But Noah Found Grace

BUT NOAH FOUND GRACE

Part three of four

Where We Left Off

In part one I walked verses one to four. In part two I stopped at verse five, where God looked and named man.

I am not going to walk either of those again. But I could not leave the chapter there, because of one word in verse eight. Here is what stands between.

Where the Chapter Stands

Let me tell you in my own words where verses six and seven leave things, and then get to my verse. The summarising is mine, so go and read them yourself.

God is grieved that He made man. He says He will destroy. And what He names goes all the way down, past man to the beasts and the creeping things and the birds. That is where the chapter stands. Now read the next word.

But

BUT. One word, and the chapter turns on it.

Everything up to it is moving toward destroying. And at that word, the text turns and looks at one man.

It does not stay looking at him. Read on and the corruption comes back, and the violence, and God saying again that He will destroy. So I am not telling you the rest of the chapter is about Noah being kept.

What I am telling you is that the chapter was going one way, and at BUT it turned.

Moses does not stop and explain that word. He just puts it there.

The Word Under Grace

Now I looked this one up in my study Bible, and I want to show you what I found, because I did not expect it. Everything I give you from the language is what the entry says, and there is a note at the foot of this study saying where it comes from.

The word behind grace here is given as chen. And the entry says something about this exact verse.

It says Genesis 6:8 stands as the fundamental application of this word, meaning an unmerited favour or regard in God's sight. My verse. Named in the entry.

And I Will Be Fair About the Word

The same entry does not stop there, and I am not going to hide the rest.

It says the word also carries acceptance or preference in a more general way. It gives the enticement of a woman in Proverbs. It gives elegant speech in Ecclesiastes. It gives standing or privilege with God or with people.

So chen is not always a theological word. It can be plain favour between people.

What I can tell you is that the entry points at this verse as where the word is anchored, and that is the entry talking, not me.

Found

And look at the verb the King James gives. Noah FOUND grace.

Now I am not going to build on that verb, because it will not hold it. The entry gives the Hebrew as matsa, to find, to come upon, and it says the phrase to find favour in the eyes of somebody is used of people too, not only of God.

So the not earning is not in the word FOUND. It is in the word GRACE, where the entry put it. Unmerited favour.

What the verb gives me is that he came upon it. And what I hear in that, and the hearing is mine, is a thing already there before he got to it.

And the Same Thing in the Greek

Now here is why this stopped me.

The New Testament word for grace is given as charis. And the entry defines it as the unmerited favour which He shows in saving us from sin. Unmerited favour.

That is the same phrase the entry used for chen in Genesis 6:8.

Two testaments. Two languages. And the two entries reaching for the same English description.

I am not going to tell you the Hebrew word and the Greek word are the same word, because they are not. They are two words in two languages. What I am telling you is what each entry says, and that they landed in the same place.

The Heart

Here is what I have come to hold, and it is mine. The chapter had already run out of room for man.

Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The sentence was passed. Man, and beast, and the creeping thing. And then one word. BUT.

There was nothing left in that chapter for a man to stand on, and one man found something anyway.

I did not earn what I have either, and Paul is my ground for saying that, not Genesis. By grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves.

And the word given for what Noah found is the word given for what saved me.