ותשחת הארץ. The earth had become corrupt. This entire verse is superfluous in view of 6,5. If the Torah only wanted to spell out details of man's sins, this too had been spelled out in greater detail in the previous passage. If the Torah wanted to add the element of violence perpetrated by man on earth, that is all that needed mentioning here. Besides, why did the Torah switch to the use of the name אלוהים, the attribute of Justice, whereas in 6,5 God's attribute of Mercy is used? What do the words לפני האלוהים in our verse add to our understanding? Why does the Torah repeat once more in 6,12 that "God saw, etc.?" The Torah certainly did not need to tell us that God had become aware of man's sins, as we all know that He is aware of all this?
We must understand the passage along the lines of the
Mishnah Avot 4,11 that when a person violates a single commandment he acquires one accuser for himself. The "accuser" is to be understood as a destructive power (angel). This destructive power is not unleashed until the Supreme Judge of the whole universe has given a verdict concerning the person guilty of a misdemeanour. This is the deeper meaning of every time the Torah speaks about a sinner "
carrying his guilt" (
Leviticus 5,17 et al). Once God has pronounced judgment, He unleashes these accumulated destructive forces. When the prophet Jeremiah 2,19 says:
תיסרך רעתך, "your wickedness will discipline you," he refers to these destructive forces which our sins have created and which God unleashes after having judged us. We have to appreciate that although God holds the accuser in check so that he cannot yet harm us, this applies only as long as our sins are relatively few or minor. If our sins keep accumulating, they exert pressure on the Heavenly Court so that the perpetrator of the sin may find himself the victim of some of these accusers even before final judgment has been decreed upon him. When the Torah speaks of "the earth had become corrupted before God," this means that
before God had completed judging everyone individually, the collective total of the destructive powers created by man's sins was such that the destructive forces already dominated the earth. The reason the Torah speaks about
הארץ is to tell us that the corruption had penetrated earth itself.
The Torah said in the previous verse: "the earth had become full of this corruption in the form of violence." Why did the Torah reverse this sequence? It should first have stated what God saw, and afterwards the extent of the corruption. As it is, the Torah tells us of the effect before telling us of the cause! The inverted method of reporting is to emphasize that even after the earth had already become full of corruption, all of which is subsumed under the heading "violence," man added further abominations to those already perpetrated. Although it is God's virtue to forgive or suspend punishment (
נושא עון) until the time He sits in judgment, the sins of this generation were such that God could no longer practice this virtue. It was somewhat similar to when Cain had said to God that he found his penalty too hard to bear. He had used the term
גדול עוני מנשוא, "is my guilt too great to forgive (4,13)?" Alternatively, the words
ותשחת הארץ refer to the actual deeds, which caused the earth to become full of destructive agents all of which are described as
חמס. God informed Noach (
6,
13) of this when He told him that
קץ כל בשר בא לפני, that "the end for all flesh is approaching." According to the
Zohar this means that the destructive forces created by man's sins which are called
קץ have appeared before God demanding the speedy destruction of the perpetrators of all this evil. The Torah tells us for how long God restrained the attribute of Justice. This is why we have
repeated references to God's awareness of man's wickedness ever since 6,5. When the Torah here finally uses the word
אלוהים to describe God, it is to give notice that the attribute of Mercy itself had turned into one demanding that justice be done.
ותמלא הארץ חמס. The earth was filled with violence. There is a Midrash which illustrates the violence perpetrated by describing how people each helped themselves to a lupine out of a bowl that was set on the table. The Rabbis could not understand why the example mentioned shows that mankind was exterminated for a robbery involving such a minute amount. According to halachah theft of an amount worth less than a פרוטה, a certain small coin, is not subject to prosecution! I believe that the Midrash wanted to demonstrate that not only were the people of that generation guilty of violating all the seven Noachide commandments, but of something additional. They were sophisticated enough to engage in the kind of theft that was not subject to prosecution because the stolen goods came into their possession indirectly. According to Maimonides chapter nine of Hilchot Melachim even merely withholding wages from a labourer was subject to the death penalty in those days. Nonetheless the people of that generation were astute enough to borrow, i.e. to secure themselves credit and to draw on these credits in amounts of less than the value of the coin mentioned. This did not make them subject to prosecution if they failed to repay the credits. According to others it did not constitute robbery as long as the object was given to them willingly by its owner. Here in our verse the Torah may have alluded to all these kinds of robbery.