Genesis Deeper ㉖ Grieved in His Heart · Was God Sorry That He Made Humankind? (Genesis 6:1~8)
This series takes one Bible passage at a time and looks at it a little more closely. The images are free to use in worship, class, and on social media.
When men began to multiply on the surface of the ground, and daughters were born to them, God’s sons saw that men’s daughters were beautiful, and they took any that they wanted for themselves as wives. Yahweh said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; so his days will be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God’s sons came in to men’s daughters and had children with them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil. Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. Yahweh said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground: man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in Yahweh’s eyes.
Genesis 6:1~8 (World English Bible)
1. As the Land Filled with People
Genesis 5 ended with a list of ten generations, from Adam to Noah. Chapter 6 gathers up those long years in a single line: “When men began to multiply on the surface of the ground.” People are spreading across the land, and sons and daughters are being born.
Verses 2~4 that follow are counted among the shortest and hardest passages in Genesis. The text does not explain who ‘God’s sons’ are or who ‘the Nephilim’ were. For a long time readers have understood this passage in several different ways. This article does not choose one of them. It follows what the text clearly writes. In verse 2, God’s sons see that men’s daughters are beautiful and take any they want as wives. In verse 3, Yahweh sets the days of man at one hundred twenty years.
Then in verses 5~6 the weight of the story shifts toward God. Yahweh sees that the wickedness of man is great in the earth, and he is sorry that he had made man on the earth. Verse 7 says it once more: “for I am sorry that I have made them.” When God made people, he saw everything he had made, “and, behold, it was very good.” (1:31) Now the same God is written as being sorry that he made them. That raises a question. Was God sorry that he made humankind?
2. Two Easy Readings
If we hear ‘was sorry’ as regret in our everyday sense, it is uncomfortable. People usually regret something when they find out later what they did not know, or when they realize their judgment was wrong. Read that way, verse 6 makes God someone who did not know, when he made people, that things would turn out like this. God becomes small.
So some read the word only as a figure of speech borrowed from human language. In this view, God’s actions are described in terms of human feelings so that people can understand them. Read this way, the discomfort fades. Yet one question remains. Why does the text go so far as to mention God’s ‘heart’?
The first reading takes ‘was sorry’ to mean ‘my judgment was wrong,’ and the second reading lightens its weight. They pull in opposite directions, but they have one thing in common. Both stop reading verse 6 at ‘Yahweh was sorry.’ Verse 6 does not end there.
3. Going Deeper · Lamech’s Two Words in the Heart of God
Here is the answer first. The text does not write God’s being sorry as regret in our sense, that is, as ‘my judgment was wrong.’ In the same sentence it adds ‘and it grieved him in his heart,’ and so writes God’s being sorry as something that pained his heart. And behind ‘was sorry’ and ‘grieved’ stand two Hebrew words that share their roots with ‘comfort’ and ‘toil.’ Those are the words Lamech used in the chapter just before, when he named Noah.
Here is verse 6 in full.
“Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.” (Genesis 6:6)
And here, one chapter earlier, are the words of Lamech, Noah’s father, when Noah was born.
“…This one will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, caused by the ground which Yahweh has cursed.” (Genesis 5:29)
In English, ‘comfort’ and ‘was sorry’ look like completely different words. In Hebrew they come from the same root (נחם). ‘Toil’ and ‘grieved’ also come from one root (עצב). In all of Genesis, these two roots appear together in one verse in only two places: 5:29 and 6:6. In 5:29 it is people who toil and long for comfort. In 6:6 it is God who is sorry and grieved.
Following the path of the root behind ‘toil’ makes it even clearer that this word has moved from people to God. In 3:16 the root is used for the woman’s pain in childbirth, and in 3:17 for the man’s labor in working the ground. In 5:29 it is used for the toil of the hands that Lamech spoke of. All of these name the pain people had carried since leaving the garden. The World English Bible renders this one root with four different English words: ‘pain’ (3:16), ‘labor’ (3:17), ‘toil’ (5:29), and ‘grieved’ (6:6). The first place in Genesis where this root is used of God is 6:6.
The word ‘heart’ is not there by chance either. Verse 5 says that “every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil.” Verse 6 says that “it grieved him in his heart.” In Hebrew, the same word, ‘his heart,’ stands in both verses, one right after the other. When God saw that the human heart was continually only evil, God’s heart was grieved. Here is the answer to the question left open earlier, why the text goes so far as to mention God’s heart. The text does not lighten this sorrow into a figure of speech. It places it in the heart of God, standing face to face with the human heart.
Nowhere does the text say that God did not know something. The text says God’s heart was grieved, and for that grief it uses the root once used for the pain of childbirth and the toil of the ground. So the God of verse 6 is not someone who belatedly discovered that his judgment was wrong. He is someone whose heart ached because of people. That does not mean God simply leaves evil alone. In verse 7 God says he will destroy man from the surface of the ground. The text sets the word of judgment and the grieving heart side by side.
4. Word Study · Was Sorry · Grieved · Heart
① was sorry · vayyinnachem(וַיִּנָּחֶם). It shares its root with ‘will comfort’ (yenachamenu) in 5:29, but its form is different. For this form, lexicons list ‘to regret,’ ‘to be grieved,’ and also ‘to be comforted.’ In Genesis 38:12 exactly the same form is used of Judah after he lost his wife. There the World English Bible translates it “…Judah was comforted…”. The same form can be translated ‘was sorry’ in one place and ‘was comforted’ in another, because this word describes a heart that is deeply stirred. So there is no reason to pull out the single sense ‘to regret’ and read it as ‘my judgment was wrong.’ Verse 6 adds ‘and it grieved him in his heart’ in the same sentence, showing that this stirring was grief.
② grieved · vayyit’atsev(וַיִּתְעַצֵּב). It comes from the same root (עצב) as the pain and labor of chapter 3 and the toil of 5:29. This is a reflexive form, in which the pain turns inward, so it is close to ‘to be pained within.’ In Genesis this reflexive form appears in two places, 6:6 and 34:7. In 34:7 Jacob’s sons hear what has happened to their family: “…The men were grieved, and they were very angry…”.
③ heart · libbo(לִבּוֹ). It means ‘his heart.’ In verse 5 it refers to the human heart, and in verse 6 to God’s heart. The World English Bible translates it ‘man’s heart’ in verse 5 and ‘his heart’ in verse 6. Across the two verses, the same word sets people and God face to face.
5. One More Thing · In the Same Eyes That Saw the Evil
Verse 5 begins with “Yahweh saw that…”. In Hebrew the structure is ‘Yahweh saw that such and such was so.’ This structure is familiar from Genesis 1. God saw the light, that it was good. He saw the land and the seas, that they were good. And at the end, he saw everything that he had made, and it was very good. After chapter 1, the next place where God is written as seeing ‘that’ something was so is 6:5. This time what he saw was not something good but great wickedness.
Verse 8 closes the story with those same eyes: “But Noah found favor in Yahweh’s eyes.” Here the World English Bible keeps the Hebrew wording ‘in Yahweh’s eyes.’ They are the very eyes that saw the wickedness filling the earth. The word ‘favor’ (chen, חֵן) appears here for the first time in the Bible. Noah’s name (נֹחַ) and favor (חֵן) are also written with the same two letters, only in reverse order.
The story of God’s grieving heart does not end with that grief. The son whom Lamech named with the hope ‘This one will comfort us’ stands on the last line of this passage as a man who found favor in God’s eyes.
6. For Us Today
This passage leaves us with one message. When God saw human evil, it grieved him in his heart.
Verse 6 does not portray God as someone keeping score from a distance and correcting his records. It describes God’s heart with a word for pain. It is the same root used for the pain of childbirth and the toil of working the ground, the very pain people had carried since leaving the garden. And that grief arose over the people God had made with his own hands.
We too have times when our hearts ache because of someone close to us. A coworker we trusted turns away, a growing child goes astray, or we fall out badly with family we have shared many years with. At such times it is easy to treat an aching heart as weakness and hurry to cover it up. Verse 6 does not hide God’s grief. If someone is making your heart ache today, may today be a day when you remember, even once, that God’s heart also ached because of people.
“God whose heart was grieved as you looked on people, help us remember that you too have felt in your heart the pain that people go through. When our hearts ache because of the people beside us, keep us from hurrying to cover that pain, and even within it, help us keep caring for them. May the gracious gaze that rested on Noah rest also on those we meet today. Amen.”
🕊 How to Use This in Ministry
Opening question
Ask, “How did you feel when something you really cared about got broken?” and listen to a few children. Then say, “The Bible says that God’s heart was grieved,” and move into the passage.
Activity
First, show the image captioned ‘Sorry that he had made man’ from today’s images and ask, “Why do you think this man has a face like that?” After hearing a few answers, explain that this picture is not a picture of God. It is a scene chosen to help us imagine the heart in verse 6. Next, read verses 5~6 together. Divide the board into two columns and write The human heart on the left and God’s heart on the right. Have the children find what verse 5 and verse 6 each say about the heart and write each phrase in its own column. The left column gets ‘every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil,’ and the right gets ‘it grieved him in his heart.’ Finally, read verse 8 together and show the image captioned ‘Noah found favor in Yahweh’s eyes’. Then say, “Even at the time when God’s heart was grieved, Noah found favor in God’s eyes.”
Application
Give each child a small card and have them write “People God cares about” at the top. Underneath, they write their own name, the name of one family member, and the name of one friend. When they finish, they pray one short line for each of the three people on the card, then take the card home.
🖼️ Today’s Four Images · Press and hold or right click to save
When men began to multiply |
Daughters were born to them |
Sorry that he had made man |
Noah found favor in Yahweh’s eyes |
📄 Image license CC0 (public domain) · Free to use, modify, and redistribute without attribution.
🤖 These images were created with AI (Grok).
📖 Genesis Deeper ⑥ The Day the Land Filled and People Were Made · Genesis 1:24~31, where God made people and saw that everything he had made was ‘very good’
Origin Bible · Mission Zedero
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✍️ This article was written with the help of AI and reviewed by a person.
The text is CC BY-NC 4.0. You are free to use it for noncommercial purposes with attribution.
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