HEBREW WORD STUDY – BRING FORTH – TOLEDOTH – תולדת Taw Vav Lamed Daleth Taw

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 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 numbers but distance from the speaker. This – singular near, that – singular distant. These – plural near, that – plural distant. Hebrew 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 offspring or parentage.

So what we have is “These/those are the generations of Noah.” 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. The interesting thing is coming so hang in there. The word for generations is a very interesting word. It is the word toledoth. 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 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. The Jewish sages see a double meaning her or a play on the word toledoth as it can also mean good works or a harmony with God. Therefore, this verse note only speaks of the generations of Noach but it also expresses the good works of Noah’s past and present and in his relationship with both males and females.

This explains why the passage says he was perfect in his toledoth or his relationship with God. Perfect is tamim in Hebrew. This has the idea of complete, full, to require nothing more in the revealed and hidden knowledge of God. He was full or complete in his harmony and knowledge of God.

Then the verse says he walked. This is the word halaka which expresses a righteous walk with God. This is the crux of the whole verse because halaka is in a Hithpael form. He made himself 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 for 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, “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 chose 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 were always to seek after God.

The only thing we have to do is to seek after God and 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.