corrupt the good than the good reform the bad. Those that profess themselves the children of God should not marry without his consent, which they have not if they join in affinity with his enemies.' Henry.

d Ps. 78. 39.

This acceptation of the original word, however is not sustained by adequate authority, though adopted by Pagninus and favoured by Grotius. The rendering which we have given above is by far the most probable, implying that the spirit of God speaking by the ministry of such prophets as Enoch and Noah, as well as by his inward operations on the conscience, should not always strive to bring men to repentance. A parallel mode of speech we find Neh. 9. 30, 'Yet many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy Spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear.' The language plainly implies that ample time and opportunity had been already afforded for this purpose, the long-suffering of God had waited,' but all to no effect, and now an end is determined to the divine forbearance. Still, as the justice of heaven is reluctant to take its course, it shall not be immediately exea limited respite is granted, which, once expired, no farther indulgence shall be shewn.

3. The Lord said; i. e. to himself, purposed, resolved. -¶My Spirit shall not always strive with man. Heb. 777shall not judge, i. e. contend in judgment, as the word signifies Eccl. 6. 10, Neither may he contend (7) with him that is mightier than he.' As if he should say, 'My Spirit shall not perpetually keep up the process of judgment, rebuke, conviction, and condemnation.' The ancient versions vary considerably in their mode of rendering. The Gr. translates it, 'My Spirit shall not continue in these men.' Chal. "This evil generation shall not continue before me for ever, because they are flesh, and their works most wicked; and an end shall be given unto them, an hundred and twenty years, if per-cuted; haps they may be converted.' The Septuagint translators appear to have taken the original 1777 yadon as a verbal derivation from the noun 17: neder, a sheath; so that the true sense will be, 'My Spirit shall not for ever be ensheathed in man;' that is, The vital breath with which I inspired him shall not for ever animate its sheath of clay. This phraseology is somewhat strikingly illustrated by the following lines from a Persian historian said to have been spoken by a philosopher to Alexander the Great.

There is a time, and Justice marks the date;
For long-forbearing Clemency to wait;
That hour elapsed, th' incurable revolt
Is punished, and down comes the thunder-
bolt.'-Cowper.

This passage should be viewed in con-
nection with 1 Pet. 3. 18-20, from
which we learn that it was no other
than the Spirit of Christ that through
the instrumentality of the pious patri-
archs preached to the disobedient spirits
of the old world. We may be remind-

Dost thou not know that man's exterior formed by the narrative (1.) That nothing
Is but the scabbard to the enlivening mind?
Why shouldst thou judge then of the weap-

on's edge

When yet you've nothing seen except the case ?—Anç. Univ. Hist, vol v. p. 438,

more effectually grieves the Spirit of God than fleshly lusts. (2.) Every fresh indulgence of sin is a new resistance against God's strivings. (3.) When

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of

the Spirit of God is resisted, his calls become less and less sensible, till he is finally quite withdrawn. (4.) When God strives no more, then men rush headlong into sin and ruin. How much reason have we all to pray, 'Lord, take not thine Holy Spirit from us.'

men, and they bare children to them: the same became mighty men, which were of old, men ot renown.

come.

God will so temper his judg ments with mercy, and afford the sinner such warnings and such opportunities of securing his favour, that the judgment when it comes shall find him without excuse. Let us hear then, and fear, and break off our sins by righteousness.

For that he also is flesh. Chal. 'for that they are flesh, and their works 4. There were giants in the earth in evil.' Had the sons of God kept them- those days. A term descriptive probaselves separate, and preserved their pu- bly not so much of great strength and rity, God would have spared the world stature as of great cruelty, rapine, and for their sakes, but they mingled to- violence; though the first, as a secondgether, and became in effect one people. ary sense, may still be included. Heb. God, therefore, seeing they had become nephilim, fallers, i. e. apostates virtually one, called them all by one fallen from God and the true religion, name, and that is man ( Adam), and by violence and cruelty falling without distinction, and in giving the upon their fellow-men, injuring their reason why his Spirit should not al- persons, and invading their rights; usurways strive with man, special reference pers, oppressors, tyrants, monsters of is had to their having become degener- wickedness and lust, as well as of enorate. It was 'for that he also, or these mous stature. They are otherwise also, were flesh'; i. e. e. n his own and elsewhere termed Anakim, Rephprofessing people, those who had been aim, Gibborim: thus Nimrod, Gen. denominated and deemed the 'sons of 10. 8, is called Gibbor; i. e. a mighty God,' even they too had become fleshly, one, a giant. By the Greeks, this class corrupt, profligate. The original is of men are termed Gigantes, from two peculiarly emphatic, as if such a result words, signifying to be born of the earth; would not have been to be wondered at a term from which we learn both the in regard to the Cainites, but that it origin and the import of the English was matter of astonishment and re- word 'giant.' The giants of the angret that the pious stock of Seth should cient mythology are fabled to have have thus greivously apostatised; but sprung from the earth, from some broseeing that they had in fact joined ken traditions respecting these antedithemselves to the opposite party and luvian apostates, who in the sense of become the promoters of the general being earthly, sensual, vile, despising iniquity, they must expect nothing else heavenly things, might be justly dethan to share in the bitter consequences. nominated earth-born.' There are Men are worse than others just in pro- more frequent allusions to them in the protion as they ought to be better, and are original Scriptures than are obvious in dealt with accordingly.-T Yet his our translation, or any other. Thus, days shall be an hundred and twenty Prov. 9. 18, speaking of the young man years. The allotted term for repent- enticed into the abodes of the adulterance before the day of vengeance should ous woman, 'He knoweth not that

nation of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

these apostate 'sons of God' are intended by the sacred writer in the term 'angels,' 2 Pet. 5. 4, who are often styled 'Elohim.' -T And also after that when, &c. Heb. 'And even after it was so that the sons of God went in,' &c. This implies that the result of such marriages disappointed previous expectation; that although the sons of God' might have flattered themselves with the idea of exerting a predominant influence of a religious kind upon their wives, and of begetting and rearing up a godly seed, yet the experiment was unsuccessful. The children when grown

but the vices of their mothers, and thus the race of giants was perpetuated.——— ¶ The same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown. Heb.

the dead (Heb. the giants, the Rephaim) are there;' i. e. he does not consider that it was by this sin that the renowned rebels before the flood perished, and that he is in danger of meeting the same fate. Prov. 21. 16, 'He that wandereth out of the way of understanding, shall remain in the congregation of the dead,' (Heb. of the giants ;) i. e. shall be in imminent peril of being joined to that wretched society. Prov. 2. 18, The house of the strange woman inclineth unto death,' (Heb. unto the giants.) Again, Job 26. 5, 'Dead things, (Heb. the giants, Rephaim,) are formed under the waters and the inhab-emulated not the virtues of their fathers itants thereof.' This conveys no intelligible meaning. It is probably more correctly rendered by the Lat. Vulgate, "The giants groan (Hcb. shake, or tremble) under the waters with the inhabitants thereof.' The clew to this is to be found in the fact, that it was this class of men, who were buried in the waters of the deluge, and whose spirits, i. e. shades, manes, were supposed, in popular estimation, to be imprisoned in the caverns of the earth. It was to these spirits that Christ, by his Holy Spirit, preached during their lifetime, 1 Pet. 3. 19. Farmer supposes that the Apostle James, in saying, 'The devils (Gr. demons, i. e. spirits of dead men) believe and tremble,' alludes to this very passage of Job. The conceit of the Grecian poets, that earthquakes were occasioned by the attempts of the giants to shake off the mountains that were heaped upon them, owes its origin to the same source, viz. the traditions respecting the fate of the antediluvian rebels, who after death were held to be incarcerated for their crimes in the subterranean regions of the earth. It is supposed by some that no other than

Gibborim and Danshe shem, men of name. The contrary phrase occurs Job 30. 8, 'base men.' Heb. 'men of no name.' The words denote a class of men who had made themselves famous with after ages by their exploits, by their deeds of violence, robbery, and wrong. With this repute had their characters been handed down to posterity. If we are not mistaken, the passage conveys an intimation that these antediluvian giants and heroes were the principal personages of the ancient heathen mythology, celebrated by the poets. However this may be, they were men that became renowned in popular estimation for their deeds of prowess, oppression, and blood, and it is but little to the credit of humanity that such characters have been the principal themes of historic record and worldly admiration in all ages.

5. God saw that the wickedness of. man was great on the earth. Every thing in the narrative is so framed as

6 And it repented the LORD | earth, and it grieved him at his that he had made man on the heart.

f See Num. 23. 19. 1 Sam. 15. 11, 29. 2 Sam. 24. 16. Mal. 3. 6. Jam. 1. 17.

g Isa. 63. 10. Eph. 4. 30.

Had it been drawn by the pen of a prejudiced erring mortal it might have been supposed to exceed the truth. But this is not the testimony of man, but of God who sees things precisely as they are, and his infallible declaration is, that the thoughts of man were evil without exception, without mixture, and without intermission

6. It repented the Lord. As it is said 1 Sam. 15. 29, 'The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man that he should repent;' it is obvious that we are not to ascribe to an immutable mind the fickleness that belongs to man, nor to suppose that the omniscient Jehovah was really disappointed. This and similar expressions are taken from what passes among men when they are disappointed in their expectations and endeavours. As a potter finding that a vessel which he has formed with the utmost care does not answer the desired purpose, regrets his labour, and casts out of his sight the worthless object, so God, ma

to vindicate the judgment of God in the fearful proceeding soon to be detailed. The drift of these words is evidently to show, that it was not from a slight cause or a hasty impulse that the destruction of a world was determined upon. As the result of a deliberate survey, and not of a superficial glance, God saw that the earth had become replete with wickedness, and therefore ripe for a curse. Had the sins of men been of the mere ordinary stamp, or had they been local and limited in their prevalence, they might have been pardoned; but as it was, they were at once enormous in degree and universal in extent. What more could be necessary to justify the extremest rigour in the sentence of the Judge? And that every imagination, &c. Heb. the whole fabrication or formation. The term is that which is usually applied to the work of the potter. The language of Paul, Heb. 4. 13, is probably equivalent; Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight.' Gr. Kriσis creation, for-king use of language accommodated to mation, i. e. of the heart. The church being thus corrupted and in a manner lost to the world, there was nothing left to resist the torrent of depravity. This, it would appear from the picture here drawn, had now attained its highest pitch. The words, we apprehend, are not to be understood as originally descriptive of the general state of the human heart, though in this view but little abatement is to be made from the assertion, but of the race of men then living; and the sense is, that the wickedness of men had become so great in the earth that the very intents, and thoughts, and purposes of the heart were only evil continually, But the portrait, though appalling, is doubtless no more than just.

our feeble apprehensions, represents himself as repenting and being grieved at heart that he had bestowed upon man so much labour in vain. As a general rule, wherever 'repenting' is attributed to God, it implies not a real inward change in his feelings and purposes, but simply a change in his dispensations towards his creatures, in view of some previous change in their conduct towards him. Thus it is said 1 Sam. 15. 10, 11, 'Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he hath turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments.' Here the effect follows the cause, 'Repentance