The parsha (weekly reading from the Torah) this past weekend was Noah and tells the story of Noah’s Ark and the Flood. As I’ve been learning more Hebrew I’ve been trying to read the weekly parsha as much as I can in Hebrew, using the English translation only when necessary. So this week during my reading I noticed something interesting. When the text describes the corruption of society prior to the flood, the main word it uses is from the root שחת:
וַתִּשָּׁחֵ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ לִפְנֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹהִ֑ים וַתִּמָּלֵ֥א הָאָ֖רֶץ חָמָֽס
וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְהִנֵּ֣ה נִשְׁחָ֑תָה כִּֽי־הִשְׁחִ֧ית כָּל־בָּשָׂ֛ר אֶת־דַּרְכּ֖וֹ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
and then when it describes how God plans to destroy or punish the world it uses the exact same root word to describe what He is going to do.
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֜ים לְנֹ֗חַ קֵ֤ץ כָּל־בָּשָׂר֙ בָּ֣א לְפָנַ֔י כִּֽי־מָלְאָ֥ה הָאָ֛רֶץ חָמָ֖ס מִפְּנֵיהֶ֑ם וְהִנְנִ֥י מַשְׁחִיתָ֖ם אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
וַאֲנִ֗י הִנְנִי֩ מֵבִ֨יא אֶת־הַמַּבּ֥וּל מַ֙יִם֙ עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ לְשַׁחֵ֣ת כָּל־בָּשָׂ֗ר אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ֙ ר֣וּחַ חַיִּ֔ים מִתַּ֖חַת הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם כֹּ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־בָּאָ֖רֶץ יִגְוָֽע׃
This popped out at me since I’ve been learning Hebrew, and it was interesting, almost even obviously so, for how it stood out compared to how one might normally speak about punishment. You might expect someone to say something like, “the people were bad or corrupt, so they were punished,” or “God saw that the people were wicked, so he planned to punish them, or to teach them a lesson,” etc. But, at least in English, the normal way we speak about crime and punishment or immoral behavior and retribution does not involve using the same word like that for both the crime and the punishment. Indeed, when you look at the English translation of the text, it is often rendered as:
The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness.
When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth,
…
God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.
For My part, I am about to bring the Flood—waters upon the earth—to destroy all flesh under the sky in which there is breath of life; everything on earth shall perish.
The English text uses the word “corrupt” to describe the bad actions of the people, and the word “destroy” to describe God’s punishment. Lost in the translation is the connection between the two whereby a variant of the exact same root word is used in both instances – something which is obvious when read in the Hebrew.
To me, the fact that the text uses the same word to describe both the crime and the punishment jumped out at me as being such a modern notion, almost even secular. I think it is saying that within the crime itself are the exact seeds of the punishment. The punishment you will receive, and remember this is speaking at the societal level, comes directly from the crimes themselves. In this sense, its the same word because the punishment quite literally equals the crime.
If you tolerate a violent society, then violence will be your end. If you make a society where privacy is no longer valued, then you will be punished by illicit exposure. If you create a society which worships only money; then through money-worship will you be punished. If you promulgate societal norms which are divisive and polarizing, then that very polarization will be what tears your society apart.
We always learn how the Torah is always relevant; how it is reinterpreted in each generation to meet the needs of that particular time. It was just so interesting that in this case it seemed to be screaming right at me, right at our time, our generation. And this wasn’t even some roundabout rabbinical interpretation. It’s just the simple, literal, Hebrew, meaning of the text.