Genesis 6:7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I will destroy man The original word is very significant, I will wipe off man; from off the earth As dirt is wiped off from a place which should be clean, and thrown to the dunghill. Or, I will blot out man from the earth, as those lines are blotted out of a book which displease the author, or as the name of a citizen is blotted out of the rolls of the freemen when he is disfranchised. Both man and beast, the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air These were made for man, and therefore destroyed with man. It repenteth me that I have made them For the end of their creation also was frustrated: they were made that man might serve and honour God with them; and therefore were destroyed, because he had served his lusts with them, and made them subject to vanity.