"And he called his name Noah, saying, He will comfort us in our work, and in the labor of our hands in tilling the land which the Lord has cursed." The last antediluvian patriarch was Lamech's son, Noah. The meaning of this name is interpreted in the biblical text itself, precisely in the sense of "rest, consolation" in labor and work on the cultivation of the land. It is believed that Lamech himself, who was not distinguished for his piety, in giving such a name to his son, united with him an ungodly thought, namely, he expressed the hope for the speedy destruction of the power of the divine curse over the earth, thanks to the cultural successes, the planter of which he imagined to see his newborn son. But, according to the interpretation of John Chrysostom, Lamech, like the high priest Caiaphas in the trial of Jesus Christ (John XI:40-52 [383]), expressed here another great idea against his will: placing the reference of the biblical text to the relaxation of vanity and work in connection with the words of the divine judgment after the Fall and with their explanations in the Apostle Paul (Genesis III:13; Romans VIII:20 [341]), The Fathers of the Church rightly see in the name of Noah a prophesied indication that through Noah and his descendants the power of the divine punishment for the Fall would be weakened, and after the storm of impiety (the violence of the giants, VI:4) and the threat of heavenly punishment for it (the flood under Noah), a new, relatively peaceful and calm course of social and religious life would begin.

30. And Lamech lived after the birth of Noah five hundred and ninety-five (565) years, and begat sons and daughters. 31. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven (753) years; and he died. 32. Noah was five hundred years old, and begat Noah (three sons): Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

"Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begat three sons..." Noah lived most of his life in the antediluvian era and by the end of it he had already managed to have three sons; but the activity of the latter already belongs to the post-flood epoch, when, in the course of the narrative, we will also speak about them. As to why Noah, in comparison with the other patriarchs, had these children so late (Noah was already 500 years old), the best answer is that Noah's children would not have had time to become parents themselves before the time of the flood, or that they would have become so corrupt and depraved that they too would have had to share the sad fate of the entire primitive world.

Chapter 6.

1. The general corruption of mankind.

1. When men began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them,

"When men began to multiply on the earth..." The context of the speech shows that here the whole is taken instead of the part—"Cainites" are denoted by the general concept of "people," an analogy to which we see elsewhere in Scripture.

2. Then the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, and took them to be their wives, whomsoever they chose.

"Then the sons of God saw the daughters of men..." This is one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to interpret; its main difficulty lies in determining who is to be understood here as "the sons of God." Some, mainly Jewish rabbis, basing themselves on the philological meaning of the root (of God), saw here an indication of the sons of nobles and princes, in general of the upper and noble classes, who allegedly married girls of the lower social strata. Hence, the term "sons of God" in Arabic. in the text it is translated as filii illustrium, in the Targum of Onkelos as filii principium, in Symmachus as ύιοί τών δοναστεύοντων. But this explanation does not stand up positively to any criticism, being completely arbitrary and does not explain the further consequences of this fact.

Most of the other Jewish and Christian interpreters of antiquity, together with the rationalists of modern times, understand the "sons of God" to be angels. Being thoroughly developed in the apocryphal books of Enoch and the Jubilees and in the writings of Philo, this opinion in the first centuries of the Christian era was so widely known that it was shared even by many of the Fathers and teachers of the Church (Justin the Philosopher, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Ambrose, and others). Although it is true that by the term "sons of God" the Holy Scriptures sometimes, mainly in the poetic sections, mean "angels" (Job I:6 [384]; II:1 [385]; XXXVIII:7 [386] and others), nevertheless, both the very context of this narrative and its positive historical character, as well as philological-dogmatic requirements, do not allow us to take the side of this opinion.

We consider the third opinion to be the only correct one, which happily avoids the shortcomings of the above two opinions and satisfies all philological, textual and historical-dogmatic requirements, according to which the "sons of God" should be understood as pious "Sethites." On his side are the majority of the Church Fathers famous for their exegetical works (John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Blessed Theodoret, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, Augustine, and others) and a number of modern learned exegetes (headed by Keil).

This opinion is fully justified philologically, since the name "sons of God" in the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments (Deuteronomy XIV:1; Psalm LXXII:15 [387]; Wis XVI:26 [388]; Luke III:38 [373]; Rom VIII:19 [389]; Galatians III:26 [390] and others) is often applied to pious people. This is also favored by the context of the previous narration, in which, when counting the descendants of Seth, the name of God is placed at his head, which is why all the Sethites are represented as His children. The same thing is indicated still more emphatically in the final verse of chapter 4, where (v. 26) it is said that in the days of Enos the Sethites began to solemnly call upon the name of the Lord, and to be called in his honor "sons of God." Finally, the very nature of marriages concluded between the sons of God and the daughters of men speaks for this: in the sense of the Biblical expression used here, these were not temporary and unnatural relations (which could only be the intercourse of angels with wives), but ordinary marriages, correct legally, although pernicious in their moral consequences.

"They saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful..." If we remember that when characterizing the Cainite women, physical beauty and sensual charm were in the foreground (Ada, Zillah, Noama), it becomes clear that here the writer of Genesis speaks specifically about the Cainite women. With this understanding of the "sons of God" and "daughters of men," we fully endure the contrast between them given in the text: both are representatives of one and the same primitive humanity; but, being similar in nature, they are opposite in their spiritual and moral disposition: the "sons of God" were the exponents of all that is good, sublime and good; the daughters of men, behaving seductively, are the personification of earthly sensual interests. Over time, the opposition of morals disappears – the sons of God mingle with the daughters of men, which erases the boundary between good and evil and gives full scope to the domination of the lower, sensual interests of the flesh to the detriment of the higher interests of the spirit.

3. And the Lord (God) said, "My Spirit shall not be despised forever by men, because they are flesh; let their days be a hundred and twenty years.