REGRET AND HOPE

“Adonai saw that the people on earth were very wicked, that all the imaginings of their hearts were always of evil only.”
Genesis 6:5

In Deuteronomy 12:28, God warns us, “Obey and pay attention to everything I am ordering you to do, so that things will go well with you and with your descendants after you forever, as you do what Adonai sees as good and right.” Although this was not stated for years on down the road, the idea was still something that Adonai expected from His people since the beginning. Adonai expected from His people that they obey His commands. The problem was that as more people were birthed and the earth was populated, people began to stray away from Adonai. In only ten generations, from Seth to Noah, the world had already turned evil. The evil was in fact so bad that Adonai began to regret His creation of man (Gen 6:6).
Our Torah portion for the week, however, ends on an encouraging note. Genesis 6:8 tells us that Noah found grace in the sight of Adonai. Grace here is the word CHEN, meaning favor or acceptance. Noah, as we will see, was a cut above the rest at his time, and as such became the one Adonai used to take His plan to the next level.
As I close out this portion and this week, I feel like I should do so with a challenge. Sin knocks at our door, daily, hourly, minutely. Too often we desire to give in. We know we should not, but the desire is there. In the ten generations that passed in this time frame, man went from following Adonai to following pleasure. The result, as we all know, was the flood that saved only one man and his family. Let us not find ourselves in this position any longer where we are the regret of Adonai. Let us rather be found as was Noah, with grace in His sight.

GENESIS 5:25 – 6:8