Zohar: Genesis: Chapter LIII. Remarks on the Destroying Angel and the Antediluvians

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This is an excerpt from the Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish mystical tradition (Kabbalah), presented as a rabbinic discussion among sages including Rabbi Jehuda, Rabbi Hezekiah, Rabbi Jose, and Rabbi Isaac. The passage centers on the biblical Flood narrative, interpreting it through the lens of the "waters of Meribah" — the episode where Israelites quarreled with God in the desert — to argue that "flood waters" in scripture signify spiritual defilement and divine punishment rather than mere physical inundation. A key debate turns on the Hebrew word *vayiqadesh*: Rabbi Jehuda reads it as Israel attracting an "impure spirit," while Rabbi Hezekiah counters that the text describes Israel's degradation of the Divine presence itself, likening it to the moon's eclipse. The rabbis extend the flood's meaning into a broader moral theology: secret sins left unrepented eventually become publicly revealed and punished, the antediluvians being the paradigm case, destroyed so completely that only their bones remained. A distinctive claim closes the passage — that the phrase "destroyed from the earth" is deliberately linked to being "blotted out of the book of the living," meaning the wicked are permanently erased from existence and will not appear even at the final judgment. Readers interested in Kabbalistic biblical hermeneutics, the theology of sin and divine justice, or the Zohar's interpretive method will find this a representative and substantive sample.

Zohar: Genesis: Chapter LIII. Remarks on the Destroying Angel and the Antediluvians

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