Moses wishes to declare the greatness of the iniquity and wickedness of the men of that time, so that from this it may appear how just was the punishment of the Flood, by which God punished such great crimes of men. Above, Moses said that the sons of God had mingled with the daughters of men, indicating the unbridled lust of the men of that age — not only of the impious (such as the descendants of Cain were), but also of the descendants of Seth, who professed the pursuit and practice of piety, justice, and holiness. Then Moses said that there were giants in that time, undoubtedly wishing to signify the gigantic pride, impiety, violence, and cruelty of those men. Now Moses, magnifying still more the wickedness of those men, calls it generally “wickedness,” and indeed “great”; and he adds that all the thought of the heart of those men was bent upon evil at all times. Whereby it is signified that those men were vitiated and corrupted both inwardly and outwardly — in heart, in mouth, and in deed — and on every side. Moses subjoins, moreover, that God was so moved and offended by the crimes of those men that he was touched with sorrow of heart within, and it repented him that he had made man. Nor was that wickedness of a few, or only in certain places, but “all flesh had corrupted its way,” and all the earth was corrupt before God and filled with iniquity. Finally, the greatness of the punishment by which God destroyed all the earth, and the whole race (a few excepted) of men and animals, plainly declares the greatness of the divine indignation and offense; and the greatness of God’s indignation and offense proves the unspeakable enormity of the crimes with which all the earth was then filled. But the words of Moses must be weighed one by one.²

“And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth.” The blessed Cyprian…³

…writing to Novatian, cites this passage thus: “And the Lord God saw the wickednesses of men overflowing upon the earth, and that all were minded toward evil from the beginning of their days.” Moses signifies by these words that those men sinned not from ignorance, nor from any disturbance or weakness of mind, but from malice — that is, from a depraved habit and custom — and that, knowingly and willingly, without any shame or fear, and with no regard for God or men, they rushed into every kind of crime with joy and pleasure. Weighing this rightly, Ambrose, in the book On the Ark and Noah, ch. 4: “God knew,” he says, “that man, placed in the region of earth and bearing flesh, could not be without sin. For the earth is, as it were, a certain place of temptations, and the flesh an enticement of corruption. Yet they were for this reason worthy of no pardon: that, although they had a mind capable of reason and a power of soul infused into the body, they rushed into the fall without any consideration, from which they would not call themselves back.”⁴

For that word “wickedness,” the Hebrew is rahah, signifying both the evil of guilt (as in Jeremiah 4: “Wash thy heart from wickedness”) and the evil of punishment (as in Jeremiah 1: “From the north shall all evil be opened”; and that saying of the Lord: “Sufficient for the day is its own evil”). Here it can signify either — that is, either the iniquity and wickedness of those men, or their violence and harassment, by which they afflicted, harassed, and oppressed others. And it is said to have been “great wickedness”: either because it was not of a few, but of many men; or because it was not enclosed within one or another region, but extended far and wide; or because it was not simple and of one kind, but various and manifold, embracing every kind of crime; or, finally, because it was not moderate or tolerable, but extreme and carried to the utmost and intolerable — or, as Scripture is wont to speak, it was a wickedness complete and consummate.⁵