Discovery BoxGenesis 1:31 
Context1:31 God saw all that he had made – and it was very good! 1 There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 6:5
Context6:5 But the Lord saw 2 that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination 3 of the thoughts 4 of their minds 5 was only evil 6 all the time. 7
Genesis 6:21
Context6:21 And you must take 8 for yourself every kind of food 9 that is eaten, 10 and gather it together. 11 It will be food for you and for them.
Genesis 8:19
Context8:19 Every living creature, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark in their groups.
Genesis 31:54
Context31:54 Then Jacob offered a sacrifice 12 on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat the meal. 13 They ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain.
1 tn The Hebrew text again uses הִנֵּה (hinneh) for the sake of vividness. It is a particle that goes with the gesture of pointing, calling attention to something.
2 sn The Hebrew verb translated “saw” (רָאָה, ra’ah), used here of God’s evaluation of humankind’s evil deeds, contrasts with God’s evaluation of creative work in Gen 1, when he observed that everything was good.
3 tn The noun יֵצֶר (yetser) is related to the verb יָצָר (yatsar, “to form, to fashion [with a design]”). Here it refers to human plans or intentions (see Gen 8:21; 1 Chr 28:9; 29:18). People had taken their God-given capacities and used them to devise evil. The word יֵצֶר (yetser) became a significant theological term in Rabbinic literature for what might be called the sin nature – the evil inclination (see also R. E. Murphy, “Yeser in the Qumran Literature,” Bib 39 [1958]: 334-44).
4 tn The related verb הָשָׁב (hashav) means “to think, to devise, to reckon.” The noun (here) refers to thoughts or considerations.
5 tn Heb “his heart” (referring to collective “humankind”). The Hebrew term לֵב (lev, “heart”) frequently refers to the seat of one’s thoughts (see BDB 524 s.v. לֵב). In contemporary English this is typically referred to as the “mind.”
6 sn Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil. There is hardly a stronger statement of the wickedness of the human race than this. Here is the result of falling into the “knowledge of good and evil”: Evil becomes dominant, and the good is ruined by the evil.
7 tn Heb “all the day.”
sn The author of Genesis goes out of his way to emphasize the depth of human evil at this time. Note the expressions “every inclination,” “only evil,” and “all the time.”
8 tn The verb is a direct imperative: “And you, take for yourself.” The form stresses the immediate nature of the instruction; the pronoun underscores the directness.
9 tn Heb “from all food,” meaning “some of every kind of food.”
10 tn Or “will be eaten.”
11 tn Heb “and gather it to you.”
12 tn The construction is a cognate accusative with the verb, expressing a specific sacrifice.
13 tn Heb “bread, food.” Presumably this was a type of peace offering, where the person bringing the offering ate the animal being sacrificed.
