Annotatio LXXIV
”My spirit shall not remain in man.” — Genesis 6:3
The Latin interpreter of our Vulgate edition, for that which is had in Hebrew — לֹא יָדוֹן רוּחִי, Lo yadon ruchi — translated, “My spirit shall not remain in man, because he is flesh”;1 which the Septuagint rendered, οὐ μὴ καταμείνῃ τὸ πνεῦμά μου ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις [my spirit shall not abide among men]. Which version Jerome, in the Hebrew Questions, rejects in these words: “In the Hebrew it is written, ‘My spirit shall not judge these men forever, because they are flesh.’ That is: because the condition in man is fragile, I will not keep them for eternal torments, but will here repay them what they deserve. Therefore it sounds not of severity, as is read in our codices, but of the clemency of God — while the sinner is here visited [chastised] for his own crime; whence [God], angry, also speaks to certain ones: ‘I will not visit your daughters when they have fornicated, and your spouses when they have committed adultery’ [Hosea 4:14];2 and in another place: ‘I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes; nevertheless I will not scatter my mercy from them’ [Psalm 88:33].”3 These things Jerome [says]: with whom Rabbi Salomon [Rashi] agrees, who expounds this to mean “My spirit shall not dispute, shall not contend in judgment.” But the Chaldaic [Aramaic] interpretation agrees with our edition, in which it is had: “This most wicked generation shall not persist before me.”