The strangest four verses in Genesis, translated without deciding them. Who are the "sons of God"? Three readings have serious pedigrees: (1) divine beings — the phrase benei ha'Elohim is used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible unambiguously of heavenly beings (Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7), and this is the oldest attested reading, reflected in the Septuagint tradition and vastly expanded in the Book of Enoch (see this project's companion Q&A post on that book); (2) the line of Seth intermarrying with the line of Cain — a reading that arose later, partly from discomfort with angels marrying; (3) kings or rulers ("sons of God" as royal title) seizing whatever women they chose. This translation renders the phrase literally — "the sons of God" — as does every shelf version, leaving the identification where the Hebrew leaves it: open.

The Nephilim. KJV GNV DRB say "giants" — inherited from the Septuagint's gigantes — while ASV NIV NWT and MiSTeR transliterate "Nephilim," because nobody actually knows what the word means. The most common guess connects it to nafal, "to fall" ("fallen ones"?), but that's etymology-by-resemblance, not established usage. Note carefully what the verse does and doesn't say: the Nephilim "were on the earth in those days — and afterward too" — the text does not actually say they were the offspring of the unions, though it's often read that way. The word recurs exactly once more, in the spies' report at Numbers 13:33, where it clearly connotes beings of intimidating size. Everything else said about them anywhere is extrapolation.

An honestly uncertain verb. Yadon occurs only here in the entire Hebrew Bible, and its meaning is genuinely disputed: "remain/abide" (following the ancient Greek rendering) or "strive/contend" (connecting it to the root din, judge). KJV GNV "My spirit shall not always strive with man"; ASV NIV "abide in"/"contend with" (ASV "abide," NIV "contend" — the two modern versions split); DRB "shall not remain in man for ever"; MiSTeR "remain," siding with the ancient versions, while flagging that the other reading is fully defensible.

"120 years" — lifespan cap, or countdown? Two old readings: a new ceiling on human lifespans (though people live longer than 120 for many chapters yet — the numbers do taper toward it), or a grace period — 120 years' notice before the flood. Both are ancient, both fit the Hebrew; the translation renders the words and the note carries the fork.

The pun flagged at Genesis 5:29 detonates here. Noah's name was explained by nacham, "comfort." One chapter later the same root describes God: vayinachem YHVH — "the LORD regretted" that he had made humankind. The word Lamech loaded with hope comes back as divine sorrow; the man named Comfort is introduced by the vocabulary of regret. KJV GNV ASV "it repented the LORD" (old English "repent" = feel sorrow, not confess sin); DRB "it repented him"; NIV "regretted"; NWT "felt regrets." This translation says "regretted" plainly and lets the theological tension stand — the Bible elsewhere insists God is not a man that he should nacham (Numbers 23:19, using this exact word), and this verse says he did; both texts are in the canon, and a translation's job is to render each honestly where it stands.

"It grieved him to his heart" — vayit'atsev is built on the same root ('-ts-v) as the woman's itsavon (pain in childbirth) and the man's itsavon (painful toil) in Genesis 3:16–17. The pain pronounced on humanity in Eden has, by chapter 6, reached God's own heart — the vocabulary makes the circle visible, and only a reader tracking the root can see it, which is what this note is for.

"But Noah found favor" — chen, favor or grace, its first appearance in the Bible. A detail Hebrew readers have enjoyed for centuries: the two letters of Noach (נ-ח) reversed spell chen (ח-נ) — the man's name mirrors, letter for letter, the favor he finds. Word play or providence, it's in the letters either way. KJV GNV DRB render chen "grace" here — the verse behind the phrase "grace in the eyes of the LORD."

The third toldot (after 2:4 and 5:1), and the hinge of the flood story — the ancient synagogue reading cycle starts its second weekly portion exactly here. Noah gets three escalating descriptions: tsadiq ("righteous" — the Bible's first use of its most important ethical word), tamim ("blameless, whole, sound" — a word for unblemished sacrificial animals; integrity rather than sinless perfection), and the Enoch phrase itself: "Noah walked with God" — the same hithalekh verb tracked since Genesis 3:8. "In his generation" cuts two ways, and readers ancient and modern have heard both: high praise (righteous even in the worst of times) or faint praise (righteous only by comparison). The Hebrew supports either; the translation keeps the phrase and the ambiguity.

One root, used as a boomerang. The earth "had gone to ruin" (shachat); all flesh had "ruined its way"; therefore God announces "I am going to ruin them." The judgment is described with the exact verb that describes the crime — not a new act, but the completion of what creation's inhabitants had already begun doing to it. Most English versions split the root across different words ("corrupt… destroy"), which loses the boomerang; MiSTeR keeps "ruin" all three times so the measure-for-measure logic reads in English. Chamas, "violence" — lawless wrong, violent injustice — is named twice as the earth's actual condition; whatever the sons-of-God episode was, the indictment that triggers the flood is this ordinary, recognizable word.

The ark is a box, not a boat. Tevah means a chest or box — not any of Hebrew's words for ship. It has no sail, no rudder, no oars, no helm anywhere in its description: a vessel built to float and preserve, not to be steered, which is the story's quiet theology (its course belongs to God, not navigation). The word appears in exactly one other story in the entire Bible: the basket (tevah) of bulrushes that carries the infant Moses on the Nile (Exodus 2:3) — two tevot, each carrying the bearer of humanity's future through lethal water. English "ark" (from Latin arca, chest) actually preserves the box-sense perfectly; it only sounds nautical now because this story made it famous.

"Gopher wood" — gofer appears only here, and no one knows what tree it is (cypress is the common guess; some suspect the word is related to kofer, pitch, in the same verse). Every shelf version transliterates or guesses; this one transliterates. And "coat it… with pitch" is kafarta… bakofer — verb and noun from the root k-p-r, which in later Hebrew becomes the vocabulary of atonement (Yom Kippur's "covering" of sin). Here it means literal waterproofing; the resonance is later Hebrew's development, noted without being read back into the verse.

The dimensions, in real units: 300 × 50 × 30 cubits is roughly 450 × 75 × 45 feet (a cubit ≈ 18 inches, forearm-length) — a 6:1 length-to-beam ratio that naval architects note is genuinely stable for a floating (non-sailing) vessel, and far more shiplike than the cube-shaped ark of the Babylonian flood stories. Tsohar — rendered "skylight" here — is another word appearing only in this verse: something to do with light or a roof, finished "to within a cubit of the top." KJV "a window"; ASV "a light"; NIV "a roof." Nobody knows precisely; everybody translates the uncertainty differently; this note is the honest rendering.

Mabul — "the flood" — is a technical term, not the ordinary Hebrew word for flooding: it's used exclusively of this event (and once, later, of God enthroned over it, Psalm 29:10). The definite article is in the Hebrew from its first mention: not "a flood" but the flood.

The Bible's first covenant. Brit — "covenant" — appears here for the first time in scripture, before Abraham, before Sinai: "I will establish my covenant with you." The word that will structure the entire rest of the Bible enters quietly, addressed to one man, as a promise of preservation through judgment. Every shelf version renders it "covenant"; the note exists to mark the debut.

"Two of each… male and female" — the command here is the simple pairs version; chapter 7 will add seven pairs of every clean animal, an apparent wrinkle discussed in that chapter's notes rather than smoothed over here. Note also v. 20's quiet grammar: the animals "will come to you" — Noah is never told to hunt, trap, or gather them; the coming is the animals' own (or God's), and 7:9 confirms it ("they came to Noah"). And the food command (v. 21) makes Noah provisioner of the whole floating remnant — the vegetarian grant of 1:29–30 still in force aboard.

Noah says nothing. The verse is the Bible's first full obedience formula — "Noah did it; everything God commanded him, exactly so he did" — doubled for emphasis, and it highlights something that runs through the entire flood narrative: Noah never speaks. Not one recorded word from the man through the whole catastrophe (his first quoted speech comes after it all, in Genesis 9). The narrator answers God's speeches with Noah's actions instead — a characterization built entirely of compliance, which readers have taken as either profound faith or unsettling silence, and the text lets both stand.