon the earth, forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the earth all existence that I created.” (5) And Noah did just as יהוה commanded him.

CHAPTER 8

(13) In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the waters began to dry from the earth; and when Noah removed the covering of the ark, he saw that the surface of the ground was drying. (14) And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. (15) God spoke to Noah, saying, (16) “Come out of the ark, together with your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives. (17) Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds, animals, and everything that creeps on earth; and let them swarm on the earth and be fertile and increase on earth.” (18) So Noah came out, together with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives....

(20) Then Noah built an altar to יהוה and, taking of every pure animal and of every pure bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. (21) יהוה smelled the pleasing odor, and יהוה resolved: “Never again will I doom the earth because of humankind, since the devisings of the human mind are evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.
(22) So long as the earth endures,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
Day and night
Shall not cease.”

CHAPTER 9

(1) God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fertile and increase, and fill the earth. (2) The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky—everything with which the earth is astir—and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand. (3) Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these. (4) You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it. (5) But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning: I will require it of every beast; of humankind, too, will I require a reckoning for human life, of everyone for each other!
(6) Whoever sheds human blood,
By human [hands] shall that one’s blood be shed;
For in the image of God
Was humankind made. (7) Be fertile, then, and increase; abound on the earth and increase on it.” (8) And God said to Noah and to his sons with him, (9) “I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, (10) and with every living thing that is with you—birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well—all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth. (11) I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” (12) God further said, “This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come. (13) I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. (14) When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, (15) I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. (16) When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth.

(1) כי השחית כל בשר FOR ALL FLESH HAD CORRUPTED — even cattle, beasts and fowl did not consort with their own species (Genesis Rabbah 28:8). (1) קץ כל בשר THE END OF ALL FLESH — Wherever you find lewdness and idolatry, punishment of an indiscriminate character comes upon the world killing good and bad alike (Genesis Rabbah 26:5). (2) כי מלאה הארץ חמס FOR THE EARTH IS FILLED WITH VIOLENCE — Their fate was sealed only on account of their sin of robbery (Sanhedrin 108a).

(15) ... Ad-nai God - To what is this like? A king who had empty glasses. The king said "if I put hot water in them, then they will expand and break, and if I put cold water in them, they will contract and shatter. What did the king do? He mixed hot water with the cold water and put them in the glasses.

So too the Holy One of Blessing said: if I create the world with the attribute of compassion alone, no one would be concerned with the consequences of their actions. With the attribute of judgment alone, how could the world stand? Rather, behold I create it with both the attribute of judgment and the attribute of compassion, and hopefully it will stand.