Genesis 6:3

Genesis 6:3

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty.

a. Many in the church have mistakenly taught and believed that this verse implies it took Noah 120 years to build the ark, but this is not so. Before God ever gave Noah instructions to build the ark, Noah already had his three sons.

1). Genesis 6:9, 10 “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

b. In fact in Genesis 6:14-20 when the LORD gave the instructions for the building of the ark, Noah’s sons were already married (Genesis 6:18).

1). Genesis 6:14-18 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.

c. Shem, the oldest of Noah’s sons was 100 years old, two years after the flood.

1). Genesis 11:10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: 

d. If Shem was grown and married before Noah was told to build the ark and 2 years after the flood Shem was 100 years old, it is impossible that it took 120 years to build the ark.

e. What the actual meaning of this verse means is that from the beginning of the intermingling of “the sons of God”, i.e., angels with the daughters of men, till the flood was 120 years. If I am correct on this point then the sexual intermingling of angels and human women occurred 20 years before Noah began having children. Noah did not begin having children until he was 500 years old, and the flood began when he was 600.

1). Genesis 5:32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

2). Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.