Genesis 6:5-6

The context

These verses close the preamble to the flood and open the decision to send it. The narrator first describes the extent of human wickedness, naming the imagination of the heart as continually evil, then speaks of the Lord's reaction in emotional terms. The wording is deliberately anthropopathic, describing God with human feeling.

What it establishes

The text presents God as personally affected by human evil rather than detached from it. Judgment in the story is preceded by grief, and that order shapes how the flood is meant to be read.

What it does not establish

It does not settle how regret and immutability fit together. The language is accommodated to human understanding, and the tension with passages that deny God changes his mind is real and unresolved here.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• To accept the story of the Noah's Flood AS FACT flies in the face of practically all of the archaeological, historical, literary, meteorological, and geological research EVER conducted to say nothing of good old common sense. It's a non-starter for me.

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.