Genesis 6:8

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) But Noah found grace.—This is the first place where grace is mentioned in the Bible, and with these words ends the Tôldôth Adam. It has traced man from his creation until his wickedness was so great that the Divine justice demanded his punishment. But it concludes with words of hope. Jehovah’s purpose was not extermination, but regeneration; and with Noah a higher and better order of things was to begin.

Benson Commentary

Genesis 6:8. Noah found grace — That is, he obtained mercy and favour; for although he was by nature corrupt and sinful, he had been renewed in the spirit of his mind, and by repentance and a lively faith, had obtained witness that he was righteous. This vindicates God’s justice in his displeasure against the world, and shows that he had examined the character of every person in it, before he pronounced it universally corrupt; for, there being one good man, he smiled upon him.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:8-11 Noah did not find favour in the eyes of men; they hated and persecuted him, because both by his life and preaching he condemned the world: but he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and this made him more truly honourable than the men of renown. Let this be our chief desire, let us labour that we may be accepted of him. When the rest of the world was wicked, Noah kept his integrity. God's good-will towards Noah produced this good work in him. He was a just man, that is, justified before God, by faith in the promised Seed. As such he was made holy, and had right principles; and was righteous in his conversation. He was not only honest, but devout; it was his constant care to do the will of God. God looks down upon those with an eye of favour, who sincerely look up to him with an eye of faith. It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it shows strong faith and resolution, to swim against the stream, and to appear for God when no one else appears for him; Noah did so. All kinds of sin were found among men. They corrupted God's worship. Sin fills the earth with violence, and this fully justified God's resolution to destroy the world. The contagion spread. When wickedness is become general, ruin is not far off; while there is a remnant of praying people in a nation, to empty the measure as it fills, judgments may be long kept off; but when all hands are at work to pull down the fences, by sin, and none stand in the gap to make up the breach, what can be expected but a flood of wrath?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. - Noah and his family are the only exceptions to this sweeping destruction. Hitherto we have met with distant and indirect intimations of the divine favor, and significant deeds of regard and acceptance. Now for the first time grace itself finds a tongue to express its name. Grace has its fountain in the divine breast. The stream has been flowing forth to Adam, Eve, Habel, Henok, and others, we hope, unknown to fame. By the time it reaches Noah it has found a name, by which it is recognized among people to this day. It is opposed to works as a source of blessing. Whither grace comes there merit cannot be. Hence, we learn even from the case of Noah that original sin asserts its presence in the whole race of Adam. This completes the circle of saving doctrine in regard to God that comes down from the antediluvian times. He intimates that the seed of the woman, an individual pre-eminently so called, will bruise the serpent's head. He clothes our first parents with coats of skin - an earnest and an emblem of the better, the moral clothing of the soul. He regards Habel and his offering. He accepts him that in faith does well. He translates Enok, who walked with him. His Spirit, we learn, has been striving with antediluvian man. Here are the Spirit of God and the seed of the woman. Here are clothing, regarding, accepting, translating. Here, then, is salvation provided and applied, begun, continued, and completed. And last, though not least, grace comes out to view, the eternal fountain of the whole. On the part of man, also, we have repenting, believing, confessing, offering, calling on the name of the Lord, and walking with God.

The two parts of the document which is now closed are as distinct from each other as it is from the following one. They combine, in fact, to form the needful preliminary to the fourth document. The genealogy brings us to the leading agent in the succeeding narrative; the description of the corruption of the human race furnishes the occasion for his agency. The third is therefore the prologue, as the fifth is the epilogue, to the fourth document, in which the main action lies.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord—favor. What an awful state of things when only one man or one family of piety and virtue was now existing among the professed sons of God!

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Obtained mercy and favour; which is noted to show that Noah was so far guilty of the common corruption of human nature, that he needed God’s grace and mercy to pardon and preserve him from the common destruction.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This man and his family were the only exception to the general apostasy; God always reserves some, in the worst of times, for himself; there is a remnant, according to the election of grace; it was but a small one, and that now appeared; and this was owing to the grace of God, and his choice upon that, and not to the merits of the creature. This grace, which Noah found and shared in, was the favour and good will of God; Noah was grateful and acceptable to him; he was well pleased with him in Christ; his person, services, and sacrifices, were acceptable to him through the Beloved; though he might not be acceptable in the eyes of men, who derided him for his piety and devotion, and especially for his prediction of the flood, and making an ark to save him and his family from it; yet he was very acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, and grateful in his sight, and was favoured with grace from him, who is the God of all grace, and with all the supplies of it: the Jerusalem Targum is, he"found grace and mercy;''the grace he found was not on account of his own merit, but on account of the mercy of God: and this shows that he was not without sin, or he would have stood in no need of the mercy and grace of God to save him; and as he found grace and favour in things spiritual, so in things temporal; he found favour with God, and therefore he and his family were spared, when the whole world of the ungodly were destroyed; he found favour with God, and therefore was directed by him to build an ark, for the saving of himself and his; he found favour with him, and therefore he had the honour of being the preserver of mankind, and the father of a new world.

Geneva Study Bible

But Noah {i} found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

(i) God was merciful to him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. But Noah] The sudden introduction of Noah’s name implies that there had been some previous account, in J, describing the contrast of Noah’s virtue with the sinfulness of his contemporaries. In the composite narrative of Genesis many features have necessarily disappeared in the process of combining the different traditions. Possibly, the passage at the beginning of this chapter (Genesis 6:1-4) was substituted for one that had introduced the mention of Noah’s piety in contrast with the wickedness of man.

found grace] This familiar expression occurs here for the first time in the Bible. For the expression “find grace” cf. Genesis 19:19, Genesis 32:5, Genesis 33:8; Genesis 33:10; Genesis 33:15. The rendering “grace” is sometimes altered to “favour,” cf. Genesis 18:3, Genesis 30:27. It is implied that the “favour” which Noah “finds” in the eyes of Jehovah is based on moral grounds. The phrase, common in J, is not found in E or P.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - But Noah found grace. Hen; the same letters as in Noah, but reversed (cf. Genesis 18:3; Genesis 39:4; 1 Kings 11:19). The present is the first occurrence of the word in Scripture. "Now for the first time grace finds a tongue to express its name" (Murphy); and it clearly signifies the same thing as in Romans 4, 5, Ephesians 2, Galatians 2, the gratuitous favor of God to sinful men.

Genesis 6:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

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.).

(Note: When, on the other hand, the supporters of the angel marriages maintain that it is only on this interpretation that the necessity for the flood, i.e., for the complete destruction of the whole human race with the exception of righteous Noah, can be understood, not only is there no scriptural foundation for this argument, but it is decidedly at variance with those statements of the Scriptures, which speak of the corruption of the men whom God had created, and not of a race that had arisen through an unnatural connection of angels and men and forced their way into God's creation. If it were really the case, that it would otherwise be impossible to understand where the necessity could lie, for all the rest of the human race to be destroyed and a new beginning to be made, whereas afterwards, when Abraham was chosen, the rest of the human race was not only spared, but preserved for subsequent participation in the blessings of salvation: we should only need to call Job to mind, who also could not comprehend the necessity for the fearful sufferings which overwhelmed him, and was unable to discover the justice of God, but who was afterwards taught a better lesson by God Himself, and reproved for his rash conclusions, as a sufficient proof of the deceptive and futile character of all such human reasoning.) But this is not the true state of the case. The Scriptures expressly affirm, that after the flood the moral corruption of man was the same as before the flood; for they describe it in Genesis 8:21 in the very same words as in Genesis 6:5 : and the reason they assign for the same judgment not being repeated, is simply the promise that God would no more smite and destroy all living, as He had done before-an evident proof that God expected no change in human nature, and out of pure mercy and long-suffering would never send a second flood. "Now, if the race destroyed had been one that sprang from angel-fathers, it is difficult to understand why no improvement was to be looked for after the flood; for the repetition of any such unnatural angel-tragedy was certainly not probable, and still less inevitable" (Philippi).)

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 (1 Samuel 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.