Gen 6:5-8
Now when the wickedness of man became great, and “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil the whole day,” i.e., continually and altogether evil, it repented God that He had made man, and He determined to destroy them. This determination and the motive assigned are also irreconcilable with the angel-theory. “Had the godless race, which God destroyed by the flood, sprung either entirely or in part from the marriage of angels to the daughters of men, it would no longer have been the race first created by God in Adam, but a grotesque product of the Adamitic factor created by God, and an entirely foreign and angelic factor” (Phil.).
The force of ינּחם, “it repented the Lord,” may be gathered from the explanatory יתעצּב, “it grieved Him at His heart.” This shows that the repentance of God does not presuppose any variableness in His nature of His purposes. In this sense God never repents of anything (1Sa 15:29), “quia nihil illi inopinatum vel non praevisum accidit” (Calvin). The repentance of God is an anthropomorphic expression for the pain of the divine love at the sin of man, and signifies that “God is hurt no less by the atrocious sins of men than if they pierced His heart with mortal anguish” (Calvin). The destruction of all, “from man unto beast,” etc., is to be explained on the ground of the sovereignty of man upon the earth, the irrational creatures being created for him, and therefore involved in his fall. This destruction, however, was not to bring the human race to an end. “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” In these words mercy is seen in the midst of wrath, pledging the preservation and restoration of humanity.
Gen 6:9-12 contain a description of Noah and his contemporaries; Gen 6:13-22, the announcement of the purpose of God with reference to the flood.