Genesis 6:5-8: 5 "When the LORD saw how wicked everyone on earth was and how evil their thoughts were all the time, 6 He was sorry that He had ever made them and put them on the earth. He was so filled with regret 7 that He said, 'I will wipe out these people I have created, and also the animals and the birds, because I am sorry that I made any of them.' 8 But the LORD was pleased with Noah." (GNB)

A superficial examination of Genesis 6:5-8 makes it appear like God is an erring mortal who has made a mistake and now is sorry and wants to start over! Many people have had a difficult time with this and wonder how such a thing could be in the Bible. There are however some possible suggestions that may be helpful. We must realize that we cannot ever fully understand all that God is doing or has done. If, however, we can suggest even a plausible explanation for His "behavior" it helps us to realize that God may have good reasons for doing what He has done or is doing. This is not an attempt to suggest that we know exactly all the reasons why God has done a particular act. It should be clear however, that if we as feeble mortals can come to understand a possible explanation for something, we can be certain that God has many more explanations that we don't even know about. ( See General Principles #7 )

Let us look at a couple possible explanations for the flood in Noah's day. The goal is to do this in a way that helps us to understand God. We must try our best to put ourselves in His "shoes" for a few minutes and ask what we would have done if we had been in His situation as we understand it. ( General Principles #12 )

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God made a promise to the Snake/Serpent that was to have long term implications. He said, "I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring will crush your head and you will bite her offspring's heel." (Genesis 3:15, GNB)

God had suggested that sin leads to death (See Genesis 2:17) and He needed to demonstrate that with certainty before He could allow this earth's history to come to an end. But things were becoming so wicked that it appeared that humans might destroy themselves before God could demonstrate what needed to be demonstrated. (Genesis 6:11-13)

Furthermore, in order for there to be a fair trial of God's plan there would need to be at least a few people here on planet earth that were listening to Him and trying to follow His directions.

In Noah's day, it appeared that almost no one was listening to God anymore. It looked very likely that God would lose all contact with planet earth. It would then be only a matter of time until they would destroy themselves without God having a chance to demonstrate anything.

In light of this possibility, God called Noah, the last person who seemed to be listening to God, and asked him to spend the next one hundred and twenty years building a boat and preaching his warning message. One hundred and twenty years later, not a single person except Noah's immediate family agreed to get on the boat! This was confirmation of God's assertion that things were getting pretty bad. So God did what He had to do to maintain communication with planet earth He wiped out all of the wicked people leaving only Noah and his small family. If God had left Noah and his family to live among the wicked antediluvian world it would have been only a matter of time before God completely lost contact with the human race. This gave God one more chance to try to prepare people for the "right time" (See Galatians 4:4) when His only Son would come and demonstrate the truth of God's original statement about sin and its consequences.

Please always remember that all the people who died in the flood died the first death and they will be resurrected either in the first or the second resurrection. There is no place in the Bible that suggests that everyone who drowned in the flood will be lost. Isn't it possible that there was a small child, for example, who was savable, but his parents wouldn't take him/her to the boat to get on?

There is another plausible explanation which might have been a factor along with the explanation above, or may have been the most important reason for what happened. There were at least two-thirds of the angels and who knows how many other beings from other worlds watching very closely what was happening on planet earth. As they saw things going from bad to worst, they must have wondered what God was going to do. It is very likely that they discussed the situation among themselves and even offered suggestions to God about how to deal with "those rebels!" Human parents are often caught in similar situations and the natural tendency is to punish the wayward child.

Maybe the angels realized that wickedness had become very rampant and there was little chance that anyone would respond to any mild form of discipline. They may have approached God and suggested that He simply eliminate the whole bunch of these "rebellious humans." At that point God would no doubt have asked them about Noah. (Compare Job 1:8 and 2:3) Would it be fair to destroy Noah who was struggling against this overwhelming tide of sin? God may have said at that point, "I have a suggestion. Let's ask Noah to begin preaching to all those people on earth to see if any of them will respond. At the same time we will instruct him to build a boat so he and his family will be preserved when we send a flood to destroy all of the others." (Genesis 6:7,13; 7:23; 8:21; 2 Peter 2:5) The angels may then have said, "Okay, that seems fair."

So Noah was given his commission. He preached and built the boat. But no one responded to his appeals no matter what he said or did and finally the boat was finished. Then Noah made one final appeal as he and his family entered the boat. The flood came and destroyed everyone else.

At this point the angels must have felt that humans had learned their lesson and would straighten up their lives in the future!

The very next story in the Bible after Noah gets re-established is the story of the tower of Babel. (Genesis 11:1-9) The use of force in the form of a flood had not taught them anything! Even Noah's direct descendants didn't respect and love God any more than their predecessors. They built that tower to escape from the God they didn't trust when He promised not to send another flood!

A very important lesson had been learned from the flood. The use of force gets people's attention, but it almost never results in any real permanent reform. The angels had learned an important lesson about dealing with free moral agents.