This might be the saddest passage in the Bible. God looks at humanity and sees that every intention of every heart is only evil continually—total corruption. And then this: “The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” God grieves. The Hebrew words nacham and atsab speak of sorrow, pain, and anguish at the deepest level. This episode explores what it means that God can be wounded by what he loves. Your sin doesn’t just break God’s law; it breaks God’s heart. But the passage doesn’t end in grief. It ends with grace: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” The first time the word for grace appears in Scripture, it’s attached to one man standing in the wreckage of a ruined world. Grace doesn’t appear when things are good. Grace appears when everything has fallen apart.

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