“Genesis 6:9: “These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”
“These are the generations of Noah.” Eleh (these) is a form of il which is a separable pronoun. In the form of eleh it becomes a demonstrative pronoun in a plural form with a common gender. English is more specific in our use of demonstrative pronouns. We have this, that, these and those. In other words our demonstrative pronouns not only show number but distance from the speaker. This (singular near), that (singular distant). These (plural near) and that (plural distant). Hebrew, however, only shows number but not distance. Thus, eleh could mean either those or these or, here’s the clincher, both. The sages teach that in this verse it means both, I would agree.
Not only that, it is in a common gender. Now in English we have masculine, feminine, and neuter. Hebrew only has masculine or feminine, there is no neuter. The rule of thumb is that anything that is living and vital is masculine and anything that is dead or inanimate is feminine (Hey, I’m just the messenger here, ok?). Things could also be both masculine and feminine. The use in this verse is a good example. These or those are referring to both male and females off spring or parentage.
So what we have is “These/those are the generations of Noah.” Why this is important is because it shows that these generations are not only the generations after but the generations before. I’ll bet after wading through all that grammatical mumbo jumbo you were expecting some great revelation. Well, the interesting thing is coming. It is found in the word toledoth (generations). It comes from the root word yaled. Yaled basically means to bring forth. Toledoth is in the feminine form and thus means to bring forth from a woman, hence it often is used to express the idea of children or generations. However, the sages teach that a woman was created to bring the tov (good) out of man or to bring man into a harmony with God. Thus, toledoth can also mean good works or a harmony with God. Thus, this verse also expresses the good works of Noah past and present and in his relationship with both male and females. We could render this as “these are the good words or things that brought Noah in into harmony with God. Noah was righteous and perfect in his good works and Noah walked with God.”
This explains why the passage says he was perfect in his toledoth or his relationship with God. Perfect is tamim. This has the idea of completed or full, in the revealed and hidden knowledge of God. Thus, Noah was full or complete in his harmony and knowledge of God.
Then the verse says he walked (halaka, a righteous walk) with God. This is the crux of the whole verse because halaka is in a Hithpael form. He made himself to walk the righteous walk.
In reading the works of Rabbi Moshe Al Sheich (Alsheich) we find that Genesis 7:11 says: “And all the fountains of the great deep were broken open.” The passage uses the word rabbah (great) which is the same word used when God says their sin was great or rabbah. The Midrash explains that the people were punished midah kenegid midah, or measure for measure.
Here is what Rabbi Al Sheich was trying to teach. The people were accustomed to following after whatever their eyes desired. They justified their evil ways with foolish excuses such as saying that it was only their nature to lust . Everything follows after their own nature and one can not do anything about it. You know the old saying, “why fight it? That’s the way we are, go for it.”
Noah however, stood against his sinful nature. He hitehalakah he made himself walk the righteous walk before men and women. Of course he wasn’t perfect, of course he would slip up and sin, but the point was that he chose to walk a righteous walk where the others choose to just give in to their sinful nature. That is why Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. His past and future toledoth was always to seek after God.
All we have to do to find favor with God is to be like Noah and choose God. Jesus will take care of all the rest with regard to our failures and sins. That is why He died on the cross and rose again. So like Noah, all we have to do is hitehalakah, choose to walk with God.
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