Ver. 1. When men began to multiply.] Not good men only, but bad men too; who therefore took them more wives than one, that they might multiply amain. A numerous offspring is no sure sign of God’s special favour. It is well observed, that when God promised children as a blessing, he said, “The wife should be as the vine, and the children as olive plants”;—two (Psalms 128:3) of the best fruits, the one for cheering the heart, the other for clearing the face; (Psalms 104:15 Judges 9:9,13) the one for sweetness, the other for fatness. “Blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of such, as are the arrows of a strong man.” (Psalms 127:4,5) Hence it follows, that they must have more in them than nature; for arrows are not arrows by growth, but by art: so they must be such children, the knottiness of whose nature is refined and reformed, and made smooth by grace. This workmanship of God in the hearts and lives of children, is like the engraving of a king’s “palace,” or the “polished corners” of the temple. (Psalms 144:12) This preserves “Jacob from confusion, and his face from waxing pale”:—this makes religious parents to “sanctify God’s name,” even to “sanctify the Holy One,” and with singular encouragement from “the God of Israel.” (Isaiah 29:22,23) It never goes well with the Church, but when the son marries the mother. (Isaiah 62:5)
Ver. 2. That the sons of God saw the daughters.] Sons of God; such as had called themselves by his name, (Genesis 4:26) his peculiar professant people, called sons of Jehovah, (Deuteronomy 14:1) yea, his firstborn, and so higher than the kings of the earth. (Psalms 89:27) Hence, after mention made of the four monarchies, a greater than them all succeeds; and that is the “kingdom of the saints of the Most High”; (Daniel 7:17,18) saints at large he means; all “that have made a covenant with him by sacrifice”. (Psalms 50:5) Now we read of sacrificing Sodomites; (Isaiah 1:10) “sinners in Sion”; (Isaiah 33:14) profligate professors; (Matthew 7:23) who, though called “Israel,” yet are to God “as Ethiopians”. (Amos 9:7) Such were these sons of God. Saw the daughters of men that they were fair.] Beauty is a dangerous bait, and lust is sharpsighted. It is not safe gazing on a fair woman. How many have died of the wound in the eye! No one means has so enriched hell as beautiful faces. Take heed our eyes are not windows of wickedness and loopholes of lust. Make “a covenant with them” as Job; (Job 31:1) pray against the abuse of them with David; (Psalms 119:37) and curb them from forbidden objects, as Nazianzen, who had learned τους σφθαλμους σωφρονιζειν, to nurture his eyes, as himself tells us. [See note on “Ge 3:6”] They took them wives.] Of their own heads, without God’s licence, or parents’ consent; as Esau did; and of all which they chose, that is, that they liked and loved. Thus, as some marry by their ears, upon mere hearsay; others, by their fingers’ ends, for money; so these gallants married by their eyes. They were led by the “lust of their hearts, and sight of their eyes,” (Proverbs 31:30) as Solomon’s young nobleman; not considering that “favour is deceitful, beauty vanity”; and that many a woman is like Helen without, but Hecuba within, or an earthen “potsherd covered with silver dross”. (Proverbs 26:23) Amor formae rationis est oblivio, insaniae proximus, turbat consilia, altos et generosos spiritus frangit.— Jerom.
Ver. 3. My Spirit shall not always strive,] that is, I’ll consult no longer, but resolve to ruin them, as some gloss it; or, I’ll pull the sword out of the sheath, the soul out of the body, as others gather out of the Hebrew word here used. But they do best, in my mind, that sense it thus: My Spirit—whereby I hitherto “went and preached,” by Noah and other patriarchs, to those “spirits” (once in pleasure, now) “in prison,” (Ecclesiastes 11:9 1 Peter 3:18,19) but prevailed not—shall not always strive with perverse men by preaching, disputing, convincing, in the mouths of my servants, whom I have sent unto them; nor in their own minds and consciences, by inward checks and motions, which they have made no good use of. Delicata res est Spiritus Dei. Grieve it once, and you may drive it away for ever. It “bloweth where it listeth,” and will not be at your whistle. For that he also is flesh.] He is therefore the worse, because he ought to be better, God expects singular things from his people, and takes it ill when they are “carnal and walk as men”. (1 Corinthians 3:3) They should be higher than others by head and shoulders, as Saul was; and all that is in them, or comes from them, should be as the fruit of the trees in Paradise, fair to the eye, and sweet to the taste. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.] It shall be so long ere I destroy. This longsuffering of God is celebrated by St Peter, (1 Peter 3:19,20 2 Peter 2:5) and well it may; for had he not been God, and not man, he could never have held his hands so long. Neither indeed did he; for so extreme was the provocation, that he cut them off twenty years of this promised count: that all the earth might “know” to their woe his “breach of promise”. (Numbers 14:34) Sunt qui deductum volunt a Nadan, Vagina. Ideo deteriores sumus, quia meliores esse debemus—. Salv.