Genesis 8:21 (NASB) - Forerunner Commentary

I want you to notice three things from these two verses. First, Genesis 6:5 was before the Flood and Genesis 8:21 is after the Flood. There is nothing in the second verse to indicate that a change in man's heart, to something less evil than it was before the Flood, occurred during the Flood. It was still the same heart. So in other words, the heart of all eight on board the ark still had the same potential to commit evil when they left the ark as they did when they got in the ark. Genesis 9 gives you the impression that bad things began to occur shortly after they got off the ark when Noah got drunk and a sexual perversion took place.

The second thing I want us to notice is in Genesis 8:21 where it says, "For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." That is kind of interesting because it gives me the impression that it does not start out evil, but becomes evil. It grows evil because it is influenced in that direction and, for the lack of a better word, it absorbs evil and then acts according to it.

Let us go back to Genesis 8 again, because the third thing I want us to notice is the word 'imagination' that appears in Genesis 6:5 and 8:21. It is the same word that is translated 'formed' in Genesis 2:7 where it says, "The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground."

With that understood, what it is saying there in Genesis 6:5 and 8:21 is that what man intends to do is formed—manufactured; generated—in the heart. Understand it is not saying it has to be done. But, it is in the heart that the formation of attitude and actions begin, and this agrees exactly with what Jesus says, when He said, "Out of the heart proceeds . . .," then He gave a list of about eight or ten evil kinds of conduct. It is in the heart where motivation begins. Human nature reveals itself in the details of our motivation for very much of what we do.

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