Introduction
An inference of global scope is made from the use of terms and expressions such as “all flesh”, “every living substance”, and “every living thing of all flesh”.[1] The catalogue appears comprehensive. The problem with the argument is that it is vulnerable to a scope qualification: the counter-argument is that “all flesh” is destroyed from the country in which Noah lived and not the planet. When this qualification is made, a stalemate is created between those who argue for a global flood and those who advocate a local flood.
Interpreting All
At various points in the narrative a comprehensive “all” or an “every” is used. The number of uses of these quantifiers gives rise to an impression of totality. Coupled with the common translation of eretz as “earth”, the interpretation of a global flood is naturally suggested to a reader. However, closer reading should dislodge first impressions.
1) Yahweh repents of the fact that he has made man and cattle, creeping thing and fowl of the air and he proposes to destroy them from the face of the ground (Gen 6:7). This is not a comprehensive catalogue, as indicated by the choice of behemah (“cattle”) which links to the Genesis 2 creation of “beasts of the field” rather than the more general “beasts of the earth” from Genesis 1. We can be certain about this link because it is from the ground (not the earth) that the beasts of the field are formed (Gen 2:19-20) and it is the destruction of beasts from the face of the ground that is the focus of Genesis 6. We might ask why cattle (domestic beasts), creeping things and fowl are included while marine life and the beasts of the earth are excluded. To this we can say: the reason for the flood is the wickedness of man rather than the anything to do with cattle, creeping things, and birds. Their inclusion is puzzling until it is realised that they are part of man’s habitat.
If we pose the question: why would God repent of making cattle, creeping things and fowl, the detail of the story suggests that these resources in man’s habitat were being plundered by marauders raiding the farming communities. The violence that God sees leads to him to pronounce that he will remove both the perpetrators and the underlying causes of the violence.
2) The expression “all flesh” is used by God when speaking to Noah about what he proposes to do (Gen 6:12). The text says that “God looked” and this echoes the creation account of Genesis 1 where the phrase is used several times. There is a contrast between God looking and seeing that things are good in Genesis 1 and looking and seeing that “all flesh” had become corrupt in Genesis 6. The question to pose is: when God “looks”, does he look on those with whom he is working out his purpose? Elsewhere the expression “God looked” only occurs in Exod 2:25 in relation to Israel’s distress in Egypt. This suggests that for God to look upon the earth is for him to look upon those with whom he is working out his purpose. In the case of Genesis 6 these are the “sons of God”.
The perspective of the narrator is different to that of God. God looks down from heaven upon the earth; the narrator describes the state of affairs in the land. Hence, a narrator can describe the land as corrupt “before God” and “filled with violence” and God can say that the earth was filled with violence. This is an important distinction to bear in mind, as God can speak of “the earth” while the scope of the reference is still a land.
The Hebrew expression translated “before God” indicates matters of obedience and worship as this is the constant use of “before God” elsewhere (e.g. Exod 18:12; Josh 24:1). Such things had become corrupt before God. All flesh had corrupted his way, i.e. God’s way (cf. 2 Sam 22:31). This is obviously a different issue to the fault of violence. There is a pun in the Hebrew at this point: the text records God’s words as, “The end of all flesh is come before me, because the earth is filled with violence from before them”. What has come “before” God addresses what has come “before” all flesh.
The text states that God looked upon the earth and saw that “all flesh” had corrupted his way. This sets up an obvious restriction of scope on “all flesh”. It is trivially true that Noah is excerpted from the scope of “all flesh”, but more importantly, the scope of “all flesh” is contextual in that it is determined by the topic of discourse. Thus within the Prophets, there are discourses where the scope of the expression “all flesh” is Israel and/or her neighbours (e.g. in Isa 40:5; 49:26; Ezek 21:4; Joel 2:28: Zech 2:17). In some texts, “all flesh” is more general in scope (e.g. Deut 5:26; Job 34:15). In Genesis 6 the scope of “all flesh” comprises those who were coming before God and those filling the land with violence. In terms of the groups in the story, there are three: the sons of God, the daughters of men and the Nephilim. The “sons of God” are those who would have been coming before God (cf. Job 1:6), and the account blames them for consorting with the daughters of men. The Nephilim are, as the expression suggests, marauders—men of violence. In God’s address to Noah then, it is these groups who comprise the “all flesh”.
3) The expression “all flesh” is qualified in Gen 6:17, “all flesh, in which there is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth”. The argument is put that this has global scope—eretz must mean “earth” as it is put in apposition with “from under heaven”.
There are three points to make regarding this argument. First, the motif of the “breath of life” is not used in Genesis 1 but in Genesis 2. The Hebrew in Gen 6:17 is “spirit of life” and in Gen 2:7 it is “breath of life” (Gen 7:22 has “breath-spirit of life”), but the expression in Genesis 2 is used of human beings and not animals. This delimits “all flesh” to be human beings rather than animals. Secondly, the assertion is a threat and the figure is hyperbole. The figure of destroying a people “from under heaven” is consistently used elsewhere in threats (Exod 17:14; Deut 7:24; 9:14; 25:19; 29:19; 2 Kgs 14:27). Thirdly, given the focus on human beings, the second clause “everything that is in the earth” also does not cover animals.
There is a perspective implied in the threat that is made by God. In communicating with Noah, God adopts Noah’s perspective which would have concerned the land. When God says to Noah that he will “bring a flood of waters upon the eretz”, Noah’s perspective would have been the land where he was living. This is indicated by the language of bringing a flood that God uses with Noah. This is a natural way of describing both river-based floods and floods caused by tidal inundation. A high tide or a tidal wave brings a flood upon the coastal land; heavy rain and/or a snow melt in the mountains brings a flood when the river downstream bursts its banks. The language of bringing a flood upon the land is not the language that describes a global flood.
4) The expression “every living thing of all flesh” in Gen 6:19 covers birds, domestic beasts and creeping things. They are of various kinds and to be preserved as male and female pairs. The scope of “every living thing of all flesh” is set by the further specification of clean and unclean beasts and fowl that were to be taken into the ark. It could be held that a specification of “clean and unclean” is not explicitly made for creeping things (Gen 7:2-3, 8), but this is probably an over-literal insistence and the distinction is ranging over beasts, birds and creeping things. In the Law (Lev 20:25), the three categories were included in the clean/unclean regulations (e.g. Lev 11:31). These three categories then seem to “go together” in Gen 6:19-20 and are categories of “every living thing”.
This specification of “clean” and “unclean” is restrictive in scope. Within the Law the classification pertained to eating and it included marine life (Lev 11:46; 20:25). This law is the only guide to the interpretation of Genesis 6 and the question of what animals were taken on board. The classification in the Law is not comprehensive for all animal life and broadly speaking we can say that it covers a restricted range of animals, birds and creeping things of which the Israelites had knowledge and were in the habit of eating. The Law sought to regulate their eating. Similarly, in Noah’s case, the animals and birds (clean and unclean) would be that range known to him and classified with regard to eating.[2] The storybook image of elephants and tigers on an ark is not implied by “every living thing of all flesh”.
The expression “every living thing” translates a common and flexible Hebrew phrase (kal har) and the word for “living thing” (har) is also often translated “beast”. We should always note what Hebrew word is translated as “beast” as it could be behemah or har and a distinction is made between the two words in Gen 1:24. The phrase kal har occurs in Gen 1:28 in relation to the dominion of humankind over “every living thing”, but in Gen 1:30 the Hebrew expression is translated as “every beast”. In Gen 2:19-20 and 3:14 it is used in the expression “every beast of the field” and Gen 3:1 has “any beast of the field” using the same phrase. When the distinction “clean” and “unclean” is in focus the word behemah is used which would be more appropriate for a domestic distinction.
The expression “every living thing” can have a wide or narrow scope. In Gen 2:19-20 and 3:14 its scope is narrowed by the addition of “of the field” and it covers domestic beasts. The scope is similarly narrow in Gen 1:28 as it covers just “creeping things”. Moreover, Gen 1:28 is part of a general statement of animal husbandry (“dominion”, Gen 1:26-30) and focuses on the animals that humankind would husband. Here it is worth noting that Gen 1:30 is a practical direction for the first human pair about their husbandry. They are directed to both feed themselves and the animals over which they have dominion with plants (i.e. the produce of arable farming).[3] It is noteworthy that grass (Gen 1:11-12) is not specifically mentioned, but perhaps grass, as such, was not farmed.[4]
There is therefore an implication of arable and animal farming in the account of creation in Genesis 1, and this is an important detail to bear in mind when considering the scope of the flood. The global scope of the opening days of creation changes in Gen 1:24 when the sixth day begins. Commands are given to the human pair to have dominion over plants and animals; they are “given” the work of arable farming and animal husbandry.[5] This narrowing of focus in the account reflects the local scope of the second creation account in Genesis 2. This account bookends the creation and fall of man with comments about their tilling of the ground (Gen 2:5; 3:19). The account of flood has symmetry here with the account in Genesis 1 and 2: after the flood Noah becomes a tiller of the ground. The local focus of Gen 1:26-30 and 2:4b-3:24 sets the local scope for the reading of Genesis 6-9.
5) While there is a miracle implied in the unclean and clean animals coming to Noah, the record states that Noah was to take “all food” on board for the animals (Gen 6:21). This detail implies a local scope for the flood with the food taken on board being agricultural produce for what would have been any (clean and unclean) animals fed on arable produce. This food would have come from the surrounding area and be the sort of produce that could sustain the animals of that area. There is no need to hypothesize that Noah sought bamboo from China to feed Giant Pandas.
This restriction of scope implied by the practicalities of feeding is an important detail. The purpose of the ark was to “keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth” (Gen 7:3). This compares with the corresponding statement in the Gilgamesh Epic, “Whatever I had of the seed of all living creatures [I loaded] aboard her” (XI.83).[6] The expression “face of all the earth” is quoted from Gen 1:29, in connection with God’s assignment of plant bearing seed and trees to the male and the female for food. This connection indicates that the correct translation of the Hebrew is “face of all the land” and that the stress is on the “face” where these things grow. This implies that the purpose of the ark in keeping seed alive was not to replenish the globe but the local and now devastated country in which Noah lived and off which the people and animals had lived. Certainly, a local scope for “the face of the whole earth” is required for the story of Babel (Gen 11:4, 8-9), and elsewhere the expression denotes the extent of the Promised Land (Deut 11:25) and regions of Judah (1 Sam 30:16; 2 Sam 18:8).
6) A new expression of totality is introduced in Gen 7:4, 23, “every living substance that I have made will I destroy from of the face of the ground” (7:4) “every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground” (7:23). In Gen 7:23 the scope is delimited by “both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven”. There is no new information in this scoping that we have not already considered. The use of “ground” (adamah) rather than “earth” or “land” (eretz) draws in the background of the local creation of Genesis 2 rather than the global creation of Genesis 1.
The figure of a “face” of the ground is an import detail which conveys the idea of supporting life. We have noted the use of “face” in Gen 1:29 in relation to the land (eretz) and the contextual mention of plant bearing seed and trees. In Gen 2:6, the “face of the ground” is mentioned in an explicit agricultural context. Gen 3:19 contains a pun on “face” such that Adam will till the ground in the sweat of his “face”. Cain is driven from the face of the ground which, as a tiller of the soil, he feared. He was turned into (initially) a wanderer—the opposite of a farmer. The circumstances that gave rise to the flood revolve around the face of the ground: men multiply on the face of the ground (Gen 6:1, 7) and this leads to pressure on the land’s resources and consequent violence.
When we consider “every living substance that I have made will I destroy from of the face of the ground” we should do so in the light of this consistent pattern in the concept of a “face”—the scope comprises those living off the land, man and beast. The term “substance” is rare in the Hebrew and only used elsewhere in Deut 11:6 for the substance of a man’s household. Its use here in Genesis is a further pointer to the motif of a farming community: the living substance of each of the farming households would be destroyed in the flood. There is no indication in this language of a global flood in which kangaroos and tigers are involved.
7) In Gen 7:14, the animals that go into the ark are “every beast” (kal har) after its kind, “all the cattle” (kal behemah) after their kind, “every creeping thing” after its kind, “every fowl” after its kind, and “every bird” of “every sort” (Gen 7:14). The text echoes Gen 1:24 in its distinction of “beast” (har) and “cattle” (behemah) and the use of the idea of a “kind”; “male and female of all flesh”. We have argued that the scope of kal behemah is restricted to the clean and unclean beasts (behemah, Gen 7:2-3, 8). The categories of “clean” and “unclean” are also applied to birds and unless we are over-literal, to creeping things. The expression “every beast” unqualified by “of the earth” or “of the field” has its first occurrence here in Gen 7:14.
In Gen 6:19, we have “kal har of all flesh”, but the Hebrew is better translated “every living thing (kal har) of all flesh”, as Gen 6:20 has the corresponding verb “to keep alive (hayah) in the inclusio position. Accordingly, Gen 7:14 and its kal har should be “every living thing”. It is broader than the domestic scope of “all the cattle” (kal behemah).
In Gen 6:19-20, we have the “two by two” instruction which is later expanded in terms of clean and unclean beasts, fowl and creeping things (Gen 7:2-3, 8). This suggests that “every living thing” (kal har) is an expression of general scope for whatever is being denoted by “all the cattle” (kal behemah), “every creeping thing”, “every fowl”, and “every bird” (Gen 7:14)—whatever was classified as “clean” and “unclean”. This reading is supported by Gen 8:1 which just has kal har and kal behemah.
8) A new phrase is used in Gen 7:21, which is best rendered, “all swarming creatures that swarm upon the land”. This specification is found in the Law in describing the class of “flying creeping things” (Lev 11:20-23), as well as other “creeping things” (Lev 11:29, 41-44). A number of creatures are identified in the Law under this description as clean and unclean. In the flood account, it would seem that the creeping things that swarm are a more precise identification of the “creeping things” so far mentioned. As such, “all swarming creatures” is as restricted as the other living things categorized as clean and unclean.
9) There is a distinction to draw between an expression of intention to destroy all flesh and any description of what actually happened. The description of the destruction of life in Gen 7:21-22 restricts the area affected to “the dry land” (NASB, RSV). The underlying expression is not very common and used elsewhere only of dry river beds (4x) and dry sea beds (2x) (Exod 14:21; Josh 3:17; 4:18; 2 Kgs 2:8; Ezek 30:12; Hag 2:6). We can infer then that the term for “dry land” does not denote the planet, or the land-masses of the earth; rather, the dry land here is that land related to river basins and delta basins—land susceptible to river flooding or the ingress of the sea. It is here that all flesh died rather than elsewhere on the earth.
10) The “new creation” after the flood is described in language that evokes the Genesis 1 account of creation (Gen 1:24-30). This makes the new creation a type of the Genesis creation and this intention of the narrative explains the “global appearance” of the language of “all”. Thus, “every living thing”, fowl, cattle and creeping thing after their kinds are to be “fruitful and multiply” in the land (Gen 8:17). This new creation is a microcosm of the Genesis creation; it is the Genesis creation established in Mesopotamia.
11) The final note of totality concerns the edict about animal life after the flood. In Gen 9:2 the expressions “every beast of the earth” (har eretz) and “all the fishes of the sea” appear for the first time in the flood account. These creatures would now live in “fear and dread” and this raises the question of why this consequence should be imposed.
The mention of every “beast of the earth” and all the “fishes of the sea” at this point in the text should be compared with the terms of the covenant made with Noah in Gen 9:10.
And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, even of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. Gen 9:10 (KJV revised)
There are three scope statements in this assertion. The first is “every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle”; the second is “even of every beast of the earth with you”; and the third is “from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth”.
The second scope statement uses “beast of the earth” for the second time in the flood account. It is not saying there were some wild beasts in the ark; rather it is a repetition for emphasis of the first scope statement: “even of every beast of the earth with you”. The third scope statement is a further repetition embracing the same fowl and cattle and every living creature in the ark. It is better rendered “out of all[7] that go out of the ark, in respect of[8] every beast of the earth”.
In Gen 9:2 there are “beasts”, “fowl” and “creeping things”. This is disguised in the KJV because it translates the relevant Hebrew as that which “moveth” rather than “creepeth” upon the earth. Along with the mention of fish, we have a fourfold division of creatures.
In Gen 9:3 there is an extension of the food chain for humankind to include every creeping thing over and above those previously classified as “clean”. The food chain is extended to include “every beast of the earth” in addition to clean beasts of the field. The giving of “every” living thing for food is compared to God previously having given “every” green plant for food. Prior to the flood, humankind ate of every green plant (the arable crops) but was restricted to eating clean animals; after the flood, just as they had eaten of every green plant, now they could eat of every living thing. The reason for this extension lies in the circumstances that gave rise to the flood, viz. the pressure on the resources of the land and the violence that this caused.
Conclusion
In this article we have examined the “all” and “every” expressions of the flood account. There are a large number and they give the impression of totality. There are many indications in the text that the scope of “all” and “every” is restricted and local to Noah and the land in which he was living. Nevertheless, the narrative has been written to signal to the reader the type that the old creation was being destroyed and a new creation was being created. We should not mistake language designed to convey a type for language describing a global flood.
[1] C. A. Hill, “The Noachian Flood: Universal or Local”, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith 54/3 (2002): 170-183 (171) calls this the best argument, biblically speaking, for a worldwide flood. She argues for a local flood.
[2] Hence, the command in Gen 9:3 is an extension of the range of what animals were permissible for eating and not the introduction of a permission for eating meat. The command has a practical relevance to the story of Noah’s flood if, as we have argued, one of the underlying causes was the violence of marauders towards the farming communities. Relaxing a restriction on eating would ease future pressure on food supplies.
[3] Of course, fish are not mentioned within such husbandry as the feedstuffs specified are arable and related to land husbandry.
[4] The mention of arable farming does not imply that humans were not meat eaters. A positive direction to farm necessarily does not imply a negative prohibition regarding animal husbandry or hunting. Rather, the direction to have dominion over animals would have embraced all aspects of husbandry; contra H. A. Whittaker, Genesis 1-2-3-4 (Cannock: Biblia, 1986), 43-44.
[5] Hence, Gen 1:30 is not saying that all animals were vegetarian; rather, it is directing the first human pair to feed the animals that came under their dominion with arable produce; contra Whittaker, Genesis 1-2-3-4, 43-44.
[6] Our text is taken from the convenient edition of A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (2nd Ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949).
[7] The Hebrew prepositional phrase occurs in Gen 6:19 translated as “of” and “out of”.
[8] The Hebrew preposition is used in a similar way in Gen 23:10 and compare Lev 11:42 and 16:21.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One