An interesting read of Chumash, which has always been in the meforshim, but which I think we tend to overlook because of our biases. At the start of parshas Noach, we have a declaration by Hashem:
| יג וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים לְנֹחַ, קֵץ כָּל-בָּשָׂר בָּא לְפָנַי--כִּי-מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ חָמָס, מִפְּנֵיהֶם; וְהִנְנִי מַשְׁחִיתָם, אֶת-הָאָרֶץ. | 13 And God said unto Noah: 'The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. |
What is this ketz? What seems simplest to me is that because of this misbehavior, Hashem has decided that it is the end of all flesh. But Aharon ben Yosef the Karaite declares that the ketz is the end of a declared period of time. And that ketz is the aforementioned 120 years where Hashem said he would wait to see if they improved.
Where did Hashem declare such a ketz? At the end of parshas Beraishis:
| ג וַיֹּאמֶר ה', לֹא-יָדוֹן רוּחִי בָאָדָם לְעֹלָם, בְּשַׁגַּם, הוּא בָשָׂר; וְהָיוּ יָמָיו, מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה. | 3 And the LORD said: 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.' |
Rashi says on this pasuk:
| and his days shall be: Until a hundred and twenty years I will delay My wrath towards them, but if they do not repent, I will bring a flood upon them. Now if you ask: from the time that Japheth was born until the Flood are only a hundred years, [I will answer that] there is no [sequence of] earlier and later events in the Torah. This decree had already been issued twenty years before Noah begot children, and so we find in Seder Olam (ch. 28). There are many Aggadic midrashim on the words לֹא יָדוֹן, but this is its clear, simple explanation. | והיו ימיו וגו': עד מאה ועשרים שנה אאריך להם אפי ואם לא ישובו אביא עליהם מבול. ואם תאמר משנולד יפת עד המבול אינו אלא מאה שנה, אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה, כבר היתה הגזירה גזורה עשרים שנה קודם שהוליד נח תולדות, וכן מצינו בסדר עולם (פרק כח). יש מדרשי אגדה רבים בלא ידון, אבל זה הוא צחצוח פשוטו: |
Or as Onkelos puts it:
| ו,ג וַיֹּאמֶר ה, לֹא-יָדוֹן רוּחִי בָאָדָם לְעֹלָם, בְּשַׁגַּם, הוּא בָשָׂר; וְהָיוּ יָמָיו, מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה. | וַאֲמַר יְיָ, לָא יִתְקַיַּם דָּרָא בִּישָׁא הָדֵין קֳדָמַי לְעָלַם, בְּדִיל דְּאִנּוּן בִּסְרָא, וְעוֹבָדֵיהוֹן בִּישִׁין; אַרְכָּא יְהִיב לְהוֹן, מְאָה וְעַסְרִין שְׁנִין אִם יְתוּבוּן. |
This is not at all the way I would have understood the pasuk. I would see 120 years, and see Hashem shortening lifespans. After all, in the previous perek, we read of all these antediluvian generations in which people lived 1000 years, something we do see today. And we see a reduction in the lifespans of later generations. Furthermore, we have Moshe who lived 120 years, and we say ad meah veEsrim shana, with the belief that 120 makes for a complete lifespan.
Ibn Ezra considers both explanations:
והיו ימיו -יש אומרים:שזה קצב כל האדם ואם מצאנו יותר, כן מצאנו מעט, רק על הרוב ידבר. ואין זה אמת, כי הנה שם חיה שש מאות וכל הדורות אחריו חיו שנים רבות, ובימי פלג חסרו השנים ומימות דוד עד היום שבעים, או שמונים שנה.והאמת מה שאמר המתרגם ארמית, שנתן קץ לאדם, כטעם ועוד ארבעים יום ואם ישובו - ימלטו ואם לא ישובו - וימותו.ואל תשים לבך אל מספר: ויהי נח בן חמש מאות שנה, כי אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה.והנה כתוב: וימת תרח בחרן ואחריו ויאמר ה' אל אברם לך לך מארצך, ואנחנו נדע כי לא מת תרח עד שהיה יצחק בן חמש ושלשים שנה, ורבים כמוהו:
Some say that the lifespan of mankind is this, approximately, and it is speaking of the majority of cases. But Ibn Ezra rejects this because Shem, who was the son of Noach, lived 600 years, and all the generations after him also lives for many years. And in the days of Peleg the years reduced, and from the days of David until this day, 70 or 80 years.
In terms of the latter, he is citing reality as well as the pasuk
| י יְמֵי-שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה, וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה-- וְרָהְבָּם, עָמָל וָאָוֶן: כִּי-גָז חִישׁ, וַנָּעֻפָה. | 10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore years; {N} yet is their pride but travail and vanity; {N} for it is speedily gone, and we fly away. |
Rather, Ibn Ezra agrees with Onkelos. The problem with this is one of dating, because Noach was 500 when he had Shem, Cham and Yefes (Bereishit 5:32), and the mabul started when he was 600 years old (7:6); yet this period of 120 years of forbearance is mentioned after this he was 500 years old (6:3). And that would mean that the pasuk would talk of a time when Noach was 500, then when he was 480, and then when he was 600. Ibn Ezra's answer is ain mukdam umeuchar baTorah. And he gives a parallel to Terach.
And I say that Ibn Ezra is certainly right here, in terms of ain mukdam. In both this instance and in the instance of Terach, we are dealing with a genealogical section (giving a frame) put against a narrative section (zooming in on details), and this is a fairly regular feature in which ain mukdam is surely true.
Even so, I am not so convinced that 120 does not mean a man's lifespan. It certainly is a normal if lengthy lifespan from our perspective, living in the 21th century. Of course, diet has impact. But some of us don't really know what to do with these extremely long lifetimes in B'raishis. We grapple with it, as I do over here, when I seriously suggest that shana means a shorter span, basing myself in part of the Sumerian king list. And some suggest that there are deeper meanings, or that it refers to families / dynasties, etc.
We do see normal spans, from Terach and on, approaching 120 years, and we can readily take these as intended as factual. Add to that that we could be talking about the descendants of angelic creatures whose lifetimes are being shortened to human lifespans. As I discuss in the comment section of this post, in context, we read:
and we can say that these Benei Elohim are angels, the nefilim of the context which follows. And since the descendants are also flesh, and not just spiritual beings, they shall have a similar lifespan as that of man, namely 120. Someone who is adam cannot have Hashem's spirit abide in them forever, and therefore they are mortal.
Or alternatively, because of their sinning, their lifespan has been reduced. I still think it is plausible, and don't consider the explicit contradiction we find immediately after, in that Shem and company lived much longer, to be an unassailable contradiction.
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