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AND THE LORD SAID, I WILL DESTROY MAN WHOM I HAVE CREATED FROM THE FACE OF THE GROUND. R. Jose quoted in this connection the verse, For my thoughts are not your thoughts (Is. 55, 8). He said: ‘When a man wants to take vengeance on another, he keeps his counsel and says nothing, for fear that, if he discloses his intention, the other will be on his guard and escape him.
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Not so God. Before punishing the world, God proclaims His intention once, twice, and three times, because there is none who can stay his hand and say to Him, “what doest Thou?”, and in vain would one attempt to guard against Him.
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So now God said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth”; He proclaimed His intention to them by the hand of Noah, and warned them several times, but they would not listen. Then at last He executed judgement on them and exterminated them.
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AND HE CALLED HIS NAME NOAH SAYING, THIS SHALL COMFORT US, ETC. How did Noah’s father know this? In this way. When God cursed the earth, Adam said to Him, “Sovereign of the Universe, how long shall the earth be subject to this curse?” God replied: “Until a descendant of yours shall be born circumcised, like yourself.”
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So they waited until at last a child was born circumcised and marked with the holy sign. When his father saw this, and observed the Shekinah hovering over him, he called him Noah,1lit. ‘rest’. in anticipation of his future career.
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For up to his time men did not know the proper way to sow or reap or plough, and they used to work the ground with their hands. But when Noah came, he taught them the arts of husbandry, and devised for them the necessary implements. Hence it is written: “This one shall comfort us for our work and for the toil of our hands.” It was indeed Noah who liberated the earth from its curse; for up to his time they used to sow wheat and reap thorns and thistles; hence Noah is called “a man of the ground” (Gen. 9, 20).
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R. Judah said: ‘The word ish (man) is applied to him because he was righteous, and through the sacrifice which he brought he liberated the earth from its curse. We see, then, how he received his name in anticipation of the future.’