These are the generations of Noah
Or this is the account of his posterity, of the persons that were
generated by him, that sprung from him, and peopled the earth
after the flood, who are mentioned in the next verse, what
follows being to be put in a parenthesis; as the genealogy of
Adam is carried on from Adam to Noah, ( Genesis
5:1-32 ) so the old world ending at the flood, the genealogy
of the new world begins with Noah: though Aben Ezra and Ben
Gersome interpret the word "events", things which days bring
forth, ( Proverbs
27:1 ) these are the events or the things which befell Noah,
of which an account is given in this and some following chapters,
whose character is next observed:
Noah was a just man;
not only before men, but in the sight of God; and not by his own
works of righteousness, for no man is just by them before God,
but by the righteousness of the promised seed, the Messiah; for
he "became heir of the righteousness which is by faith", (
Hebrews
11:7 ) the righteousness which was to be brought in by the
Son of God, and which was revealed to him from faith to faith;
and which by faith he received and lived upon, as every just man
does, and believed in as his justifying righteousness before God;
though he also lived a holy and righteous conversation before
men, which may rather be intended in the next part of his
character:
and perfect in his generations;
not that he was perfectly holy, or free from sin, but was a
partaker of the true grace of God; was sincere and upright in
heart and life; lived an unblemished life and conversation,
untainted with the gross corruptions of that age he lived in,
which he escaped through the knowledge, grace, and fear of God;
and therefore it is added, that he was holy, upright, and
blameless "in his generations": among the men of the several
generations he lived in, as in the generation before the flood,
which was very corrupt indeed, and which corruption was the cause
of that; and in the generation after the flood: or "in his ages"
F23, in the several stages of his life,
in youth and in old age; he was throughout the whole course of
his life a holy good man.
[And] Noah walked with God:
walked according to his will, in the ways of truth and
righteousness; walked in a manner well pleasing to him, and
enjoyed much communion with him, as Enoch had done before him, (
Genesis
5:22 Genesis 5:24
) .
F23 (wytrdb) "in aetatibus suis", Drusius, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius.