Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 6:3

"And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not strive with man for ever, for that he also is flesh: yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty years." — Genesis 6:3 (ASV)

And the Lord said. — As the Sethites are now the fallen race, it is their covenant Jehovah who determines to reduce the extreme duration of human life to that which, under the most favorable sanitary influences, might still be its normal length.

My spirit shall not always strive with man. — The meaning of this much-contested clause is really settled by the main purpose and context of the verse, which is the Divine determination to shorten human life.

Whether, then, God’s spirit is the animating breath spoken of in Genesis 2:7; Genesis 7:22, by which human life is sustained, or the spiritual part of man—his conscience and moral sense, God’s best gift to him—in opposition to his flesh, the struggle from now on is not to be indefinitely prolonged.

In the first case, the struggle spoken of is that between the elements of life and death in the body; in the second, it refers to the moral probation to which man is subject. The versions generally take the former meaning and translate “shall not dwell” or “abide”; but there is much in favor of the rendering “shall strive,” though the verb more exactly means to rule, preside over, sit as judge. Literally, then, it signifies that the Divine gift of life shall not rule in man “for ever”—that is, for a period as protracted as antediluvian life. (Compare to Deuteronomy 15:17 and other such instances.)

With man. — Heb., with the adam: spoken with special reference to the Sethites.

For that he also is flesh. — So all the versions; but many commentators, to avoid an Aramaism which does not occur again until the later Psalms, translate, “in their erring he is (= they are) flesh.”

But no reason for shortening human life can be found in this commonplace assertion. If Abraham brought these records with him from Ur, we have an explanation of the acknowledged fact that Aramaisms do occur in the earlier portions of the Bible.

Man, then, is “also” flesh; that is, his body is of the same nature as those of the animals. In spite of his noble gifts and precedence, he must submit to a life of the same moderate duration as that allotted to them.