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In Genesis 6:3 'The the Lord said "I will not allow people to live for ever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer that 120 years"'. Now, after this there are examples of people living longer than 120 years (genesis 23:1 'Sarah lived to be 127 years old' being one of them). Now i know there are many believed contradictions in the bible and they are continually refuted (although not always with proper reasoning and fact) and I tried to find reasoning for this seemingly massive contradiction, but couldn't find any. So, any help?
God set a time limit for the existence of the evil which had consumed the land, saying "My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be an hundred and twenty years". These words would of been spoken to Noah. Shortly after this Noah saw his first son, born in 2470 BCE, and the records show another son, two years later. although the time of the latter was not stated, they were grown and married when Noah received his instructions to build the ark. Consequently, it is likely that only 40 or 50 years remained before the Deluge. Noah then set to work as a builder and "a preacher" warning that wicked generation of the impending destruction to come.
God was not going to act compassionately toward those for an indefinite period of time, so now he set a limit for that generation to get deeper and deeper into degradation, so far away from the image and likeness of God in which he had created the first man of flesh and blood. Twelve more decades would pass before they faced an act of God.
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