Genesis 6:3

3. My Spirit shall not always strive with man דון , here rendered strive, occurs nowhere else, and its meaning is doubtful . Our translation assumes that it is the same as דין , following in this respect Symmachus ( ου κρινει ) and Kimchi . This is not impossible, as the verbs עו and עי often interchange their middle radical . Gesenius renders the word to be made low, depressed; (so Vatablus and Ewald;) and, if this be the meaning, the sense of the text would seem to be, my Spirit shall not be trampled on, despised by man forever; language of weariness after long forbearance . Some (as Grotius) have favoured the translation ensheathed, and understand that Jehovah here threatens that his spirit (the soul breathed into man by God) shall not forever be sheathed in the human body, as a sword in the scabbard; that is, the human race shall be cut off . But most of the ancient versions, as well as the Targums, render, my spirit shall not abide, or dwell among men; and understand the words to threaten that the spirit breathed into man at his creation shall no more dwell on the earth, now that man has become brutalized with fleshly lusts . T . Lewis somewhat modifies this view, understanding by my spirit not simply the life principle, but the spiritual or rational in man, as distinguished from the carnal (the πνευμα , as distinguished from the ψυχη ,) and, moreover, considers it a sorrowing prediction rather than a threat . The meaning shall dwell or abide, is more in harmony with the context than strive. The reason of the threat, or prediction, is because he is flesh. This would seem to be a reason why the Spirit should continue to strive, unless, indeed, we understand it as the language of weariness and hopelessness in view of man’s degradation. But this expression furnishes a reason, most forcible and appropriate, why God should refuse to allow his image to be longer defiled upon the earth. Man’s kinship with God, his sonship, (comp. Genesis 6:2,) gives special flagrancy to his guilt. Man has dishonoured the divine image; it is the “Spirit of God that giveth him understanding;” that he has defiled, and, therefore, that “Spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” Ecclesiastes 12:7. It was a resolution made in divine justice and mercy. It was a fearful sin for a son of God to prostitute his highest powers in the service of the flesh, a sin that called for the divine wrath. But the very enormity of the sin leads a merciful God to resolve on blotting out the race, to stop the ever-increasing flood of wretchedness that flows from increasing wickedness. So he drove man away from the tree of life, lest he should secure an immortality of sin.

For that he also is flesh Or, because of their transgression, he is flesh, (Ewald, Nordh., Furst, Gesen.,) that is, he is all flesh. The flesh the body, with its appetites and passions, has risen above the spirit. The divine has become quenched in the carnal. Jehovah describes the being whose nobler part was made an image of himself, as now wholly flesh. Flesh and spirit were originally made in happy, harmonious adjustment; but now all is flesh. From this text arose the Pauline phraseology carnal and spiritual, flesh and spirit, so common in the epistle to the Romans. The difficult word בשׂגם may also be construed with what precedes, thus disregarding the Masoretic punctuation and reading: My spirit shall not dwell with men forever in their errors . He is flesh, and his days, etc . In this case, the word is composed of the preposition ב , and pronominal suffix ם , connected with the construct infinitive of the verb שׁגג .

His days His allotted time on the earth .

Hundred and twenty years This language is used of man, the race with whom God’s Spirit dwelt, not of individual men . It refers, then, to the duration of the then existing race, and not, as some have supposed, to the length of human life . It was then in the four hundred and eightieth year of Noah’s life that the antediluvian world received its sentence; but it was allowed a respite of one hundred and twenty years, during which, according to 2 Peter 2:8, Noah was a “preacher of righteousness,” “when once the longsuffering of God waited” for the world’s repentance, “while the ark was a preparing . ” 1 Peter 3:20.