Genesis 6: Not Forever - At Most 120 Years ...

Friday, Aug 30, 2013. We have heard about creation and the fall of man. In Genesis 6, this fall is further evolving. The passage which we read today is showing us a nearly phantastic part or intermezzo of these events:

Not forever …

1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.

3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh:

his days shall be 120 years.

” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. 5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Gen 6, 1-5) Here, the meaning of the “nephilim”, also called “giants” sometimes, means something like “fallen beings”. This is also indicated by “sons of God” - the text is talking about the spiritual world, about beings which have been part of God's world (which is indicated by “sons of God”), but have been sent away and are now coming into the human world. Evil and Limits …**

Some Christian scholars emphasize that the events here, even if they appear somehow mythological, are nothing else than the continuation of the story of the fall of man. There is a fallen spiritual world, and it invades the human world in many ways. Humans are drawn into it. The evil is developing in a variety of forms, it does not stop to spare any part of humanity.

We also hear that God's consequences are continued. God limits the life-time of humans to at most 120 years. It is an interesting observation, that this number has already been written 3000 years ago, when the average life-time must have been significantly shorter than today. But we are still way below this limit, with an average of between 70 and 80 years in developed nations.

The biblical texts come back to the “thought of the human heart” again and again. This is God's main concern. What are we? What do we long for? We are what our heart tells us to do or to be. It is our heart which is in the center of God's attention, not our abilities, our posessions or our appearance. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts