[Link to this week's Revised Common Lectionary texts]

This week we read of Noah. Noach ish tzadik tamim. That is, “Noah was a righteous [just] and blameless [wholehearted] man.” Most of the commentary I found focuses on the latter two adjectives, tzadik [righteous or just] and tamim [blameless or wholehearted]; but I wonder if the key isn’t to be found in the first. Noach ish. Noah was a man. Before we consider anything else that Noah was, we must first remember that Noah was a man, an ordinary person like you and me. Only by beginning here will we able to usefully evaluate the remaining description.

If we work out of order and forget that Noah was first and foremost a man, then we are likely to make one of two mistakes when interpreting this passage. In the one instance we elevate Noah, crediting him with a level of righteousness and blamelessness that is beyond human proportions. We put him on a pedestal of perfection that ultimately neuters him. By assigning super-human characteristics to him we give ourselves permission to dismiss him, for he is so far beyond us that we need not consider what his story might say to us. In the other, we strip Noah bare, rendering him something less that fully human. He exists only as a vessel to hold a righteousness imputed by God. The result, again, is that Noah is neutered. God in sovereignty has chosen Noah, so there is nothing for us to learn from him. There is no lesson for our lives but to hope God chooses us also.

No, we must begin with this: Noach ish. Noah was a man. The fact that he was also tzadik and tamim flow out of this fact. As a man, Noah was righteous. He was just in his dealings with others. Furthermore, as a man he was wholehearted. (I like this better than blameless, which throws images of super-human perfection into my mind, images that make is hard for me to remember Noach ish.) He pursued his righteousness with his whole heart. He was sincere and a man of integrity.

Noah’s justness and wholeheartedness are contrasted with “violence,” which has corrupted the earth and brought God’s judgment. The contrast serves to further emphasizes the relational nature of the passage. Violence must have both perpetrators and victims. Likewise, the righteousness and wholeheartedness ascribed to Noah must also have a benefactors and beneficiaries. Noah was a benefactor.

Was Noah perfect? No, but he didn’t have to be. He wasn’t expected to be. Noach ish. Noah was a man, and so far as he was able, he was a just and wholehearted man in the way he lived with others. God, who judges not as we judge, saw this and saved him.

The lesson for me is this: I am an ordinary man like Noah. Given that, can it also be said of me: Bald Man ish tzadik tamim?