Bible Strands
Genesis 6:3
So the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks in Genesis 6 immediately after the sons of God take the daughters of men as wives. The declaration addresses humanity at a historical turning point marked by widespread corruption.
The words — רוּחִי (ru.Ch/i) means "my spirit," and יָדוֹן (ya.Don) carries the literal sense of "will remain" or "will contend." The text combines these with לֹא (lo'-, "not") and לְעוֹלָם (le./'o.Lam, "forever") to establish a fixed limit on divine patience.
The thread — The pattern of divine Spirit engagement appears in Nehemiah 9:30, where the Spirit admonishes through prophets, and Isaiah 63:10, where human rebellion grieves the Holy Spirit. These passages document a recurring cycle of divine instruction followed by human resistance.
Why it lands — The verse declares a concrete boundary on both human lifespan and divine forbearance. It requires the reader to accept mortality and divine limits as structural realities rather than negotiable conditions.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
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 years.
Cross-references
- Nehemiah 9:30 You were patient with them for many years, and Your Spirit admonished them through Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples.
- Isaiah 63:10 But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.
- Jeremiah 11:11 Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I am about to bring upon them a disaster that they cannot escape. They will cry out to Me, but I will not listen to them.
- 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit,
- Psalms 78:39 He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.
- Galatians 5:16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
- Acts 7:51 You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
- Numbers 11:17 And I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put that Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself.
- Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
- Isaiah 5:4 What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?