- Feb 5, 2002
- 180,957
- 65,270
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
Noah was different. His world was different. According to the figures provided by Genesis 5, at the time when Noah’s father Lamech was born, his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was still alive, at 874 years of age—Adam. Seth, too, was alive. And so were Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, all of them there, we might imagine, to greet little Lamech. Then, 56 years later, the other shoe dropped. Adam died. Lamech’s son Noah was therefore the first member of Seth’s line to be born after the death of the one because of whose sin “death spread to all men” (Rom 5:12).[1] We have already seen Cain’s murder of Abel (Gen 4:8) and (the other) Lamech’s boast of homicidal vengeance (4:23), but now someone has died of what today we would call “natural causes.”[2]
So, Noah was different. One era had ended, and another had begun. We readers will see Noah’s difference play out, in part, in his unique righteousness (Gen 6:8–9). But Lamech knew Noah was different when he was born. And a special kid ought to have a special name. Lamech explains his choice of name for his son by way of a prophecy: “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Gen 5:29). “Noah” (noaḥ) seems to derive from a verb meaning “rest” or “repose” (nûaḥ), but it also sounds similar to the verb here translated “bring relief” (nāḥam).[3]
The first thing to notice is that this verse clearly refers back to the curse of the ground after Adam’s sin in Genesis 3:17. There is verbal overlap between the verses not only in the words “cursed” and “ground,” but in the word translated “pain” in 3:17 and “toil” in 5:29 (‘iṣṣābōn). This seems promising. In the first generation after the death of Adam, who brought down the curse on the ground, we are presented with, as the Jewish Study Bible puts it, a “new Adam—a righteous antidote to the wickedness of the father of universal mankind.”[4] How will this work out?
As we proceed with Noah’s story, we should take notice of some significant wordplay in the Hebrew. In Genesis 5:29, the verb for “bring relief” is a form of nāḥam, and the word for “work” (ma‘ăśeh) is derived from a verb meaning “make” (‘āśāh). Just a few verses later, we read that “the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth” (Gen 6:6). “Regretted” here is also a form of nāḥam, and “made” is ‘āśāh. As if to rub it in, the same two verbs are repeated in the next verse, where the Lord says, “I am sorry [nāḥam] that I have made [‘āśāh] them” (6:7). This cluster, by the way, accounts for the only three uses of nāḥam in Genesis until the last sentence of chapter 24. What we are looking at in these two verses, then, appears to be an ironic inversion of Lamech’s prophecy. The new Adam may indeed bring relief, but only after the judgment of the Flood.
Continued below.
So, Noah was different. One era had ended, and another had begun. We readers will see Noah’s difference play out, in part, in his unique righteousness (Gen 6:8–9). But Lamech knew Noah was different when he was born. And a special kid ought to have a special name. Lamech explains his choice of name for his son by way of a prophecy: “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Gen 5:29). “Noah” (noaḥ) seems to derive from a verb meaning “rest” or “repose” (nûaḥ), but it also sounds similar to the verb here translated “bring relief” (nāḥam).[3]
The first thing to notice is that this verse clearly refers back to the curse of the ground after Adam’s sin in Genesis 3:17. There is verbal overlap between the verses not only in the words “cursed” and “ground,” but in the word translated “pain” in 3:17 and “toil” in 5:29 (‘iṣṣābōn). This seems promising. In the first generation after the death of Adam, who brought down the curse on the ground, we are presented with, as the Jewish Study Bible puts it, a “new Adam—a righteous antidote to the wickedness of the father of universal mankind.”[4] How will this work out?
As we proceed with Noah’s story, we should take notice of some significant wordplay in the Hebrew. In Genesis 5:29, the verb for “bring relief” is a form of nāḥam, and the word for “work” (ma‘ăśeh) is derived from a verb meaning “make” (‘āśāh). Just a few verses later, we read that “the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth” (Gen 6:6). “Regretted” here is also a form of nāḥam, and “made” is ‘āśāh. As if to rub it in, the same two verbs are repeated in the next verse, where the Lord says, “I am sorry [nāḥam] that I have made [‘āśāh] them” (6:7). This cluster, by the way, accounts for the only three uses of nāḥam in Genesis until the last sentence of chapter 24. What we are looking at in these two verses, then, appears to be an ironic inversion of Lamech’s prophecy. The new Adam may indeed bring relief, but only after the judgment of the Flood.
Continued below.
