“And HaShem saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And HaShem regretted that He had made man upon the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”
—Bereishit 6:5–6
These words are among the most severe and haunting passages in the Torah. Humanity had not merely committed isolated sins. Human civilization had become so corrupted that violence, exploitation, and moral lawlessness defined the world. The Torah describes a society in which the inclination of the human heart was directed continually toward evil and in which the earth itself had become filled with violence.
The passage also presents an immediate theological difficulty. How can God, who knows all things, “regret” having created humanity? How can the Creator, who is not human, experience grief in His heart? Did God discover that His creation had gone wrong? Did He change His mind because events developed in a way He had not anticipated?
An orthodox understanding must begin with the foundational truth that God is not a human being. He has no body, no physical form, no human passions, and none of the limitations associated with created beings. He does not acquire new information, become surprised, make mistakes, or discover that His plans have failed. The Torah’s language must therefore be understood in a manner consistent with the absolute unity, knowledge, and perfection of God.
The Torah Speaks in Human Language
The Torah frequently describes God through language drawn from human experience. It speaks of the “hand of God,” the “eyes of God,” the “anger of God,” and God “descending” to observe human events. These expressions do not mean that God possesses a physical body, occupies a location, or undergoes emotional changes in the manner of a human being. They communicate divine actions and judgments in words that human beings can understand.
When the Torah says that God “regretted” creating humanity and that He was “grieved in His heart,” it is not teaching that God made an error. It is describing a change in the manner in which God would relate to humanity. The generation of the Flood had transformed the conditions of the world through its own conduct. God’s relationship with that generation would therefore move from patience to judgment.
The change was not in God’s knowledge or perfection. The change was in humanity and, consequently, in the divine judgment appropriate to humanity’s conduct.
The Hebrew word translated as “regretted” is vayinachem, from the root nun-chet-mem. This root can carry several related meanings, including regret, consolation, relenting, or a change in disposition. In this context, it communicates that the continued existence of humanity in its present condition could no longer be sustained. The Creator who had declared the world “very good” now confronted a human society that had deliberately corrupted the purpose for which it had been created.
The Torah expresses this judgment as divine grief so that we will understand the moral seriousness of what had occurred. Human evil is not insignificant before God. Violence, exploitation, and corruption are not merely unfortunate social conditions. They are rebellions against the order, dignity, and justice that God established in creation.
Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom
God’s knowledge of future events does not eliminate human freedom or responsibility. The Torah repeatedly commands human beings to choose obedience, justice, and life. Commandments, warnings, reward, punishment, repentance, and judgment would have little meaning if human conduct were merely the unavoidable performance of a predetermined script.
The Rambam teaches that human beings possess free will. A person may choose the path of righteousness or the path of wickedness. This freedom is necessary for moral responsibility. If people were compelled to act as they do, there would be no justice in commanding them, correcting them, rewarding them, or punishing them.
At the same time, God’s knowledge is complete. These truths are not contradictory simply because the manner of divine knowledge exceeds human understanding. God knows human choices without forcing people to make those choices. His knowledge does not function as human prediction, nor does it cause sin.
Therefore, God did not “regret” because He had failed to foresee humanity’s corruption. Nor was He surprised by the generation of the Flood. The language of regret describes God’s judgment of what humanity had freely become.
It would also be incorrect to say that God merely “hoped” humanity would behave differently, as though the future were hidden from Him. From a traditional Jewish perspective, God does not hope because He lacks knowledge. Rather, He creates human beings with genuine moral agency, commands them to pursue righteousness, gives them the ability to repent, and judges them according to the choices they actually make.
The grief described by the Torah is therefore not the sorrow of ignorance or disappointment. It is the Torah’s humanly understandable expression of divine opposition to evil.
Was Humanity Completely Evil?
Bereishit states that “every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This is an extraordinarily comprehensive condemnation. Yet it should not be misunderstood as teaching that human beings were created evil by nature or that every individual was incapable of performing any good act.
The Torah had already declared that humanity was created in the image of God. Human dignity and moral capacity remained part of creation. The problem was not that God had created humanity with an evil essence. The problem was that human beings had corrupted their way of life through repeated choices.
The description concerns the prevailing moral condition of the generation. Evil had become habitual, organized, and socially accepted. The Torah later explains that “the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” The word chamas, violence, suggests more than uncontrolled anger. It includes injustice, cruelty, oppression, robbery, and the abuse of power.
A civilization may continue to build cities, raise families, conduct commerce, and produce culture while becoming fundamentally corrupt. External order can conceal internal lawlessness. The generation of the Flood had reached the point at which violence was no longer an occasional violation of society’s standards. Violence had become the standard by which society operated.
Noah’s righteousness also demonstrates that the Torah is not declaring every human being evil without exception. Noah “was a righteous man, wholehearted in his generations,” and he “walked with God.” His presence does not weaken the Torah’s condemnation of the generation. It shows that righteousness remained possible even within a deeply corrupt society.
The generation was judged not because human beings were incapable of goodness, but because they had persistently rejected it.
The Meaning of Divine Grief
The Torah’s description of God’s grief teaches that divine judgment is not arbitrary. God does not destroy because He delights in destruction. Judgment comes in response to the corruption of the moral order.
This is important because the Flood should not be reduced to a vague symbol of social renewal. It was an act of divine judgment upon a world filled with corruption and violence. The Torah presents sin as having real consequences. Human freedom is genuine, but freedom does not mean immunity from judgment.
At the same time, the language of grief prevents us from imagining divine justice as cold, impulsive, or cruel. The Creator judges the world He made and the human beings created in His image. The destruction of life is not treated as morally trivial. The Torah describes the judgment in terms of grief precisely because creation has value.
God’s justice and mercy are not competing forces within Him. God is one. What human beings experience as mercy, patience, correction, or judgment are different manifestations of His unified will. Before the Flood, humanity experienced divine patience. When corruption became complete, that generation experienced divine judgment. After the Flood, Noah and his descendants received a renewed covenant and a renewed responsibility for the preservation of human life.
The narrative therefore moves from creation, to corruption, to judgment, and finally to covenantal restoration.
Noah and the Responsibility of the Righteous
Noah stands in contrast to his generation. He did not become righteous because his society supported righteousness. He remained faithful while the society around him had normalized corruption.
This is one of the enduring lessons of the passage. Torah does not permit us to excuse wrongdoing simply because it is common. The fact that an action is culturally accepted, politically defended, economically profitable, or practiced by a majority does not make it righteous.
Noah demonstrates that an individual can remain responsible even in a corrupt generation. He could not reform the entire world, but he could walk with God, obey the divine command, preserve his household, and become the beginning of a renewed humanity.
Yet Noah’s example should not be romanticized. He lived through the destruction of the world he knew. Righteousness does not always prevent catastrophe, but it determines how a person stands before God within it. The righteous person is not promised a life without difficulty. He is commanded to remain faithful when unfaithfulness has become normal.
A Warning to Every Generation
The generation of the Flood is not described merely to satisfy curiosity about the ancient world. It serves as a warning about the direction in which human society can move when moral limits are abandoned.
Civilizations rarely become corrupt in a single moment. Corruption grows as smaller acts of dishonesty, exploitation, cruelty, and indifference become ordinary. People adjust to practices that earlier generations would have recognized as shameful. Violence becomes acceptable when directed against the unwanted. Theft becomes respectable when protected by power. Sexual exploitation is defended as freedom. The weak are treated as obstacles, and human dignity becomes subordinate to appetite, wealth, ideology, or status.
Eventually, wrongdoing is no longer recognized as wrongdoing. The inclination of the heart becomes “only evil continually” not necessarily because every person consciously desires evil at every moment, but because the entire structure of society directs human desire away from righteousness.
The Torah warns that such a society cannot sustain itself indefinitely. A world filled with chamas moves toward destruction even before divine judgment arrives. Violence destroys trust, family, community, commerce, law, and peace. Sin contains within itself the seeds of social collapse.
The Flood therefore teaches both divine judgment and human consequence. God holds humanity accountable, but humanity also builds the conditions of its own destruction.
Repentance Before Judgment
Although the passage emphasizes judgment, the broader teaching of Torah never permits us to forget the possibility of repentance. Human beings are not imprisoned by their past. The same freedom that allows a person to sin also allows a person to turn away from sin.
The lesson of the Flood is not that God is eager to condemn humanity. It is that patience should not be mistaken for approval and that opportunities for repentance should not be wasted. Divine mercy gives human beings time to change, but mercy does not transform evil into good or abolish moral accountability.
The proper response to the passage is therefore not despair. It is teshuvah—return. We are called to examine our conduct, reject violence and exploitation, restore what we have damaged, and return to the commandments of God.
The story does not teach that humanity is irredeemably depraved. After the Flood, human life continues. Noah receives commandments. A covenant is established. The human family is given another beginning.
Even after judgment, God preserves the possibility of faithfulness.
Final Thoughts
When the Torah says that God “regretted” creating humanity, it does not mean that God made a mistake, lacked knowledge, or underwent an emotional change like a human being. The Torah speaks in human language to communicate the divine judgment appropriate to humanity’s corruption.
God remained perfect and all-knowing. Humanity changed.
The generation of the Flood had been created with dignity, moral freedom, and the capacity for righteousness. Yet it used that freedom to fill the earth with violence. The resulting judgment was not a contradiction of God’s goodness but an expression of His justice.
The passage teaches that human actions matter. Evil is not made harmless by becoming common. Violence does not become righteous because society normalizes it. Divine patience is real, but so is divine judgment.
At the same time, Noah reminds us that righteousness remains possible in every generation. A person may walk with God even when the surrounding culture has chosen another path. The calling of Torah is not to surrender to the moral character of the age, but to live faithfully within it.
The grief of God in Bereishit 6 is therefore not evidence of divine imperfection. It is the Torah’s solemn declaration that creation has a moral purpose, that human freedom carries responsibility, and that a world built upon violence cannot endure.
God does not change, but human beings can.
That is both the warning and the hope of the passage.
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