John Calvin Commentary Genesis 6:5

"And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." — Genesis 6:5 (ASV)

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great. Moses develops the subject to which he had just alluded: that God was neither too harsh nor precipitate in exacting punishment from the wicked people of the world. He introduces God as speaking in a human way, by a figure of speech that ascribes human emotions to God, because he could not otherwise express what was very important to be known—namely, that God was not induced hastily, or for a slight cause, to destroy the world.

For by the word saw, he indicates long-continued patience, as if he would say that God had not proclaimed his sentence to destroy humanity until, after having well observed and long considered their case, he saw them to be past recovery. Also, what follows has considerable emphasis: that their wickedness was great in the earth.

He might have pardoned sins of a less aggravated character; if impiety had reigned in only one part of the world, other regions might have remained free from punishment. But now, when iniquity had reached its highest point and so pervaded the whole earth that integrity no longer possessed a single corner, it follows that the time for punishment was more than fully arrived. A prodigious wickedness, then, reigned everywhere, so that the whole earth was covered with it. From this we perceive that it was not overwhelmed with a deluge of waters until it had first been immersed in the pollution of wickedness.

Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart. Moses has traced the cause of the deluge to external acts of iniquity; he now ascends higher and declares that people were not only perverse by habit and by the custom of evil living, but that wickedness was too deeply seated in their hearts to leave any hope of repentance.

He certainly could not have more forcibly asserted that the depravity was such that no moderate remedy could cure it. It may indeed happen that people will sometimes plunge themselves into sin while yet something of a sound mind remains; but Moses teaches us that the mind of those about whom he speaks was so thoroughly imbued with iniquity that the whole presented nothing but what was to be condemned.

For the language he employs is very emphatic: it seemed enough to have said that their heart was corrupt. But not content with this word, he expressly asserts, every imagination of the thoughts of the heart; and adds the word only, as if he would deny that there was a drop of good mixed with it.

Continually. Some explain this word to mean from the beginning of infancy, as if he would say that the depravity of people is very great from the time of their birth. But the more correct interpretation is that the world had then become so hardened in its wickedness, and was so far from any amendment or from entertaining any feeling of penitence, that it grew worse and worse as time advanced. Furthermore, it was not the folly of a few days, but an inveterate depravity that children, having received it as by hereditary right, transmitted from their parents to their descendants.

Nevertheless, though Moses here speaks of the wickedness that at that time prevailed in the world, the general doctrine is properly and consistently drawn from this. Nor do those who extend it to the whole human race rashly distort the passage. So when David says,

That all have revolted, that they have become unprofitable, that is, none who does good, no not one; their throat is an open sepulcher; there is no fear of God before their eyes (Psalms 5:10; Psalms 14:3).

He deplores, truly, the impiety of his own age; yet Paul (Romans 3:12) does not hesitate to extend it to all people of every age, and with justice. For it is not a mere complaint concerning a few people, but a description of the human mind when left to itself, destitute of the Spirit of God. It is therefore very proper that the obstinacy of the people who had greatly abused the goodness of God should be condemned in these words; yet, at the same time, true human nature, when deprived of the grace of the Spirit, is clearly exhibited.