But Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah.
God has just announced the flood. The whole race is to be wiped out. Then the record turns on a single word: but. One man stands outside that verdict, and his name carries the first mention of grace in the Bible — the word older translations use here, where the ESV says "favor."
The verse sets one man against a whole population.
One man alone found favor in the eyes of the Lord (v. 8). Noah was righteous in his dealings with people and blameless in his own character, because "he walked with God." The earth's population had grown so large, and it is a tragedy that only one man walked with God. In this he is a picture of the Lord Jesus. Yet he also shows that a believer can walk in true, godly separation from an evil world, even when no one else joins him... a lonely path with God is infinitely better than having many friends without God's presence.
The phrase is not special wording kept for Noah. It is the ordinary way of saying that one person stood in another's favour.
But "Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah" — that is, God's favour rested on him. He was righteous himself, no doubt, but it all came through grace. Moses says, "If I have found grace in your sight"; it is a common expression. In the next chapter God says of Noah, "I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation."
Verse 8 stands before verse 9, and the sequence is deliberate. Grace is not the wage paid for a good life; a good life is what grace produces.
It is written: "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." This comes before the statement, "Noah walked with God" (Gen. 6:8-9). This is always God's order. No man can walk with God until he has tasted the grace of God.
One writer pushes back hard on the idea that Noah's character earned God's favour:
The very way Scripture tells the story should have stopped anyone from thinking that Noah's character in verse 9 is the reason for God's favour to him. Reason of grace! What an idea and expression! Scripture flatly denies any such thought: "If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace." Noah's righteous ways, his walk with God, flowed (as always) from God's favour.
Here the divine name is the LORD — Jehovah in some translations. In the next verse Noah walks with God. Scripture picks each name on purpose.
The phrase "walked with God" is not casual but deliberate. It suits plain historical mention, and it also sets a moral contrast with those marked by the violence and corruption of all flesh on the earth. The name Jehovah is required where the point is not nature but relationship — feelings and position toward another.
Faith is what set Noah apart, and it put him on a different side of the verdict from everyone else.
The first time the word grace occurs in the Bible it is bound up with Noah — "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen. 6). He believed God when the whole world did not. That made him a righteous man among disobedient men. They were a condemned race; he alone was justified.
Favour here has a practical outcome later in the story. The man who found it was already safe when the waters came.
Notice this: before God's government ever carried out its judgment, the chosen family, and all with them, were shut safely inside the ark, the vessel of grace... God in grace saved Noah before God in government swept the earth clean with judgment... Every atom of the ark carried the sweet stamp of grace; every wave of the flood reflected the solemn decree of government.
God tells Noah what is coming, and gives him work to do about it.
God tells His chosen one that the end of all flesh had come before Him... He tells him how He saw and judged the moral condition of the earth — the very thing He had said in secret before. Then He tells him to get an ark ready to save his household, because in the plans of His electing love and sovereign purpose Noah had already found grace in His eyes.
- Ruin — the sentence falls on the whole race, and one man stands on the other side of the word but.
- Grace — God's favour rested on Noah. His righteousness grew out of that favour; it did not come first.
- Order — grace first, walk second. That is always the sequence; a reason for grace would stop it being grace.
- Ark — the favour of verse 8 becomes a shut door: saved by grace before the judgment of government fell.
- Reach — the first grace in the Bible reaches one man in a condemned world, and still works the same way.
This is the history of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect amongst his generations Noah walked with God.
Genesis 6:9 introduces one man whose life stood in total contrast to the world around him. It answers the question every reader of the flood story asks: why was Noah spared?
Some writers below quote an older translation: Noah "found grace" and was "a just man, perfect in his generations." The ESV says he "found favor" and was "a righteous man, blameless in his generation."
One writer reads the verse's opening line as the reason Noah's household escaped the flood:
Then in Genesis 6:9 we read, "These are the generations of Noah." This gives the fitting ground for his escape from the flood, along with his three sons and their wives.
Verse 8 says Noah found favour in God's eyes. Only after that does Scripture describe his character. One writer shows why that order matters, and what "perfect" does not mean:
It is written: "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." This comes before the statement, "Noah walked with God" (Genesis 6:8-9). This is always God's order. No man can walk with God until he has tasted the grace of God. "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations." "Perfect" does not mean "sinless." His sad failure after he came out of the ark is proof enough (Genesis 9:21). But, as the margin suggests, Noah was an upright man who sought to walk before God in integrity.
Calling Noah righteous is not the same as saying he was justified before God. One writer separates the root from the fruit:
Further, it is not correct to say that he was a just man, that is, justified before God. … The grace that justified him worked in him and through him practical righteousness before man. … The one (in Romans 4) is justification before God, the root of all. The other is the resulting fruit "shown" before man. Each is indispensable in its place; both are united in their season in every true believer. Practical righteousness is the effect, in no way the cause, of justification by faith. … We also know from Hebrews 11:7 that faith was the starting principle, through grace, of the conduct that marked him out in that day. By that faith he also condemned the world, as heir of the righteousness that is according to faith.
Scripture uses the same words of one man before Noah:
It is recorded in Genesis 5:22, "Enoch walked with God." … These two devout men lived in evil days, but they walked in separation from the evil, and in communion with God.
That walk also produced a public witness. Set beside Lot, the contrast is sharp:
Noah is an example of the separate saint bearing testimony to the world… Peter tells us that he bore witness for God as a "preacher of righteousness". Lot is a picture of a large class of believers. They have no faith for the separate path, so they settle down in the world. They are saved in the end, but they are no testimony to God while they pass through it. Peter does tell us that Lot was a "righteous man". Yet, by living among the wicked, he tormented his righteous soul day after day. He knew nothing of a walk in peace and nearness to God.
Scripture describes only one man this way. That carries a lesson for anyone who finds no company in following God:
Noah was righteous in his human relationships and blameless in his personal character, because "he walked with God." The earth's population had grown so large. It is deeply sad that only one man walked with God. In this he is a picture of the Lord Jesus. Yet he does show that a believer can walk in true, godly separation from an evil world, even with no one else to share that path. … In any case, a lonely path with God is far better than having many friends without God's presence.
What followed tested this description, and God then repeated it:
That is how Scripture describes this man when he first appears in the record, at the ripe age of five hundred years. He then made the ark as God directed. God said to him, "I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation" (Genesis 7:1). He proved that he was righteous. He illustrated the obedience of faith.
- Grace first. Noah found favour before Scripture ever calls him righteous. No one walks with God until he has first tasted God's grace.
- Then character. "Blameless" means integrity, not sinlessness; his later failure proves it. His righteousness was the fruit of grace, never its cause.
- Then the walk. Walking with God meant communion with Him and separation from the evil of his day. Scripture says the same of Enoch.
- Then testimony. That separate walk made him a preacher of righteousness. Lot was righteous too, but he settled in the world and bore no witness there.
- Then proof. A lonely path with God is better than crowded company without Him. God Himself confirmed the verdict: "I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation."
And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Genesis 6 tells of corruption, violence and coming judgment. In the middle of it stands one man and a short family list — three names that carry the whole future of the human race, set down in an order that is not the order of their birth.
Other passages let us work out the actual order of their births, and it does not match the list here. One writer sets the lists side by side:
In Genesis 6:10 we find the names of Noah's sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Turn to Genesis 10:1 and 1 Chronicles 1:4, and each chapter gives the same names in the same order. Yet in the light of Genesis 9:24 and 10:21 we gather that the actual order of their birth was Japheth, Shem and Ham. But Shem was the one specially chosen in the sovereignty of God, so his name comes first.
Commentators differ on one detail: whether "younger son" in Genesis 9:24 means Ham himself or his son Canaan.
This swap is not a one-off:
A different order than the natural one is before us. The reason: the natural order — that is, birth order — constantly gives way when it crosses the order of grace and God's purpose of blessing.
Everyone alive today traces back to these three men and their wives:
A fresh start for the race began after the flood that judged a guilty world. God preserved Noah and his three sons from destruction. From them began conditions that continue today, and that will continue for their descendants until the Son of Man comes with the clouds of heaven... So the history of man is comparatively recent, and so is his threefold separation into lands and languages, families and nations. This time the race does not begin with a single line. We have three heads with their wives — three great families to renew the history of man on earth.
God names the three sons here, before the ark is even built. They will enter it as part of a household. On what ground?
The Lord commands Noah to enter the ark with his house on this ground: "For I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation." Someone may object that all the members of the household were probably righteous before God too. But the later history of one of them — Ham — forbids that thought. So nothing can weaken the force of the statement: God delivered the family of Noah from the judgment of the flood because of the faith of its head.
One quiet detail in the family list is easy to walk past:
The three sons of Noah, all married men, did not carry one infant into the ark. Eight adult persons passed through the flood. What a touch this is, showing God's thoughtful arranging, His planning tenderness! And it comes in such an unexpected place that it may well comfort many who are going through hard circumstances.
The three lines do not develop alike:
The fountain heads were three, first named in this order: Shem, Ham and Japheth. The first was the family in which God would establish His covenant on earth, and with which He would be in relationship. Then came the one who stood in hostility to God's family. Last came the Gentile Japheth, though he was the eldest and proudest.
After the flood the same three names appear again, with one phrase added — and that phrase casts a long shadow:
Scripture again draws attention to the three heads of Noah's race, "Shem, and Ham, and Japheth," in the same order as before (Genesis 5:32, 6:10, 7:13). Now there is an ominous addition: "and Ham is the father of Canaan." The sad incident that follows explains this at once, and the solemn prophecy that closes the chapter explains it still more. That prophecy echoes through the whole Old Testament, and it will only be brought to completion in that kingdom which awaits the Anointed of Jehovah.
- Named — In a chapter about total corruption, God records three ordinary names. He is already preparing the line through which the world will continue.
- Chosen — Shem stands first, though he was not the firstborn. Birth order gives way to God's purpose of blessing.
- Carried — The sons entered the ark on their father's faith, not their own. Ham's later behaviour proves it.
- Multiplied — From these three men and their wives the whole human family began again, in all its languages and nations.
- Divided — Later the same three names reappear, now with "Ham is the father of Canaan" attached. Coming through judgment is not the same as walking with God.