Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 7:1

HISTORY OF THE DELUGE, Gen 6:9 to Gen 8:22.

The traditions of a deluge which at one time covered the whole inhabited earth and swept away the whole human race except a single family, or very few persons, who were saved in an ark, (ship, boat, or raft,) is almost, if not quite, as widely spread as the human race itself. Some terrible event of this character; some dreadful catastrophe that overwhelmed the race in destruction by water, is deeply impressed on the memory of mankind. Among the nations of Western Asia, the Chaldeans, Phrygians, and Phenicians remarkably reproduce the biblical account. Noah is the Xisuthrus of the Chaldee Berosus, while the Sibylline books mention that the earth was peopled by his three sons, one of whom was named Japetus. The traditions of Eastern Asia, as the Persian, Indian, and Chinese, though more or less mixed up with their peculiar mythologies and cosmogonies, are yet unmistakable. The Noah of the Chinese is Fahhe, who escaped from the deluge with his wife, three sons, and three daughters, and was the second father of the human race. In a Chinese Buddhist temple is a beautiful stucco picture of Noah floating in his ark amid the watery deluge, while a dove flies toward the vessel with an olive branch in her beak. ( Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 16: 79.) The Noah of the East Indians is Manu, to whom Bramah announced the approach of the deluge, and bade him build a ship, store it with all kinds of seeds, and then enter into it with seven holy beings. When the flood covered the earth Bramah, in the form of a horned fish, drew the ship through the waters and landed it finally on the loftiest summit of the

Himalaya. Manu was the father of a new race. The Koran relates the story with peculiar amplifications and embellishments, describing, at great length, Noah’s faithful preaching, and picturing its rejection by the scoffing world, stating that one of his sons was among the scoffers, who attempted to escape to a mountain and was drowned before his father’s eyes. In the well-known Greek traditions Noah appears as Ogyges or Deucalion. The story is found in various forms in Pindar and Apollodorus, and is related with graphic power and poetic embellishment by Ovid and Lucian. Lucian describes Deucalion, the single righteous man, putting his family and many kinds of animals into a chest, when a heavy rain fell, and the earth opened, sending forth floods of water by which the greater part of Hellas was submerged, while Deucalion’s chest floated to the top of Parnassus. The traditions of the deluge among the various aboriginal American nations are interesting and remarkable. The Noah of the Aztecs is Coxcox, who saved himself, with his wife, on a raft. Humboldt describes Mexican pictures of this deluge and of the confusion of tongues; the race being represented as dumb after the catastrophe, and a dove being pictured distributing among them tongues from the top of a tree. He also relates that the Noah of another Mexican nation was called Tezpi, who was saved in a spacious bark with his wife, children, some animals and food. “When the Great Spirit ordered the waters to withdraw Tezpi sent out from his bark a vulture. The bird did not return on account of the carcases with which the earth was strewn. Tezpi sent out other birds, one of which, the hummingbird, alone returned, holding in its beak a branch clad with leaves.” In the Chaldee tradition, Xisuthrus sends out the birds three times, the second time they returned with mud on their feet, and the third time they return no more. Many of the American traditions blend the history of Noah with that of Adam, while the Chaldee and Phrygian stories confuse Enoch and Noah. Thus Xisuthrus is taken to heaven after the ark is stranded, while the Phrygian Annakos, or Nannakos, (Enoch,) foretells the flood and weeps and prays for the people. In the reign of Septimus Severus, (A.D. 193-211,) a coin was struck in Apamea of Phrygia, which commemorates this local tradition, though by that time it may have been modified by the Bible history. This city was anciently called Kibotos, or the “Ark,” and the medal represents a square vessel, floating in the water, containing two persons, while on its top is perched a bird, another flying toward it bearing a branch. Before the ark are represented the two inmates stepping on the dry land. Some specimens have the name or , on the vessel .

Was the deluge universal? The universality of this tradition certainly points to a deluge that was universal as far as mankind is concerned. The Scripture language demands, Delitzsch remarks, that the flood be considered as universal for the earth as inhabited, but not for the earth as such; Scripture has no interest in the universality of the flood in itself, but only in the universality of the judgment of which it was the execution. Our exposition of the whole narrative is determined in the settlement of the primary question, Was this a miraculous or simply a providential judgment? Did God in this catastrophe destroy the human race through natural or supernatural causes? For if it were a miracle, it is perfectly idle, because utterly unphilosophical, to speculate as to its causes and effects. Miraculous events are entirely beyond the province of reasoning; and if the deluge belongs to this class we can no more tell how the waters were made to cover the earth, and how Noah could gather and preserve the animals in the ark, than we can tell how Christ turned water into wine, or rose from the dead. No Christian doubts that God’s power is adequate to the production of even such a series of stupendous miracles as are involved in the hypothesis of a universal deluge; but the simple question is, Does the text, on fair interpretation, teach that such a vast array of miracles were concentrated in this event, or does it describe the destruction of a wicked race by natural causes? We think that all the circumstances of the event, abounding as they do in allusions to natural causes and effects, show that the sacred historian did not intend to describe a miracle, but a natural catastrophe, by which God destroyed the “world of the ungodly,” and which is, therefore, as to all its phenomena, a legitimate subject for speculation. Commentators are now agreed, that if it were universal it must have been a miracle, yet few realize the stupendousness of the miracle supposed. Unless there were a new creation after the flood, which some gratuitously imagine without the least authority from the sacred narrative, and which, if assumed, renders any preservation of animals in the ark unnecessary, all existing species of land-animals, including mammals, birds, and insects, must have been saved in the ark. In former times, when the extent of the animal kingdom was imperfectly known, commentators (as Clarke) were able to show, with great plausibility, that the ark furnished ample accommodations. But several important items have always been omitted; the insects, of which there are probably half a million of species, and which would have been as surely destroyed by a universal deluge as cattle or fowls; marine animals, which have their habitat on the shores between the tide-marks, and cannot live under fifty fathoms of water; the coral animals, which would all have been destroyed by water standing at the depth supposed; and the fresh water fishes, if the waters of the deluge be supposed to have been salt, or the salt water fishes, if they be supposed to have been fresh. Also, it is not generally considered that, miracle apart, it was necessary to preserve the vegetable as well as the animal kingdom in the ark, since many terrestrial plants and seeds would have been destroyed by such a deluge. But Noah was not commanded to gather marine animals nor seeds. Each continent and zone has now its zoological provinces, determined by climate, elevation, soil, etc. The polar bear cannot live in the torrid zone; the carnivora of the tropics cannot live within the Arctic circle. The animals of America are wholly different from those of the old continent in the corresponding zones. The South American jaguar must have travelled through several zones and the greater part of two continents, to have reached the ark. If, after a cursory study of the zoological provinces of the earth, we endeavour to imagine a procession of animals from the uttermost parts of both continents and from the isles of the sea, towards Western Asia, one thousand six hundred pairs of mammals, six thousand pairs of birds, insects more numerous than all other animals together, gathering about the ark, it is only by supposing a series of miracles that the picture can be made possible to thought. These miracles multiply in number and magnitude as we try to think of this vast menagerie dwelling together in harmony, fed and kept clean for a year by Noah and his sons, and finally departing in safety from Ararat, and thence diffusing themselves through the world. All this, we most freely admit, is possible to God. If it were a miracle, all these questions and objections are idle; but in that case it is also idle to attempt to reason on the matter at all. All miracles are alike easy to God. He could have gathered these animals to Noah and afterwards have dispersed them, as easily as he created them in their various provinces at first, but the text says, that Noah was commanded to bring them into the ark. Gen 6:19. God could have fed them as he fed Israel with manna, as he fed Elijah by ravens, and if the text stated that they were thus miraculously fed we should believe it, but it states (Gen 6:21) that Noah was commanded to gather of all food that is eaten for the sustenance of all the population of the ark . There is no indication of miraculous help in this work; all is described as a natural transaction .

Some (Prichard, Kurtz, Jacobus) suppose that new species were created after the flood, but if this be so there was obviously no need of making any provision for animals in the ark; besides, there is not a word in the text on which to base such a supposition, while the whole narrative clearly implies that the work of creation ceased at the end of the creative week. Others (Wordsworth, Lange) strongly favour the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, and suppose, or hint, that new species were brought into being, naturally or supernaturally, after the deluge. This is not the place to discuss Darwinism, but it is certainly premature for the Scripture commentator to call in its aid before it has been made to appear as even a plausible hypothesis. It would be more consistent for those who regard the transaction as miraculous not to attempt to explain it in any way.

Many eminent biblical scholars (for example, Stillingfleet, Poole, Le Clerc, Dothe, Pye Smith, Murphy, Lewis) interpret the text as teaching that the deluge was, as Delitzsch expressed it, universal for mankind, but not for the earth. This is simply a question of exegesis, and as such should be settled. The first impression naturally received by the English reader from the narrative is certainly that the waters covered the whole geographical earth, rose above the highest mountains, and destroyed every living terrestrial thing except the dwellers in the ark. “Behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven.” Gen 6:17. “And all flesh died that moved upon the earth . All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” Gen 7:21-22, etc . “And all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered . ” Gen 7:19. But the change of a single word in these passages would greatly modify this impression, and yet this is a change which parallel passages fully warrant us in making . The word , here translated earth, is quite as often rendered land throughout the Old Testament . In the Pentateuch it is applied in a multitude of instances to the land of Egypt and of Canaan . Comp . Exo 1:7; Exo 1:10; Exo 3:8; Exo 3:17, etc . Thus in Gen 43:1: “And the famine was sore in the land,” that is, of Canaan . Gen 41:56. “And the famine was over all the face of the earth,” (certainly not the geographical earth, but Egypt and the adjacent countries . ) Exo 10:15, “Locusts covered the face of the whole earth,” that is, land of Egypt. The Concordance will show a multitude of such passages. Hence Murphy renders the word land, throughout the description of the deluge. In the mind of the inspired writer this word meant simply that portion of the earth where man dwelt and which was the inhabited land. Of the vast geographical earth he had no idea, and so to him the word could not have had the meaning that it now conveys. See Introd., pp. 64, 65, and notes on Gen 1:1.

Again, the word , rendered all or every in this description, in common with other Hebrew words and phrases of a similar character, often has a partial signification . Until accustomed to this idiom the text sometimes appears even to contradict itself . For example, in Exo 9:25, we read, “And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.” Yet that the word “all,” or “every,” is not to be understood literally, in a universal sense, appears from Exo 10:15, wherein it is said that the locusts “did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left.” So also in Exo 9:6, in describing the plague of the murrain, it is said “ all the cattle of Egypt died;” yet the next two plagues that of the boils and that of the hail are said to have fallen upon the cattle that were in the field. King Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4:1) and Darius (Dan 6:25) make their proclamations “unto all people, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth;” language that would seem to be emphatically and laboriously universal; yet in Dan 6:26, we find it explained by “every dominion of my kingdom . ” The New Testament Greek shows the same idiom . Thus in Act 2:5, we read, “There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven . ” Yet in Gen 6:9-11 we have a list of these nations given, which by no means embraces the whole human race . So Paul speaks of the Gospel which he declares was then “in all the world;” and “preached to every creature which is under heaven . ” Col 1:6; Col 1:23. Thus we see that the expression, “all the high hills which were under the whole heaven” may, without the least exegetical strain upon the language, be understood to describe a deluge that, with reference to the earth, geographically considered, was local and partial .

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Generations of Noah, Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29.

Note here, again, how the history doubles back upon itself. Noah has been already introduced, (Gen 5:29; Gen 5:32,) but now the divine record of beginnings and developments takes a new departure . Compare note at beginning of chap . v, and Introd . , pp . 49, 50 .

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Day Arrives ( Gen 7:1-5 )

Gen 7:1

‘And Yahweh said to Noah, “Come, both you and all your household into the ark, for I have seen you as righteous before me in this generation”.’

We now see a reversion from Elohim to Yahweh because God is now dealing with Noah personally as one who is within His covenant and not primarily as Judge and Creator. The long period of activity required in Gen 6:22 is over and the time has come for them to take refuge in the ark. Again the reason is stressed, it is because Noah is the only one of his generation to be acceptable to God through his faithfulness and his faith in God.

Now Yahweh gives more detailed instructions. In the previous verses He had stated that two of every kind of creature must enter the ark, so that their kinds might be preserved, for He was speaking as Elohim, the Creator, now He deals with the more practical element that it is necessary for more to be preserved of the ‘clean’ animals, and also of the ‘clean’ birds, which are both suitable for food and sacrificial offerings, for He is speaking as Yahweh, the covenant God, ensuring the maintenance of worship and the preservation of His people. This was clearly necessary or else the family would be unable to offer sacrifices to God until there had been time for the clean animals and birds to breed sufficiently, nor would they have sufficient milk and food. Gen 7:3 almost certainly refers to clean birds rather than all birds, being a parallel with Gen 7:2 in abbreviated form.

Gen 7:2

“You shall take seven and seven of every clean animal, male and female, and two of the animals that are not clean, male and female. Of the birds of the air also, seven and seven, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the earth.”

It is not certain whether seven and seven means ‘seven pairs’ or seven of each kind, although Gen 7:7 suggests the former, but either way provision is made for sacrificial offerings and later possibly for food. Already it is clear that there are distinct types of animals and birds considered suitable for sacrifice and for eating.

Such distinctions would in fact be necessary from the beginnings of the cult, unless it was accepted that anything could be offered, so that this is not an indication of late authorship. Views on sacrifice were complicated and widespread from the earliest times. This instruction on clean animals and birds could be given at the last moment as they would be to hand. How the numbers were originally indicated we do not know. Possibly by a hand of fingers plus two extra which may have had a name for it (as we say ‘twelve’ – ‘two eleph’ = 2 extra on top of ten – see article, ” “).

Gen 7:3

“For there are only seven more days, and then I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”

The number of days given for getting all the living creatures aboard is seven, the number of divine perfection, God’s perfect time. The world began in seven ‘days’, now preparations for its decease will also take ‘seven days’.

The ‘seven days’ may be literal, or they may indicate a God-given length of time, while not tying Noah down too strictly (compare the ‘seven-day journey’ which appears regularly in Genesis). As with Cain, so now the world are to be driven from the ‘face of the ground’, but this time with more finality, for they will be ‘blotted out’. The seven days was needed in order to get all the living things into the ark in readiness for the Flood, and it would seem to have taken up the whole time, for once they were in ‘on that very day’ the Flood came (Gen 7:11-13).

“Forty days and forty nights” will later be significant as a period when men of God wait on God at special moments in history (Moses – Exo 24:18; Exodus 34, 28; Deu 9:9; Deu 9:18; Elijah – 1Ki 19:8; and Jesus Himself – Mat 4:2 and parallels). Perhaps that idea looks back to this time. The mention of both days and nights shows the intensity of the experience. It is unceasing. ‘Forty days’ had probably already begun to mean an unspecified period of a little over a month, as it certainly would later as a period of waiting for judgment (Eze 4:6; Jon 3:4) or as a more general period of waiting (Num 13:25; 1Sa 17:16 – both significant periods of waiting for Israel). So what God is saying here (and what He probably originally said before it was translated into numbers) is that it will rain for over a moon period of days and nights. But the mention of nights stresses the continuity of it.

“I will cause it to rain — I will blot out”. In Gen 2:5 when God was mentioned as ‘causing it to rain’ on the earth it was, by inference, to bring for man the means of survival. Now God will cause it to rain to bring judgment on man. Previously it had brought life. Now it will bring death.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

“The Histories of the Sons of Noah” – The Flood ( Gen 6:9 b – Gen 10:1 a) – TABLET IV

It has been common practise among a large number of scholars to seek to split the flood narrative into different so-called ‘documents’. This has partly resulted from not comparing them closely enough with ancient writings as a whole and partly from over-enthusiasm for a theory. There is little real justification for it. Repetitiveness was endemic among ancient writings, and is therefore not a hint of combined narratives, and the intermixture of statistical material, such as dating, with story type is known elsewhere. The interchanging of the divine names Yahweh and Elohim has already been noted as occurring for good reasons (Gen 4:25-26; Gen 5:29).

The whole account is a clear unity, and is formulated on a 7 day – 40 day – 150 day – 150 day – 40 day – 7 day pattern (the numbers partly inclusive), taking us from when God commanded Noah to enter the ark to the return of the dove with the olive leaf which showed the Flood was over. The causes of, and purposes for, the Flood are consistent throughout, as are its final aims. There is certainly expansion in thought, but there is no contradiction. (Alternately we may see it as a 7 – 40 – 150 – 40 – 7 pattern depending on how we read Gen 8:3).

The Flood

The word for flood is ‘mabbul’ which only occurs outside Genesis 6-11 in Psa 29:10, where its meaning is disputed. In Psalms 29 its use follows the description of an extremely devastating storm ‘caused’ by Yahweh which strips the trees bare, and ‘Yahweh sits enthroned over the flood’ may well therefore mean that He causes, and takes responsibility for, even the subsequent cataclysmic flood. But it may alternatively mean that ‘Yahweh sits enthroned over the cataclysm’, the storm we have just read about. (The writer sees all natural phenomena as under God’s control and is using a massive storm and cataclysm as a picture of Jahweh’s great power. If the word does mean flood he may well have had Noah’s flood in mind). In the New Testament and in the Septuagint mabbul is ‘translated’ as kataklysmos (Mat 24:38-39; Luk 17:27; 2Pe 2:5). It therefore can be taken with some confidence as meaning in this context a ‘cataclysmic flood’ with the emphasis on the cataclysm.

The basis of the account consistently throughout is that man will be destroyed because of his extreme sinfulness (Gen 6:5-7; Gen 6:11-13; Gen 7:4; Gen 7:21-23; Gen 8:21). This contrasts strongly with Mesopotamian flood myths where the innocent admittedly die with the guilty, and the flood is the consequence of the anger of gods over some particular thing which annoys them.

How Extensive Was the Flood?

The question must again be raised as to what the writer is describing. There is no question but that it is a huge flood of a type never known before or since, but how far did it in fact reach?

In Hebrew the word translated ‘earth’ (eretz) even more often means ‘land’. This latter fact derived from the fact that ‘the earth’ (our world) as compared with the heavens (Gen 1:1), became ‘the earth’ (dry land) as opposed to the sea (Gen 1:10), became ‘the earth’ (their land) on which men lived (Gen 12:1). It is thus quite in accordance with the Hebrew that what is described in this passage occurred in just one part of what we would call the earth, occurring in ‘Noah’s earth’ where Noah was living with his family.

This is not just a matter of choosing between two alternative translations. The reason eretz could be so used was because of how the ancients saw things and applied language to them. To them there was their known ‘earth’, their land, and then their land with the surrounding peoples, and then the rather hazy world on the fringes and then beyond that who knew what? Thus to them ‘the earth’ could mean different things in different contexts.

Even in its wider meaning it meant what was indeed a reasonably large area, and yet from our point of view would be seen as a fairly localised area, and ‘the whole earth’ to them was what to us would still be limited horizons. We can compare Gen 41:57 where ‘the whole earth’ come to Egypt to buy food and 1Ki 10:24 where ‘the whole earth’ come to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Compare also how the Roman world and its fringes were ‘the world’ in the New Testament (Luk 2:1; Act 24:5; Rom 1:8; Col 1:6).

Thus there are three possible answers to the question as to how far the flood stretched, looking at it from the writer’s point of view.

1). That all mankind was involved and that the Flood was global. However, it could not strictly mean this to the writer, or to Noah, for both were unaware of such a concept. All they could think of was ‘the world’ according to their conception of it. What the writer could have meant was ‘all that there is’. But was he not rather concerned with the world of man?

2). That all mankind was involved, but that they were still living within a certain limited area and were therefore all destroyed in a huge flood, which was not, however, global, as it would not need to involve lands which were uninhabited.

The fact of the worldwide prevalence of Flood myths might be seen as supporting one of these two views. So also might the argument that had the area been too limited Noah could have been instructed to move with his family outside the area, however large. Against this latter, however, it could be argued that God was seen as having a lesson to teach to future generations, and that He had in view the preservation of animal life as part of Noah’s environment.

3). That it was only mankind in the large area affected by the demonic activity (Noah’s ‘earth’ or ‘world’) that were to be destroyed, and that the Flood was therefore vast, but not necessarily destroying those of mankind unaffected by the situation described.

What cannot be avoided is the idea that the Flood was huge beyond anything known since. It was remembered in Mesopotamia, an area which had known great floods, as ‘the Flood’which divided all that came before it from all that followed (see, for example, the Sumerian king lists) . They too had a memory of how their king Zius-udra survived the Flood by entering a boat and living through it, although in his case others, apart from his family, were seen as surviving with him in the boat. Alternative suggestions offered have been the consequences of the ice age ceasing, raising water levels and causing huge floods, or the falling of a huge asteroid into the sea.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Destruction of the Flood In Gen 7:1-24 God calls Noah and his family into the ark, and the flood-gates of heaven and the deep are opened so that the flood destroys every living thing upon the earth.

Gen 7:1  And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Gen 7:1 Comments – Noah’s ark symbolizes the Cross and Jesus delivering us from the world of sin and destruction.

Gen 7:2  Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

Gen 7:2 Comments – We find a list of clean and unclean animals in Lev 11:1-47. Those considered clean were the ones that ate plants, while the unclean were the animals that ate other animals. We know that in God’s original plan for creation all living creatures were to eat plants only. However, those animals that were corrupted turned from their natural state and began to eat other animals.

Gen 7:3  Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

Gen 7:4  For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

Gen 7:4 Comments – Sea life is not mentioned in the destruction by the flood, just earth creatures and fowl. In Gen 6:7 man, beast and fowl are to be destroyed.

Gen 6:7, “And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air ; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”

Gen 7:4 Comments – There is no mention of the earth ever receiving rain before the time of the flood (Gen 2:5). Instead, the earth was watered by a mist that arose from the ground (Gen 2:6).

Gen 2:5, “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth , and there was not a man to till the ground.”

Gen 2:6, “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”

Gen 7:5  And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

Gen 7:5 Comments – Noah was in total obedience unto the Lord. Hence, Noah was called righteous in Gen 7:1, “And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”

Gen 7:5 Comments – Heb 11:7 says that Noah built the ark. This act of faith condemned the world, showing their rebellion and disobedience to God, “And he preached to them righteousness” (2Pe 2:5). His preaching of God’s coming judgment is just like us preaching today of Jesus’ coming and judgment day. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Php 2:12).

Heb 11:7, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”

2Pe 2:5, “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;”

Php 2:12, “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Gen 7:6  And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

Gen 7:6 “six hundred years old” – Comments – Noah was 595 years old when his father died. Thus, none of his righteous ancestors was alive at the time of the flood.

Gen 5:30, “And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters.”

Noah’s three sons were approximately 100 years old when the flood came:

Gen 11:10, “These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood.”

Noah was 500 years old when the flood came.

Gen 5:32, “And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”

The Flood came five years after Lamech’s death. It came the same year as Methuselah’s death. Enoch was taken to heaven before Noah’s birth. Only Lamech and Methuselah lived at the time of the birth of Noah’s sons. So why did God wait to send the flood until the very year that the last of Noah’s forefathers died? Because the righteous are the salt of the earth, holding back God’s wrath:

Mat 5:13, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”

Adam to Seth 130 yrs, lived 800 yrs longer, died at age 930.

Seth to Enos 105 yrs, lived 807 yrs longer, died at age 912.

Enos to Cainan 90 yrs, lived 815 yrs longer, died at age 905.

Cainan to Mahalaleel 70 yrs, lived 840 yrs longer, died at age 910.

Mahalaleel to Jared 65 yrs, lived 830 yrs longer, died at age 895.

Jared to Enoch 162 yrs, lived 800 yrs longer, died at age 962.

Enoch to Methuselah 65 yrs, lived 300 yrs longer, translated at age 365.

Methuselah to Lamech 187 yrs, lived 782 yrs longer, died at age 969.

Lamech to Noah 182 yrs, lived 595 yrs longer, died at age 777.

Noah to 3 sons 500 yrs, 100 yrs later the flood, lived 350 years longer, died at age 950.

Gen 7:7  And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

Gen 7:8  Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

Gen 7:9  There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

Gen 7:8-9 Comments Noah’s Obedience – Noah did not seek to save a bunch of worldly treasures, but rather he sought animals in obedience to God’s command.

Gen 7:8-9 Comments Noah Gathers the Animals Into the Ark – The question is asked, “How did Noah gather all of the animals into the ark.” We ask this question from the observation of the behaviour of the animal today. God brought the animals to Adam in the same way that He brought the animals to the Ark and the same way He brought a whale to swallow Jonah.

Gen 2:19, “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”

Gen 7:10  And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

Gen 7:10 Comments – God’s Word is truth. It never falls short throughout the Holy Bible. In Noah’s obedience to God’s Word, he waited for a Word from God before acting in faith. He stayed in the ark one year and ten days (Gen 7:11; Gen 8:14).

Gen 7:11, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”

Gen 8:14, “And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.”

Gen 7:10 Comments – Noah entered the ark seven days before the flood came.

Gen 7:11  In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Gen 7:11 Word Study on “the fountains” Strong says the Hebrew word “fountain” ( ) (H4599) means, “a spring, fountain.” He says it comes from the word ( ) (H5869), which means, “eye.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 23 times in the Old Testament. In the KJV, it is translated, “fountain 16, well 5, springs 2.”

Gen 7:11 Word Study on “the windows” Strong says the Hebrew word “windows” ( ) (H699) means, “lattice, window, sluice.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 9 times in the Old Testament. In the KJV, it is translated, “windows 8, chimney 1.” The NIV reads, “floodgates.” Strong says it is the passive participle of the primitive root ( ) (H693), which means, “to lie in wait, ambush, lurk.”

Gen 7:11 Comments – Pro-flood scientists generally agree that there was a huge reservoir of water under the earth’s crust prior to the flood in Noah’s time. This would explain how a mist went up from the earth and continually watered the entire face of the ground (Gen 2:5-6). At the time of the flood, the earth’s crust broke open and the water from beneath was pushed upwards because of tremendous pressure from the weight of earth. This water from these fissures shot up miles into the atmosphere, returning to earth in the form of a tremendous rainstorm unlike anything that has ever been before or after. In addition, much of this water would have turned into snow because of the cold atmospheric temperatures and fell to earth as a giant global snowstorm. This would explain why scientists now find giant mastodons frozen in the ice with vegetation still in their mouths from grazing. These giant fissures split the earth’s mantle into the pieces that we see today. We recognize them now as the undersea ridges that run down the mid-Atlantic as well at the “Ring of Fire” that encircles the Pacific Ocean. As these fountains of the deep burst forth, some of the earth’s crust smashed together with such force that it formed the mountain ranges that we see today across the earth. [125]

[125] John Baumgardner, Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: The Physics Behind the Genesis Flood (Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA , 2003) [on-line]; accessed 22 March 2009; available from http://globalflood.org/papers/2003ICCcpt.html; Internet.

Gen 2:5-6, “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”

Gen 7:11 Illustration – While on the trip from Texas to Oregon, I saw the results of the deep breaking with huge mountains and layers of rock thrusting out of the ground. I believe the land, the earth, was flat and tropical until the flood, which broke the cloud cover and also made mountains. The flow of the water cut deep canyons into the earth.

Gen 7:12  And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Gen 7:13  In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;

Gen 7:13 Comments – Noah and his family all entered into the ark by faith. They all entered together into the ark on the same day. This day was when the rain began to fall upon the earth (Gen 7:12). The flood, its destruction, and salvation of Noah and family is compared, in Luk 17:26-31, to the second coming of Jesus.

Gen 7:14  They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

Gen 7:15  And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.

Gen 7:16  And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

Gen 7:16 “and the LORD shut him in” Comments – The fact that the Lord shut Noah in the ark represents the fact that God determines the times and seasons of His divine judgment. He determined the day to shut this door, and He will determine the time and day to shut the door and end man’s opportunities for repentance. He determines the day of every man’s death, and of the future prophetic events of the wrath and judgment of Almighty God.

Gen 7:17  And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

Gen 7:18  And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

Gen 7:19  And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

Gen 7:18-19 Comments The Earth Before the Flood – Carl Baugh, who teaches extensively on the biblical account of creation, says that before the flood, there were no tall mountains as there are today. During this period, great upheavals took place on the earth creating the mountains as we know today. In fact, the height of mountains is increasing even today with the continued movement of earth’s tectonic plates. [126]

[126] Carl Baugh, Creation in the 21 st Century (Glen Rose, Texas: Creation Evidence Museum) , on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.

Gen 7:20  Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

Gen 7:21  And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:

Gen 7:22  All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

Gen 7:23  And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Gen 7:23 “and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark” Comments – When God speaks His Word, He performs it to the utmost (Gen 6:13).

Gen 6:13, “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.”

Gen 7:24  And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Gen 7:24 Comments – In other words, for five months the water covered the earth before it began to recede.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.

The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.

The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.

In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.

It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.

We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.

In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26

a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25

b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24

c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26

2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8

3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29

4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9

5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26

6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11

7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18

8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29

9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43

10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Genealogy of Noah The third genealogy in the book of Genesis is entitled “The Genealogy of Noah” (Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29), which gives us the account of the Noah’s fulfillment of the divine commission to be fruitful and multiply. Heb 11:7 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when it describes Noah’s obedience to God in building the ark. Noah’s destiny, whose name means “rest,” was to be fruitful and bear a righteous offspring. His genealogy opens with a divine commission to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. Immediately after the Flood, Noah built an altar and God spoke to him and commanded him to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen 9:1). Heb 11:7 tells us how Noah fulfilled his divine commission by building the ark and saving his household.

Heb 11:7, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The Lord Commands Noah Gen 6:9-22

2. The Destruction of the Flood Gen 7:1-24

3. Noah and His Family Leave the Ark Gen 8:1-22

4. Be Fruitful and Multiply Gen 9:1-7

5. God’s Covenant with Noah Gen 9:8-17

6. Noah Curses Canaan Gen 9:18-27

7. Conclusion to the Genealogy of Noah Gen 9:28-29

The Story of the Flood Within the genealogy of Noah we find the lengthy story of the Flood, by which God destroyed the earth. Jesus tells us that the story of the Flood reveals parallel events that will take place in the end times (Mat 24:37-39).

Mat 24:37-39, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

The rapture of Enoch (Gen 5:24) could parallel the rapture of the spirit-filled saints, which takes place immediately before the Great Tribulation. The building of the ark could parallel the propitiation of Christ Jesus and His office of the High Priest, which will deliver many during the time of the Great Tribulation. ( Strong says that the Hebrew word “pitch” ( ) (H3722) in Gen 6:14 means, “to cover, purge, make an atonement, make reconciliation, [cover over with] pitch.”) Also, in the Scripture forty days represents a time of tribulation. Thus, the forty days of rain could represent the seven-year Tribulation Period. The one-year that Noah rested in the ark could represent the thousand-year Millennial Reign of Christ on earth (compare Gen 7:11 to Gen 8:13). Noah’s disembarkment from the ark and God’s renewal of His covenant with Noah and the earth could represent our entrance into eternity with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth under a similar renewal of covenant.

The story of Noah’s Flood refers to three dates in the life of Noah. It refers to his age of five hundred (500) years old when he bore his three sons (Gen 5:32), his age of six hundred (600) years old when he entered the ark (Gen 7:11) and his age of six hundred and one (601) years old when he disembarked from the ark (Gen 8:13). and of Jesus’ prophecies in Matthew 24-25 have a time of warning of God’s impending judgment, a time of judgment and the start of a new age. At the age of 500 he was a “preacher of righteous” warning others of God’s coming judgment. At the age of six hundred (600) the judgment of God came upon the earth. At the age of six hundred and one (601) the earth ended one age and entered into a new age for mankind. In a similar way, the disciples asked Jesus in Mat 24:3 three questions regarding warning signs, judgment and restoration. They wanted to know the warning signs of the end of the age, the time when judgment comes and the time when Jesus comes to usher us into a new age.

Many scholars suggest that the statement in Mat 24:34, which says, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled,” means that all of the events that Jesus predicted in Matthew 24-25 will take place within a man’s lifetime. If we find a parallel to this time frame in the story of Noah and the Flood, we know that he was “a preacher of righteousness” for one hundred and twenty (120) years according to Jewish tradition. Thus, it is possible that the signs and events of the end- times will last about one hundred and twenty (120) years and end with the Second Coming of Christ.

When God shut the door to the ark Noah did not know the day and hour that the flood would come. Noah knew the season of the coming of the Flood, but not the exact time. He was just being obedient. In the same way Jesus said, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” (Mat 25:13)

Historical Evidence of the Flood Literally hundreds of accounts of a flood have been documented from every corner of the world. From North, Central and South America, Africa, Europe, the Near East as well as the Far East, historians have discovered some version of a flood in most of these societies. [122]

[122] Howard F. Vos, “Flood (Genesis),” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 316-321; Mark Isaak, Flood Stores from Around the World, c1996-2002 [on-line]; accessed 14 March 2009; available from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html; Internet.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Order to Embark

v. 1. And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation. Here is the solemn command of Jehovah with which He announced the coming of the cataclysm; it was the signal of the approaching judgment. of all the millions of men then living only Noah had been found righteous in the eyes of God.

v. 2. of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Here the account is more specific, distinguishing between clean and unclean animals. Cf Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14. of clean animals a total of seven of each kind were to be taken into the ark, probably three pairs and a fourth male intended for a sacrificial animal; but with regard to the unclean animals the arrangement by pairs was observed.

v. 3. of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. So these animals and birds were to be the progenitors of the animal world after the Flood, to restock the earth, which would be rendered desolate by the universal destruction.

v. 4. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. First it had been years of respite, but now the time has narrowed down to a few days, thus emphasizing once more the inevitable doom. The destruction was to be brought upon the earth by a flood inaugurated by a steady rain of forty days and forty nights, and it was to include all animate creation, everything that had its own separate existence, all of which was to be blotted out from the face of the earth.

v. 5. And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. Cf Gen 6:22.

v. 6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. The hundred and twenty years of grace had begun even before his marriage, or at least before the birth of his sons, Gen 5:32, and the latter were now almost one hundred years old. Thus the entire congregation of believers had dwindled down to eight souls, Methuselah having died in the year of the Flood.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Gen 7:1

And the Lord, Jehovah, since Elohim now appears as the covenant God, though this change in the Divine name is commonly regarded by modern critics as betraying the hand of a Jehovist supplementer of the fundamental document of the Elohist (Bleek, Vaihinger, Davidson, Kalisch, Colense, Alford); but “that the variations in the name of God furnish no criterion by which to detect different documents is evident enough from the fact that in Gen 7:5 Noah does as Jehovah commands him, while in Gen 7:16 Elohim alternates with Jehovah” (Keil). Said unto Noah. At the end of the 120 years, when the building of the ark had been completed, and only seven days before the Flooddoubtless by an audible voice still speaking to him from between the cherubim, which we can suppose had not yet vanished from the earth. Come thou and all thy house into the ark. I.e. prepare for entering; the actual entry taking place seven days later. So God ever hides his people before the storm bursts (cf. Isa 26:20). For thee have I seen righteous (vide Gen 6:9) before me. Literally, before my face; not merely notifying the Divine observance of Noah’s piety, but announcing the fact of his justification in God’s sight. “To be righteous before God,” the usual Scriptural phrase for justification (cf. Psa 143:2). In this generation. Vide Gen 6:9. Indicating not alone the sphere of Noah’s godly life, but its exceptional character; “involving an opposing sentence of condemnation against his contemporaries” (Lange).

Gen 7:2

Of every clean beast. That the distinction between clean and unclean animals was at this time understood is easier to believe than that the writer would perpetrate the glaring anachronism of introducing in prediluvian times what only took its rise several centuries later (Kalisch). That this distinction was founded on nature, “every tribe of mankind being able to distinguish between the sheep and the hyena, the dove and the vulture” (‘Speaker’s Commentary’), or “on an immediate conscious feeling of the human spirit, not yet clouded by any ungodly and unnatural culture, which leads it to see in many beasts pictures of sin and corruption” (Keil), has been supposed; but with greater probability it was of Divine institution, with reference to the necessities of sacrifice (Ainsworth, Bush, Wordsworth; cf. Gen 8:20). To this was appended in the Levitical system a distinction between clean and unclean in respect of man’s food (Le Gen 11:3). Shalt thou takeinconsistent with Gen 6:20, which says the animals were to come to Noah (Colenso); but Gen 6:19, which says that Noah was to bring them, i.e. make them go (at least nearly equivalent to take), clearly recognizes Noah’s agency (Quarry)to thee by sevens. Literally, seven, seven; either seven pairs (Vulgate, LXX; Aben Ezra, Clericus, Michaells, De Wette, Knobel, Kalisch, Murphy, Alford, Wordsworth, ‘ Speaker’s Commentary’), or seven individuals; both parties quoting the next clause in support of their particular interpretation. Davidson, Colenso, and Kalisch challenge both interpretations as “irreconcilable with the preceding narrative” (Gen 6:19); but the obvious answer is, that while in the first communication, which was given 120 years before, when minute instructions were not required, it is simply stated that the animals should be preserved by pairs; in the second, when the ark was finished and the animals were about to be collected, it is added that, in the case of the few clean beasts used for sacrifice, an exception should be made to the general rule, and not one pair, but either three pairs with one over, or seven pairs, should be preserved. The male and his female. This seems to be most in favor of the first interpretation, that pairs, and not individuals, are meant. And of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Ish veishto. Cf. Gen 2:25, where the phrase denotes the ethical personality of human beings, to which there is here an approximation, as the preserved animals were designed to be the parents of subsequent races. The usual phrase for male and female, which is employed in Gen 1:28 (a so-called Elohistic) and Gen 7:3 (a so-called Jehovistic section), refers to the physical distinction of sex in human beings.

Gen 7:3

Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female. I.e. of clean fowls, “which he leaves to be understood out of the foregoing verse” (Poole). The Samaritan, Syriac, and LXX. (not so Vulgate, Onkelos, Arabic) insert the word “clean unnecessarily, and also add,” ,“ manifestly to make the verse resemble the preceding. To keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

Gen 7:4, Gen 7:5

For yet seven days. Literally, for today’s yet sevenafter seven days; thus giving Noah time to complete his preparations, and the world one more opportunity to repent, which Poole thinks many may have done, though their bodies were drowned for their former impenitency. And I will cause it to rainliterally, I causing it, the participle indicating the certainty of the future actionupon the earth forty days and forty nights. The importance assigned in subsequent Scripture to the number forty, probably from the circumstance here recorded, is too obvious to be overlooked. Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness (Num 14:33). The scouts remained forty days in Canaan (Num 13:26). Moses was forty days in the mount (Exo 24:18). Elijah fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness of Beersheba (1Ki 19:8). A respite of forty days was given to the Ninevites (Jon 3:4). Christ fasted forty days before the temptation (Mat 4:2), and sojourned forty, days on earth after his resurrection (Act 1:3). It thus appears to have been regarded as symbolical of a period of trial, ending in victory to the good and in ruin to the evil. And every living substanceyekum; literally, standing thing, omne quod subsistit, i.e. “whatever is capable by a principle of life of maintaining an erect posture” (Bush); (LXX.; cf. Deu 11:6; Job 22:20)that I have made will I destroyliterally, blot out (cf. Gen 6:7)from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according to all that the Lord (Jehovah, the God of salvation, who now interposed for the patriarch’s safety; in Gen 6:22, where God is exhibited in his relations to all flesh, it is Elohim) had commanded him.

Gen 7:6

And Noah was six hundred years old. Literally, a sum of six hundred years, i.e. in his 600th year (cf. Gen 7:11). The number six “is generally a Scriptural symbol of suffering. Christ suffered on the sixth day. In the Apocalypse the sixth seal, the sixth trumpet, the sixth vial introduce critical periods of affliction” (Wordsworth). When the flood of waters was upon the earth.

Gen 7:7

And Noah went in. I.e. began to go in a full week before the waters came (vide Gen 7:10). “A proof of faith and a warning to the world.” And his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. In all eight persons (1Pe 3:20); whence it is obvious that “each had but one wife, and that polygamy, as it began among the Cainites, was most probably confined to them” (Poole). Into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Literally, from the face of the waters, being moved with fear and impelled by faith (Heb 11:7).

Gen 7:8, Gen 7:9

Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two into the ark, the male and the female. In obedience to a Divine impulse. Nothing short of Divine power could have effected such a timely and orderly entrance of the creatures into the huge vessel (cf. their mode of exit, Gen 8:18). The seeming inconsistency of this verse with Gen 7:2, which says that the clean animals entered the ark by sevens, will be at once removed by connecting Gen 7:7 and Gen 7:8 instead of 8 and 9, and commencing a new sentence with Gen 7:9. It favors this, that “of” is awanting before “everything that creepeth,” and that the LXX. begin Gen 7:8 with “and”. As God had commanded Noah.

Gen 7:10

And it came to pass after seven days (literally, at the seventh of the days), that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

HOMILETICS

Gen 7:1-9

The ark entered.

I. THE INVITATION OF JEHOVAH. “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.” This invitation was

1. Timely. It was given on the finishing of the ark, and therefore not too soon; also seven days before the Flood, and therefore not too late. God’s interventions in his people’s behalf are always opportune: witness me exodus from Egypt, the deliverance at the Red Sea, the destruction of Sennacherib’s army; Christ’s walking on the sea, sleeping in the boat, rising from the dead.

2. Special. It was addressed in particular to Noah “Come thou.” “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” “The Good Shepherd calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.” So is the invitation of the gospel of the same personal and individual description (Mat 13:9; Rev 3:6). Men are not summoned, to believe in masses, but as individuals.

3. Comprehensive. “And all thy house.” Whether Shem, Ham, and Japheth were at this time believers is not known. The noticeable circumstance is that the invitation was not addressed immediately to them, but mediately through their father. If Noah stood alone in his piety, their summons to enter the ark reminds us of the advantage of belonging to a pious family, and being even only externally connected with the Church (cf. Luk 19:9; Act 16:32).

4. Gracious. Given to Noah certainly, in one sense, because of his piety, (Gen 7:1). But since his godliness was the fruit of faith, and his faith nothing more than a resting on the Divine covenant or promise, it was thus purely of grace So is God’s invitation in the gospel all of grace (Gal 1:6; Eph 3:8).

5. Urgent. Only seven days, and the Flood would begin. There was clearly not much time to lose. Only a seventh of the time given to the men of Nineveh (Jon 3:4). But not even seven days are promised in the gospel call (Mat 24:36; Rom 13:12; Php 4:5; Jas 5:9).

II. THE OBEDIENCE OF NOAH. “And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.” This obedience was

1. Immediate. It does not appear that Noah trifled with the Divine summons, or in any way interposed delay; and neither should sinful men with the invitation of the gospel (2Co 6:2; Heb 3:7).

2. Believing. It had its inspiration in a simple credence of the Divine word that safety could be secured only within the ark; and not until the soul is prepared to accord a hearty trust to the statement that Christ is the heaven-provided ark of salvation for a lost world does it yield to the gospel call, and enter into the safe shelter of his Church by believing on his name (Eph 1:13).

3. Personal. Noah himself entered in. Had he not done so, not only would his own salvation have been missed, but his efforts to induce others to seek the shelter of the ark would have been fruitless. So the first duty of a herald of the gospel or minister of salvation is to make his own calling and election sure, after which his labors in behalf of others are more likely to be efficacious (1Co 9:27; 1Ti 4:16).

4. Influential. The entire household of the patriarch followed his example. It is doubtful if at this time any of them were possessors of his faith. Yet all of them complied with the heavenly invitation, probably impelled thereto by the example and exhortation of their parent. When the head of a household becomes a Christian he in effect brings salvation to the house. He brings all its inmates into at least a nominal connection with the Church, encircles them with an atmosphere of religion emanating from his own character and conduct, and frequently through Divine grace is honored to be the instrument of their salvation (Luk 19:9; Act 11:14; Act 16:31).

5. Minute. Noah’s entry into the ark in all particulars corresponded with the Divine invitation. The animals went in two and two, as God commanded. Men are not expected or allowed to deviate from the plain prescriptions of the word of God concerning the way of faith and salvation (Act 10:33).

Learn

1. The unwearied diligence of God in saving men.

2. The personal nature of God’s dealings with men.

3. The extreme solicitude with which he watches over them, who are his.

4. The indispensable necessity of obedience in order to salvation.

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD

Gen 7:1-6

God the Savior inviting faith.

“Come thou and all thy house into the ark,” &c. Covenant mercy. A type of the Christian Church, with its special privilege and defense, surrounded with the saving strength of God.

I. DIVINE PREPARATION. Providence. The ark.

1. Human agency under inspired direction. The word of God. The institutions of religion. The fellowship of saints.

2. A preparation made in the face of and in spite of an opposing world The history of the Church from the beginning.

3. The preparation as safety and peace to those who trust in it, notwithstanding the outpoured judgment.

II. DIVINE FAITHFULNESS. “Come thou for thee have I seen righteous.” fret the merit of man is the ground of confidence, but the Lord’s grace. I have seen thee righteous because I have looked upon thee as an obedient servant, and have counted thy faith for righteousness. Faithfulness in God is an object of man’s trust as connected with his spoken word and the preparation of his mercy.

III. DIVINE SUFFICIENCY. The weak creatures in the ark surrounded by the destroying waters. A refuge opened in God. His blessing on the household. His redemption succoring the individual soul, the life and its treasures, family peace and prosperity, &e. The ark a type of the prepared salvation, carrying the believer through the flood of earthly cares and troubles, through the’ deep waters of death, to the new world of the purified heaven and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.R.

Gen 7:7-16

Realized salvation.

“And Noah went in,” &c. “And the Lord shut him in” (Gen 7:7, Gen 7:10, Gen 7:16).

I. The CONTRAST between the position of the BELIEVER and that of the UNBELIEVER. The difference between a true freedom and a false. “Shut in” by the Lord to obedience, but also to peace and safety. The world’s judgment shut out. The restraints and privations of a religious life only temporary. The ark will be opened hereafter.

II. THE METHOD OF GRACE ILLUSTRATED. He that opens the ark for salvation shuts in his people for the completion of his work. We cannot shut ourselves in. Our temptation to break forth into the world and be involved in its ruin. The misery of fear. Are we safe? Perseverance not dependent upon our self-made resolutions or provisions. By various means we are shut in to the spiritual life. Providentially; by ordinances; by bonds of fellowship. We should look for the Divine seal.R.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Gen 7:1. Righteous in this generation See note on Gen 6:8

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

See Gen 6:8 ff for the passage quote with footnotes.

Gen 7:1 And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 3Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the earth. 4For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from the face of the earth. 5And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. 6And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood [from before, or from the face of the waters]. 8Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, 9There went in two and two [by pairs] unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God [Elohim] had commanded Noah.

THE FLOOD. PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. The Literature.See Com. on Matthew, p. 6. The present work, p. 119. Walch.: Bibl. Theol., iii. p. 100. Danz: Universal Lexicon, p. 918. Winer, Real Lexicon, article, Noah. Herzog, Real Encyclopedia, article, Noah. Kurtz: History of the Old Testament, i. p. 81. Knobel, p. 81.[Article, Deluge, Kitto: Bib. Encyc vol. i. p. 542.Article, Noah, Smiths Bib. Dict. vol. ii., p. 562.T. L.]

The Hebrew name of the Great Flood () Luther rendered by the word Sin–flut, or Sindflut. The latest edition of the German Bible contains still this designation. Through a misunderstanding of the expression it became afterwards Sndflut. Pischon in the Theological Studies and Criticisms, 1834, III. Delitzsch, p. 628. In old German the word sin is found only at the beginning of compounds: it has the meaning ever, everywhere, complete. For example, sin-grn means ever-green.

2. The Stories of the Flood. No fact of Sacred History reflects itself in a more universal and manifold manner throughout the heathen legendary world than the Noachic flood. Compare here the copious account of Lcken: The Traditions of the Human Race, p. 170; also Knobel, p. 75; Delitzsch, p. 242. It is especially interesting to study how the different nations have heathenized, mythologized, in other words, nationalized or localized the sacred and universal tradition (since by the very nature of heathenism the patriarch of the flood belongs to particular nations who received the account from him, and who also regarded him as their national middle point), and how they have confounded it with the story of Paradise, or of the creative days. From this comes the varied deification of this flood-patriarch. Delitzsch distinguishes, 1. the West Asiatic stories of the flood. The Babylonian flood of Xisuthrus: the last of the ten antediluvian chiefs, as given by Berosus and Abydenus, and the Phoenician story of the victory of Pontus over Demarus, the earth sphere, as given by Sanchoniathon. With the Babylonian story of the flood he compares the narrative of the flood as given in the first of the Sibylline books, which, in its ground features, has some resemblance to the biblical. Next the Phrygian story of King or (that is, Enoch) in Iconium, who, when over three hundred years old, announced the flood, and prayed with lamentation for his people; with which are connected coins of Apamea of the times of Septimius Severus, Macrinus, and Philip, representing a floating ark and bearing the partial inscription, . So also the Armenian, which, as might be expected, agrees in its locality with the biblical (Nicol. Damascen., Strabo). Then a Syrian legend of which Lucian makes mention (De Syra Dea, Genesis 13). 2. East Asiatic stories of the flood. The Persian, the Chinese; the Indian of Menu, to whom Vishnu, taking the form of a fish, announces the flood, and whose ship, drawn by this fish, lands upon Himarat. It presents itself to us in many forms. The oldest, yet the latest known to us, is the story in atapatha-Brahmana (Weber, Indian Studies, 1850). Next to that is the story in Mahbhrata (Bopp, Diluvium, 1829), and in the Purna; its latest form is presented in the Bhgavata-Purana (ed. Bournout, 1827), which, according to Wilson, does not go back of the twelfth century after Christ. (In respect to all these forms of the story, see Felix Nave: La Tradition Indienne du Dluge, Paris, 1851.) 3. Grecian stories of the flood. In the first place the story of Ogyges (Plato, in the Timus,)1 and the more enlarged account of Deucalion and Pyrrha (first in Pindar, then by Apollodorus, brought nearer to the biblical account, also given by Plutarch, Lucian, and Ovid,2both, in their ground features, stories of one and the same flood, but wholly Hellenized. 4. The stories of the people who were outside the commerce or intercourse of the Old World. The Celtic story of Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who, in the flood that arose from the outbreaking of the sea of Llion, and which swallowed up all men, made their escape in a bare boat (without sails), and again peopled Britain. More remote still, the flood-stories of the Mexicans, of the island inhabitants of Cuba, of the Peruvians, of the races on the upper Orinoco, of the Tahitians, and other insular peoples of the Society Islands Archipelago. To make an arrangement according to the facts narrated, we may distinguish, 1. Stories of the flood which identify it with the creative catastrophes, namely: the Germanic story of the blood of the slain Ymer, which deluged the earth, and destroyed the oldest giant race. The Persian story of the rain of Zistar, which flooded the earth, and caused the death of the beasts of Ahriman. The Chinese story of Riuhoa (Lcken, p. 193; see on the other hand Bunsen, vol. ii. p. 61). 2. Stories of the flood in which the Bible flood is specifically and distinctly reflected, such as the Babylonian, the Phrygian, the Indian, the Chinese story of Jao, the Celtic stories (Lcken, p. 204). 3. Stories of the flood which seem to connect or to confound it with the deluge accounts of later floods. The stories of the Egyptians and the Greeks (Lcken, pp. 209, 196). In the submersion of the island Atlantis, as given in Platos Timus, there seems to be reflected likewise the tradition of the lost Paradise. In respect to the facts that lie at the foundation of the latter stories, compare the pamphlet of Unger, entitled The Sunken Island of Atlantis. Vienna, 1860. The fundamental view here indicates revolutions of the earth, upheavings and depressions of its surface, whose effect is also of importance in the history of the Bible deluge. 4. Stories of floods in which the Bible flood forms the central point, towards which all traditions and legends of early terrestrial catastrophes flow together, and in which the original tradition cannot always be separated from later modification through Christian and Mohammedan elements. Interior African and American, or insular flood stories. It is well worthy of remark, that the ethical interpretation of the flood, according to which it comes as a judgment upon a condemned human race, everywhere prominently appears in the stories of the deluge. The purest copy of our Bible history is given in the Chaldaic narrative of Berosus, the ancient priest of Bel, about 260 years before Christ. Xisuthrus, the last of the ten primitive kings, beheld in a dream the appearance of Cronos (in Greek the same as Bel or Baal), who announced to him, that on the 15th day of the month Dsio, men would be destroyed by a flood. It was commanded him to write down all the sciences and inventions of mankind, and to conceal the writings in Syparis, the city of the Sun; thereupon he was to build a ship, and to embark on the same with all his companions, kindred, and nearest friends; he was to put in it provisions and drink, and to take with him the animals, the birds, as well as the quadrupeds. If any one should ask him whereto he was bound, he was to answer: To the gods; to implore good for men. He obeyed, and made an ark five stadia in length, and two in breadth, put together what was commanded, and embarked with wife, children, and kindred. As the flood subsided, Xisuthrus let fly a bird, which, when it neither found nourishment nor place to light, returned back into the ark. After some days he let fly another bird; this came back with slime upon its foot. The third bird sent forth never returned. Then Xisuthrus perceived that land was becoming visible, and after that he had broken an opening in the ship, he sees it driven upon a mountain, whence he descends with wife, daughter, and pilot, and when he had saluted the earth, built an altar, and offered sacrifice to the gods, he disappeared. Those who were left in the ship, when they saw that Xisuthrus did not return, went forth to seek him, and called him by name. Xisuthrus was seen no more, but a voice sounded from the air, bidding them to fear god, and telling them that on account of his piety he had been taken away to dwell with the gods; and that the same honor was given to his wife, daughter, and pilot. (This disappearance has relation to his deification, or probably to his translation among the stars, where the forms of the waterman, the young woman, and the carrier (the wagoner) still present themselves to us). They were commanded to return back to Babylon) where it was appointed to them to take the writings from Syparis, and impart the knowledge they contained to men. The country where they found themselves was Armenia. In respect to the ship, which had landed in Armenia, Berosus adds that there was still a portion of it on the mountains of Kordyer (or the Kurdistan mountains) in Armenia, from which some persons cut off pieces, took them to their houses, and used them as amulets (according to Lcken). Amid all the similarity which this story presents to the Bible history, there is no mistaking the mythological coloring; for example, in the huge size of the ark. Just as little do we fail to hear the echo of the history of Enoch.

3. The Fact of the Flood.The narrative of the flood, like the history of Paradise, has in a special measure the character of all the Bible historiesthat is, it is at the same time fact and symbol; and it is the symbolical significance of this history that has formed the significant expression of the fact. In regard to the fact itself, the view is rendered in a high degree difficult by reason of the mingling with it of the following representations, resting solely on the literal interpretation: 1. the supposition that the history narrates not merely the extermination of the first human race, and, therefore, the overflowing of the earth according to the geographical extension of that race, but an absolute universal submersion of the whole earth itself; 2. the idea that the terrestrial relations were the same at that time that they are now, that the mountain elevations were completed, and that the mountain Ararat was just as high as at the present time; 3. that the branching of the animal species had become as great at that day as it is now: add to these a 4th, the ignoring of every symbolical imprint in the representation. As to what concerns the first two points, it is argued by Ebrard, for example (Belief in the Holy Scriptures, p. 73), that Ararat was 16,000 feet high. The waters stand fifteen cubits above Ararat; consequently must the whole earth have been covered, though it may still remain a question whether single peaks, like the Dhawalagiri, might not have projected above the water-surface (in a literal construction of the text, however, such a doubt cannot remain), since a banking limitation of so high a flood would be inconceivable. This conclusion depends upon a supposition wholly uncertain, namely, that the peak of Ararat was in that day 16,000 feet high. In regard to the first point, the remark of Ngelsbach (Art. Noah, Herzogs Real-Encyclopedie) coincides wholly with the view of Delitzsch, namely, that the theological interest does not demand the universality of the flood in itself, but only the universality of the judgment that was executed by it. In respect to the second point, it is to be remarked, that the mountain formations of the earth had been, indeed, begun in the creative period, but were not yet fully completed. The history of the deluge is, without doubt, the history of a catastrophe in which the terrain of the earth experienced important modifications through the cooperation of fire. The deep sinking of the land in the neighborhood of the Armenian paradisaical region, which is denoted by the Caspian Sea, might alone have brought on a deluge catastrophe analogous to that which must have had a connection with the ruin of the legendary island of Atlantis. In respect to the third representation, the Darwin theory of the progressive origin of races, though in itself untenable, does nevertheless contain an indication of the truth that the countless unfolding of organic memberships in the animal life goes back to great individual anti-types, as science theoretically sets forth. For each species, perhaps, there may have been a ground type in the ark, out of which all varieties of the same have proceeded. In respect to the fourth false representation, which confounds the style of the Holy History with the notarial expression of a worldly pragmatism, we refer to the Introduction.

On the side of the mythologizing of the deluge history there are similar untenable representations that call for remark. 1. The apprehension in respect to the possibility of building the ark. It is historically established that, at all times, a necessity fundamentally perceived, has, under the guidance of God, brought to discovery the helps required for the accomplishment. Necessity learns to pray, learns to build. 2. The difficulty of assembling such a multitude of beasts in the ark. In reply to this, allusion has been made to the instinct of animals, which, in a presentiment of natural catastrophe, seek an asylum, sometimes, almost in violation of their natural habits. Birds, in a storm, fly to the ships; wolves come into the villages, etc. 3. The difficulty of the animal provisioning. Answer: This would be of least weight in respect to animals like those of the marmot and badger species, whose winter torpor in the easiest manner keeps them through the wintry storm-period. But the deluge, in like manner, supposes, in the main, a slumbering, dead-like transition from the old existence into the new. Darkness, the roaring and rocking of the waters in so peculiar a manner, must bring on a benumbing torpor, and, in the case of many animals, a winter sleep, whereby the feeding would be rendered unnecessary. The ground ideas of the deluge history are as high above the popular representations on the right, as they are beyond the scholastic thinking on the left. They may be regarded as something like the following: 1. At the moment when the first human race, through the commingling of an angel like elevation of the Sethic line with the demonic corruption of the Cainitic, is ripe for judgment, there is a corresponding catastrophe, having its ground in the earths development, forming an echo to the creation catastrophes, and, at the same time, imposed by God as a judgment doom upon that human corruption. 2. The prophetic spirit of a pious patriarch, in whom there is concentrated the heart of the old worlds piety, takes into its belief not only the revelation of the impending judgment, but also the deliverance which out of that judgment is to go forth for this world itself as represented in his person, and in his family, whilst it denotes thereby the progress of faith in revelation, from the assurance of salvation in the other world (which Enoch already had), to the confidence of salvation in this. 3. The inspiring of necessity teaches him, under the divine guidance, to build an ark, which, in its commencement, is to be a preaching of repentance to the cotemporaries of the builder, but which, in its completion, is distinguished neither by oar nor helm, but only by its great spaciousness and water-tight construction. 4. In this use of the ark, as a common asylum, the instincts of the beasts act in harmony with the prophetic presentiment of chosen men, whilst the rest follows through Gods care and a peculiar success. 5. The history of the flood is an in the worlds history, analogous to the creation of Adam, the birth and history of Christ, and the future history of the worlds end. Even Bunsen (ii. p. 63) affirms, in general, the historicalness of the biblical tradition.

Therefore is this unparalleled fact in the highest degree symbolic or ideal, whilst it is, at the same time, a typical prophecy. 1. It is a prophecy of the deliverance of Israel as the people of God in the passage through the Red Sea; 2. a prophecy of the deliverance of the Christian church from the corruption of the world, through the washing of baptism (1Pe 3:21); 3. a prophecy of the deliverance of the congregation of Christ, at the worlds end, out of the fire-flood of the worlds judgment. The ark is especially reflected in the ark of Moses, in the ark of the covenant which was carried through the Jordan, in the household of the church, and in the congregation of faith at the end of the world. Knobel thinks that in the narration before us there is to be recognized an Elohistic foundation which the Jehovist must have elaborated, not without a contradiction of its fundamental ground. Thus the description of the corruption, in Gen 6:11-12, he says, does not agree with the Jehovist, who represents the wickedness in human life as having commenced at a much earlier day. As though the origin of evil and an incurable corruption were not two distinct grades! So, according to the Jehovist, it is (as Knobel would have it) that the human life-period after the flood sinks down to one hundred and twenty yearsan idea that rests upon a false interpretation. Moreover, it would seem not to agree with the ground-scripture, that of many kinds of beasts Noah took more than a pair (Gen 7:2-3; Gen 7:8). Knobel supposes, therefore, that the special enlargement was a contradiction to the more general appointment. In regard to the fact itself, says Knobel: Unanswerable are the questions, how Noah came to expect the great flood, and was led to the building of the ark. So also would it be incapable of an answer, how at any time one could attain to a prophetic prevision. The question he regards as still more difficult to answer: How he was enabled to produce such a structure,that is, such a great quadrangular box. Further: How he got the beasts in his power? Experience shows, that in extraordinary catastrophes of nature, the wildest animals take refuge with men. Lastly: How could they all, together with the necessary provisioning for a whole year, find room in the ark? This point carries us back to a primitive time, when, as yet, the species were comparatively less divided, and to a stormy death of nature, which intensified to its most extreme degree the phenomenon of the winters sleep; to say nothing of the point, that to the symbolical expression there is needed only the general fact of the saving of the animal world, along with man, by means of the ark. When Ebrard admits that possibly the highest mountain-peaks may have projected above the surface of the waters of the deluge, it would allow the consequence of an Alpine fauna existing outside of the ark. The point mainly in view is the destruction of the human race, and the saving of the Noachian family, in the deluge. Notwithstanding his objections, Knobel supposes an actual ground of fact in the narration, even as an after-piece to the great earth revolutions of the creative period (p. 78). This last point of view carries us beyond the supposition of mere partial historical inundations. A concussion of the earth permits the conclusion that a displacement occurred in its continental relations, whence there might have arisen a deluge of a very wide character, without our having to assume a corresponding inundation of the whole earths surface. Stormy deluges do not obey the law of standing waters. Such a deluge might have passed over the whole inhabited part of the earth, without making a like height of water as standing over the whole sphere.

The grounds, remarks Delitzsch, on which the Thora (the Pentateuch) dwells so emphatically upon the flood, consist in their significancy for the history of Gods kingdom in general, and the history of the Old Testament theocracy in particular. The flood is an act of deepest significance, whether regarded as one of judgment or of salvation. It is a common judgment, making an incision in history so deep and so wide, of such force and universality, that nothing can be compared with it but the final judgment at the extreme limit of this worlds history. But the act of judgment is, at the same time, an act of salvation. The sin-deluge is, at the same time, a grace-deluge,3 and so far a type of holy baptism (1Pe 3:21), and of life rising out of death; therefore it is, that old ecclesiastical art was so fond of distinguishing chapels of burial by a representation of it. The destruction has in view the preservation, the drowning has in view the purification, the death of the human race has in view the new birth; the old corrupted earth is buried in the flood of water, that out of this grave there may emerge a new world. In this way Ararat points to Sinai. The covenant of Elohim, which God then made with the saved holy seed, and with the universal nature, points to the covenant of Jehovah.

4. The Geological Effects of the Deluge.In earlier times, the traces of earth revolutions that took place in the creative days (for example, the mountain formations, the shells on the highest hills, and similar phenomena) were brought forth as proofs of the flood. Such a mode of reasoning must now be laid aside by those who would reconcile revelation with science. Neither can the assumption be proved, that it rained for the first time in the flood, and that, with the change in the atmosphere, human life suddenly sunk in its duration, nor the supposition that at that time a sudden transformation took place in the animal world, or that new animals were originated. The following suppositions, however, may be regarded as more or less safely entertained: 1. As the great flood denoted an epoch in the life of humanity, so also must it have done in the life of the earth; and through this epoch the giant-like in the human natural powers seems to have been moderated, whilst, on the contrary, the development in the earths life becomes more conformable to law. 2. The historical indications and signs of great changes in the earths surface, such as volcanic mountain formations, surface transformations (Caspian Sea, and island Atlantis, for example), may be connected, in some special measure, with the catastrophe of the flood. 3. The flood in itself may, perhaps, have been partial (see F. Pfaff, The Creative History, p. 646), but the earth-crisis, on which it was conditioned, must have been universal. With the opening of the fountains of the deep stands the opening of the windows of heaven in polar contrast. An extraordinary rain-storm and fall of water over the Noachian earth-circle, was probably conditioned by an extraordinary evaporation in other regions of the globe. This must have been followed by an extraordinary congelation on the same side. Does the ice-period, the period of the wandering boulders, stand in any relation to this? As an earth-crisis, the flood was probably universal.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Noah and his House, in contrast with the Contemporaries of Noah (Gen 6:9-11). The history that follows is distinguished by the name Tholedoth, or Generations of Noah. For Noah is not only the last of the Sethic patriarchs, as the end of the antediluvian period; he is, moreover, the first of the new, through the patriarchal line that goes on in Shem, and, in this representation, is he also a type of the future Christ, the finisher of the old, the author of the new, world. In a typical sense, Noah is the second ancestor of the human race, as Christ, the Man from Heaven, is such in a real sense (1 Corinthians 15). As a continuer of the old time, Noah is virtually a repetition of Adam; as a beginner of the new time, he is a type of Christ. He was a righteous man. According to Knobel, the author (of this account of the flood) knew nothing of any fall of Adam. One might deduce a like conclusion from Luke in his account of Zacharias and Elisabeth (Gen 1:6). But evidently the righteousness here meant is that which represents him as justified in view of the judgment of the flood, by reason of his faith (Heb 11:7). Therefore was the explanation added: he was , guiltless, perfect, blameless among his cotemporaries who perished in the judgment. The ground of this was: he walked with God as Enoch did. That he begat three eons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, is here again related, as in Gen 5:32, because in them the continuance of a new race is secured; with Noah, therefore, must his family also be saved. But, moreover, to Noah, and his house, there is formed a contrast in the race of his time, and in the old form of the earth that had been corrupted by it.

Gen 7:5. To represent the wickedness of man, our text goes further, and expresses the incurable perdition of the old earth itself, as having been produced by it. It was utterly corrupt, in that it was filled with wickedness, acts of violence, and pride. But it was corrupt before the eye of God in its most manifest form, so that its judgment was imperatively demanded.And God looked upon the earth, and lo.Delitzsch correctly points out the contrast of these words to Gen 1:31. Everything stood in sharpest contradiction with that good state which God the creator had established. Gods looking (or seeing) denotes a final sentence. The earth was incurably corrupt because all flesh had corrupted its way, that is, its normal way of life, upon the corrupted earth. Herein lies the indication, that as men grew wild and savage, the animal world also threatened to become wild. If, however, we suppose, with Delitzsch, an universal corruption of the animal world, whence could Noah have taken the good specimens for his ark? Moreover, it cannot be concluded, from Gen 9:4, that men, in their greediness for flesh, cut out pieces from the yet living animal. According to Knobel, the text denotes the beasts, inasmuch as they originally lived upon vegetables, but now had partly degenerated into flesh-eaters. This, however, would be all the same as introducing a representation into the text, just as Delitzsch maintains, that the eating of flesh had not yet been permitted. Keil understands the words in question as referring generally to men only. Thereby, however, there is loosened that organic connection of man, beast, and earth, on which the text lays stress. More correct is the emphasis he lays on the words all flesh: humanity had become flesh (Gen 7:3).

2. The Announcement of the Judgment, and the Direction for the Building of the Ark (Gen 7:13-22).And God said to Noah.The revelation of the divine displeasure with the human race, which appears first, Gen 7:3, as a conditional and veiled threatening of judgment with the granting of a space for repentance, and which, in its second utterance, has already become a resolution to destroy the human race (Gen 7:7), becomes here an absolute announcement of approaching doom. There had, perhaps, been previous revelations, in the form of a preaching of repentance, made by other patriarchs (such as Methuselah and Lamech), as they, one after the other, left the world. These had been gradually extended in time; but now are they all concentrated in the one revelation made to Noah. With this there was, at the same time, connected the promise that Noah and his family should be saved. As Gods acts of deliverance are connected in time with his acts of judgment (since his judgments are ever separations of the godly from the ungodly, and, in this sense, salvations and deliverances), so also are the revelations of judgment at the same time revelations of deliverance, and the faith of the elect which corresponds to them is, at the same time, both a faith in judgment and a faith in salvation.The end of all flesh.An expression which strongly conveys the idea, that the positive judgment of God is indicated through a judgment immanent in the corruption of men. The self-abandonment in this corruption, the clearly visible end of the same, is so fearfully depicted, that the positive end which God is about to impose takes the appearance, not of a judgment merely, but of redress. Still is the first conception the predominant one, as appears from the expression which tells us that God saw the end, the extreme end of the worlds corruption (Keil).Is filled with violence through them (Lange renders more correctly, from their faces, or, before them. Vulg., a facie eorum). As it is said, in immediate connection, before the face of God, we hold it unsatisfactory here to render from them, or through them. The flood of wickedness that comes up before Gods face goes out from their face; that is, it is a wickedness openly perpetrated; the moral judgment, the conscience, goes utterly out in the direct beholding and approbation of evil.I will destroy them with the earth.Destruction as set against corruption (1Co 5:5). The earth as such can, indeed, suffer no penal destruction. As one with man, the destruction becomes to it a total destruction, which comes upon men along with their earth. And so in the renewal of humanity must the earth also receive a renovation of its form.Make thee an ark.An indication of the mode of salvation, in which he himself must co-operate. Baumgarten: He must be not only the preserved, but also the preserver. , according to Delitzsch, probably (if the word is Shemitic), from = , to be hollow.4 Chaldaic, , Sept. , Vulg. arca (other meanings see in Delitzsch). Keil and Rdiger conjecture that the word is of Egyptian origin. So Knobel: In Egyptian, boat is called tept. It is likewise used of the small ark in which Moses was saved (but which in the Septuagint is rendered or .Of gopher-wood [Lange, resinous wood]. Hieronymus: ligna bituminata. Probably, cypress-wood. Keil (, cognate to and ).Rooms shalt thou make [Lange, cells].Properly in cells, as cells (literally, nestslittle cabins), or cell-containing.With pitch.Sept. , Vulg. bitumen.And this is which (what) thou shalt make it.The most probable supposition is, that the ark was built, not in the form of a ship, but after the manner of a box, without keel, with a flat deck, more like a four-sided moving house than a ship, since it was destined not for sailing, but only for floating upon the water. Thus regarded, the measures 300 cubits long, 50 cubits broad, and 30 cubits high, give a ground-surface of 15,000 cubits square, and a cubical content of 450,000 cubits solid, taking the usual measure of the cubit (Deu 3:11), as the length from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about 18 inches. Keil. Knobel remarks: The building surpasses in magnitude the greatest ships-of-the-line. Its arrangement, however, according to experiments made in Holland, would be found in harmony with its design. In the year 1609, at Hoorn, in Holland, the Netherlandish Mennonite, P. Jansen, produced the model of a vessel after the pattern of the ark, only in smaller proportions, whereby he proved, that although it was not appropriate for a ship-model, it was well adapted for floating, and would carry a cargo greater by one third than any other form of like cubical content.5 See Delitzsch, p. 250.A window shalt thou make in the ark., not in the roof (Rosenmller and others), but a light-opening (, dual, a double light); see Gen 8:6. Baumgarten supposes that it must be regarded as a light-opening of a cubits breadth, extending above the whole upper length of the ark; Knobel and Keil, on the contrary, suppose that the window was fixed on the side, to the extent of a cubit, under the ridge of the roof. Then, indeed, according to Tuch, would only one cabin have received light, perhaps that of Noah; at all events, only the highest story would have had a dim twilight. We suppose, therefore, with Baumgarten, that it must be regarded as a light-opening in the deck, which was continued through the different stories. Against the rain and the water dashing, must this opening have been closed in some way by means of some transparent substance; for which purpose a trellis, or lattice-work, would not have been sufficient. The expression to a cubit, denotes also precaution. In this view of the case, moreover, it is not easy to take collectively, as is done by Gesenius and the Syriac, and to fancy a number of light apertures, although it might be that one light-opening in the deck could be divided into a number of light-openings for the interior.6The door of the ark.Here can only be meant an entrance which was afterwards closed, and only opened again at the end of the flood. And since there were three stories of the ark, the word is to be understood, perhaps, of three entrances capable of being closed, and to which there would have been constructed a way of access from the outside on the outside. Is it held that so colossal a structure as the ark would have been impracticable in this very early time; the objection may be met with the answer, that some of the most gigantic structures belong to an immemorial antiquity. Baumgarten (compare also Keil, p. 93; Delitzsch, p. 250).And behold I, even I, am bringing.Noah must make the ark, for He, Jehovah, is about to bring a flood upon the earth, but at the same time to make a covenant of salvation with Noah. from or , to undulate, to swellan antique word, used expressly for the waters of Noah (Isa 54:9), and which, out of Genesis, occurs only in Psa 29:10. Keil. Therefore Keil and Delitzsch take for its explanation the words that follow: waters upon the earth, regarding it as in apposition. Knobel, again, explains it as meaning the flood of water, whilst Michaelis and others have changed into (from the sea) without any ground, although in this conformation of all collections of water to make the flood, the co-operation of the sea comes into account. The divine destination of the flood: to destroy every living thing under the heaven. In a more particular sense: whatever is upon the earth. The sea-animals cannot be destroyed by water. In respect to them, moreover, the symbolical relation in which the beasts stand to men, does not come specially into consideration.But with thee will I establish my covenant., Sept. , Vulg. fdus, in the New Testament, testamentum (Rom 9:4). The religious covenant-idea here presents itself for the first in literal expression; although the establishment of Gods covenant with Noah presupposes a previous covenant relation with Adam (Gen 2:15; Gen 3:15; Sir 17:10). In the repeated establishment of the covenant with Noah (Gen 6:18; Gen 8:21; Gen 9:9; Gen 7:11; Gen 7:16; Sir 44:11), with Abraham, Gen 15:18; Gen 17:9-14; Gen 22:15; Psa 105:8-10; Sir 44:24; Act 3:25; Act 7:8), with Isaac (Gen 24:25), with Jacob (Gen 28:13-14), with Israel (Exo 19:6; Exo 24:7; Exo 34:10; Deu 5:3), there are unfolded the different covenants, or covenant forms, which bring into revelation the ground-idea of the covenant between God and humanity in Adam, whilst they are, at the same time, anticipatory representations of that true covenant-making which is realized in the new covenant of God with believing humanity through Christ (Jer 31:32-33; ZaGen Gen 9:11; Mat 26:28; 2Co 3:6; Heb 6:17-18), and which finds in the perfected kingdom of God its last and conclusive development (Revelation 21). The covenant of God with Noah, and that with Abraham, form a parallel; the first is the covenant of compassion and forbearance made with the new humanity and earth in general; the last is the covenant of grace and salvation made with Abraham and his believing seed, as a more definite covenant-making on the ground of the Noachian- covenant. The patriarchal covenant which, in its specialty, embraced Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exo 3:6) as the covenant of promise, takes the form of a law-covenant for Israel; this latter is the old typical covenant in the form of an anticipatory representation of the new covenant, and which, therefore, as the older and more imperfect, must give place to the new; whereas the covenant with Noah and that with Abraham, as beginnings of the covenant of faith, become one, finally, with the new covenant of Christ, which, in its stricter sense, embraces the children of faith as partakers of salvation, but, in its wider sense, the children of men as called to salvation. But the covenant of Christ carries on the foundation covenant made with Adam to its perfect realization in the eternal covenant-life of the new world (Revelation 21). The revelation and recognition of the divine covenant rests on the revelation and recognition of the fact that God, as the absolute personality, places himself in a personal, ethically free, covenant-relation of love and truth to man as personal, and to the human race. That the covenant of God has its root in the personal relation is evident from the fact that in its different forms such covenant ever goes out from a person, as from Noah, Abraham, etc. Therefore it is, that ever within the universal covenant relations, as they widen from the centre out, there are the making of special covenants, such as that with Moses, with Phineas (Num 25:13), with David. It is a consequence of the ethical significance of Gods covenant as forming the personal foundation of the chosen kingdom, that the assaults of the kingdom of darkness are in like manner comprehended as covenants or conspiracies against God (the troop of Korah, Psalms 2; Psa 83:6; Luk 23:12; Act 4:27). The word from , to cut, divide, is derived from the sacrifices of animals that are cut in twain in the formation of a covenant; and in this is the peculiar explanation of the word, Gen 15:10; Gen 15:17.And thou shalt come into the ark.God makes his covenant personally with Noah, but there is included also his house, which he represents as paterfamilias, and with it the new humanity mediately, as also, in a remoter sense, the animal world that is to be preserved. The narrator supposes that the beasts of themselves (as is held by Jarchi and Aben Ezra), or at the instigation of God (according to Kimchi, Piscat.), would come into the ark. Knobel. Rather was it through an instinctive presentiment of catastrophe, which was, at the same time, Gods ordering and an impulse of nature. The collection of the provisioning is distinguished from the gathering of the beasts, so that the ark represents a perfect economy of the Noachian household. Noahs obedience in faith makes the conclusion of the section (see Heb 11:17).

3. The approach of the Flood, and the Divine Direction to Noah for entering into the Ark (Gen 7:1-9). And the Lord said unto Noah.Here Elohim appears as the covenant-God; therefore is he named Jehovah.Come thou into the ark.The signal of the approaching judgment. Enter, my people, into thy chamber (Isa 26:20) for thee have I seen righteous! In the divine forum of the judgment of the deluge, Noah is justified before God by means of the righteousness of faith through the word of the promise; therefore is he saved, together with his whole family, because his faith is imputed for their good.Before me (Heb. before my face) denotes the divine sentence of justification.In his generation, denotes the opposite sentence of God against that generation.Of every clean beastby sevens.This appointment is a special carrying out of the more universal one, Gen 6:20; it is, therefore, wholly in correspondence with the advancing prophecy, and not in contradiction of it, as Knobel thinks. Of the unclean beasts it says, by two, a male and a female; according to the analogy of this expression, the number seven (as used of the clean beasts) would denote also the number of individuals (Calvin, Delitzsch, Keil, and others), not seven pair (Vulgate, Aben Ezra, Michaelis, De Wette, Knobel). The prescription, therefore, is three pair and one over. This one was probably destined for a thank-offering. The distinction between clean and unclean beasts is not first made by Moses, but only becomes fixed in the law as corresponding to it, though existing long before. Its beginnings reach back to the primitive time, and ground themselves on an immediate conscious feeling of the human spirit not yet clouded by any unnatural and ungodly culture, under the influence of which feeling it sees in many beasts pictures of sin and corruption which fill it with aversion and abhorrence. Keil. But such a distinction, so grounded, might make an analogous division a permanent law for Christendom. The contrast of clean and unclean cannot, surely, have here the Levitical significance. More to the purpose would be the contrast of beasts tame and wild,of beasts that are utterly excluded from the society of men, and roam about independent of them, although this contrast is limited by the physiological conception of cleanness and uncleanness (see Delitzsch, p. 256). The interchange of the divine names Jehovah and Elohim in our section makes trouble, as might well be inferred, for the documentary hypothesis (see Keil, p. 94, and the opposing view of Delitzsch, p. 256).For yet seven days.After seven days must the flood break out; there is appointed, therefore, a week for the marching into the ark.Rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.This is more widely expressed, Gen 7:11, where the phenomenon of the deluge is referred back to its original cause, the breaking up of the fountains of the deep.And Noah was six hundred years old.According to Gen 5:32, he was five hundred years old at the beginning of his married life. The 120 years, therefore, of Gen 6:3, go back beyond this.And Noah went into the ark.That the members of his household went in with him, denotes their connection with him in obedience, and in their fitness to be saved; with which the behavior of Lots sons in-law, and of his wife, forms a contrast. That the beasts follow him into the ark, shows a wonderful docility proceeding from their instinctive presentiment of the catastrophe.

[Note on the Bible Idea of Covenant.It is a most important remark of Dr. Lange (p. 299), that The revelation and recognition of the Divine Covenant rests on the revelation and recognition of the fact that God, as the absolute personality, places himself in a personal, ethically free, covenant-relation of love and truth to man as personal, and to the human race. It is strange, indeed, that our philosophy should have so overlooked the glory of this covenant-idea, whilst our more ordinary worldly literature has so often treated it as a narrow dogmatic of an almost obsolete theology. God raised man above the animal by endowing him with moral, rational, and religious faculties. This lifts him above the plane of nature, and prepares him for a still higher relation. His Creator makes a covenant with him as being, though finite, a supernatural personality. He is placed upon higher ground than that of natural law, or natural right, as deduced from mans relation to the universe, or what might be called the universal nature of things. He is taken out of this, and raised to a higher spiritual glory. No longer an animal, however richly endowed, yet bound in the chain of cause and effect, but under the free law of the promise,living not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the Lord. Child of dust as he is physically, God makes a covenant with him, and thus gives him more than a natural right,a legal or forensic rightmaking him a son, an heir of glory and immortality. Man has an understanding with his Maker; he is elevated to a platform on which the finite and infinite personality, the finite and infinite intelligence, converse together, and become parties in the same voluntary, spiritual transaction. True it is, that in the Bible even natural law is sometimes called a covenant, as in Jer 33:20; Jer 33:25, but in such cases the language is evidently figurative, and derived, by way of analogy, from the higher idea. With man it is a real covenant, a convening, or coming together, of the Divine and human mind. The transaction belongs to a higher world. It brings in a higher class of ideas. In nature, and natural relations, there are forces, gravities, attractions, affinities, or, as we approach its department of life and sentiency (though still nature), there are appetites, instincts, susceptibilities, having some appearance of freedom, yet still bound fast under the fatality of cause and effect; in the covenant, on the other hand, there are parties, promises, agreements, oaths, conditions, imperatives, fulfilments, forfeitures, penalties, rewards. In the tendency of our modern ethics to become converted into a system of physicsmaking all duty to consist in the study and observance of natural lawwe lose sight of this higher glory of positive law, covenant, or promise; we fail to see how it is the very dignity of the human soul, that, unlike the animal, it can, through faith, be in this forensic or covenant relation to the universal Lawgiver. The opposite of this is the tendency, now so common, to place the relations between God and man on the general basis of the nature of things, and to determine the human place therein as made out by science or philosophy, in distinction from, if not in opposition to, that express revelation which is itself a carrying out of the covenant-idea. When carefully examined, the former process will be found to be a tracing of mans obligation to the universe, rather than to God the free, personal, sovereign lawgiver of the universe.

The word covenant is not in the first three chapters of Genesis, but the spirit of the word is there, and the term itself is expressly predicated of the transactions there recorded when referred to in other parts of the Old Testament; see Hos 6:7. Immediately after the inspiration that made the human creation, we find this language of con-vening, of mutual intelligence, showing that God is now speaking to a supernatural being, and in a style different from that which had been used in the commands to nature. The expression Gen 6:18, I will establishmycovenant, withthee (literally, I will make it stand), evidently implies something preceding that had been impairedthe raising up of something that had fallen down. It was the of Isa 24:5, or covenant of eternity, originally made with man as an immortal being, and itself an evidence of his designed immortality; or, as it may be rendered, world-covenant, intended to last through the world or on of humanity; or it may have that still higher sense of the covenant made before the foundations of the world with him who was to be the second Adam, and whose delight, during the ons of creation (see Pro 8:31), was with the sons of men who were to crown it all. The remarks of that profound critic and philosopher, Maimonides, on this expression, are very noteworthy. He regards , as from its very form, in the construct state (like ), and where there is no other expressed, the word with which it is in regimen is or , being thus equivalent to , the covenant of eternities, because, before we were, he commanded that it should stand, , and be forever with the righteous.

The word has been derived from the sense of cutting in , as Lange explains it, but there is mother verb of cutting () usually joined with it, making the common phrase exactly like the Homeric , derived, doubtless, from the same idea of dividing the victim by whose death the covenant was made. It is better, therefore, to derive it, as Maimonides seems to do, from the creative sense of . It is making a new thing in the moral and spiritual world, as the physical creations were in the world of matter; and so, says this Jewish commentator, , my covenant, as it were, my creating.

There is no religion without this idea of a personal covenant with a personal God, and, therefore, all such views as those of Comte, Mill, and Spencer are, for all moral or religious purposes, wholly atheistical. They acknowledge no personality in God; they cannot use the personal pronouns in speaking of him or to him. It may, in truth, be said that all religion is covenant, even when religion appears in its most perverted form. It has some appearance of being in the very etymology of the Latin word. Cicero makes it from relegoreligiosi ex relegendobut a better derivation would seem to be from religo, to bind, bind back,religio is a positive bond (higher than nature) between straying, fallen man, and his Maker. We find traces of this idea of covenant even in the heathen religions, as in Baal berith, mentioned Jdg 8:33, whom the children of Israel, in their apostasy, took instead of their covenant Jehovah. It seems to characterize certain peculiar epithets which the Greeks attached to , their supreme God. It was the mode they took to intimate more of a personal relation between the deity and the worshipper than was afforded by the general or merely natural view. Or it denoted a greater nearness of the divine in certain peculiarly sacred relations which men held to each other, as though imparting to them a more religious sanction. Thus , who calls specially to account for the violation of hospitality. More closely still suggesting the idea of the Hebrew covenant God, or that of the Phnician Baal berith, is the Greek epithet , Zeus, the God of the oath, as the special punisher of perjury, or violation of covenant, whether as against himself, or as a breach of covenants men make with each other, as though there were a special guilt in it, greater than that of any natural injustice, or ordinary impiety. The very essential idea of the oath itself is that of covenant, and it is, therefore, that part of religion to which our politico-naturalists exhibit the most deadly opposition. The same idea may be traced in other epithets, such as , the God who avenges treachery to friendship, as though the obligation of fidelity were grounded on a special and mutual relation to something higher and more positive than mere human likings. Similar to this , the protector of the hearth. So also (Jupiter Hercus), the God of the family enclosure, or of the sacred domestic relations, as founded on positive institution, transcending any mere natural or individualizing rights that may be claimed against it. These precious ideas are akin to that of covenant as the everlasting ground of the church. The divine covenant, the , was confirmed with Noah, to be transmitted by him as the root of all that is most sacred in the relations of man to God, or to his fellow-men.T. L.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The flood makes a division between the Adamic antiquity and the primitive timebetween the first (throughout symbolical) and the second symbolical-traditional primitive religion, as well as between the anomistic and the nomistic or superstitious forms of heathenism. In like manner is there a division between the old (antediluvian) antiquity and the postdiluvian or the Noachian human race. It is a type of the historical incisions, epochs, and periods that follow.
2. The flood was indeed a sin-flood (Sndflut), or rather, a flood of judgment, and as the first world-historical-judgment, it was a type of all following judgments, especially of the worlds last judgment.
3. The flood is a synthesis of judgment and deliverance, forming a type for every following synthesis of judgment and deliverance, especially for the double effect (of judgment and deliverance) of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egyptfor the middle point of the worlds history, the cross of Christ, and for the final deliverance brought out by the final judgment at the worlds end. To the judgment by water corresponds the judgment by fire as the higher potency of judgment; to the baptism by water corresponds the baptism by fire as the second potency, or the power of baptism for salvation. Thus the judgments are deliverances, inasmuch as they separate the salvable from the lost, or incurable; and so the salvations are judgments, inasmuch as they are ever connected with some separation of this kind.
4. The universal tradition, among men, of the great flood, and its ethical significance, stands in connection with the universal expectation of humanity that at the worlds end there will be a world-judgment.
5. The flood at the same time fact and symbol. See the previous remarks, No. 3.
6. The meaning of the name Noah. See the Exegetical annotations, No. 1.

7. The announcement of the flood, or the wholesome destruction, as a means of salvation from the incurable corruption. The end of all flesh, not so much a judgment of condemnation as a remedy against it (see 1Pe 3:19; Gen 4:6). Thereby does the expression: the end of all flesh, denote the fact that the immanent judgment of natural corruption has for its consequence the positive judgment. Wherever the carcass, there are the eagles gathered together.

8. The right belief in the judgment is, at the same time, a belief in the deliverance. A presentiment of the flood and a preparation of the ark went together.
9. The plan of the ark was imparted to Noah by God. The Spirit of God is the author of all ideal or pattern forms of the kingdom of God. So, for example, the tabernacle, or ark of the testimony.The building of the ark was not merely a means of salvation for Noah and his race, but also a sermon of repentance for his cotemporaries.
10. The ark was not a ship (in form), but yet it was the primitive ship of humanity; Gods teaching men navigation, his word of blessing upon it, and a symbol of deliverance in all perils of the deep.
11. Noah was not only saved, but also the savior or the mediator of the divine salvation for his house. He was a type of Christ, the absolute mediator.
12. Noah was comprehended with his household in the one baptism of the flood. Already in Noahs history there conspicuously appears the theocratic significance of the household (Matthew 10).

13. The religion of revelation is alone the religion of covenant. It alone has the idea of the covenant. On this grand and peculiar feature, compare Bchners Concordance, art. Bund. But it is a covenant religion because it is the religion of a personal God, and of his relation to personal men (see the Exegetical annotations, No. 2). Here we are reminded of the covenant-theory of Cocceius. The divine covenant is truly a divine instituting, not merely a contract ( he gave a covenant); but this instituting is also a covenanting. We obliterate the personal ethical relation between the personal God and personal man, when we obliterate the covenant idea. This has special force in respect to the sacraments of the covenant. Through them man receives the promises of God, which he appropriates along with the obligations of the faith. This applies to the tree of life given to Adam, to the rainbow of Noah, to the stars of heaven as shown to Abraham, and to circumcision, to the passover of Moses, as well as to the Christian sacraments. When we leave out of view the obligations of the covenant, as, for example, that of the initiation of children in baptism, we profane the covenant (compare Baumgarten, p. 109).

14. The difference between the clean and the unclean animals (see the Exeget. annot.). The contrast between the cattle and the wild beasts is not the only thing determined, but, at the same time, the contrast between an animally pure, and an animally impure, physiologically-physical, disposition (see Langes Leben Jesu, , vol. ii. p. 662). Correctly does Keil remark (p. 252), that the reception by pairs of all flesh into the ark, may be reduced to a certain relativity. The measure, however, of this relativity cannot be particularly determined: for the supposition of Ebrard (p. 85), that the beasts of the field that were upon the earth after the flood did not come out of the ark, but were originated anew by God, has no support in our history.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the Exegetical notes, and the Fundamental Theological Ideas. The great flood as a miraculous sign of God: 1. In nature, as pointing back to the creation, and forward to the end and renovation of the world. 2. In the world of man; pointing backward to the fall, forward to the last apostasy. 3. In the sphere of the divine righteous government; a copying of the first judgment of death, a prefiguration of the end of the world. 4. In the kingdom of grace; pointing backward to the first deliverance in the first judgment, forward to the completed salvation in the complete and final judgment.The world of that day an object of displeasure in the eyes of God.Noahs righteousness of faith.Noah, standing alone in the generation of his day.In the time of greatest corruption, there are the chosen of GodNoah comprehended with his house.A witness for the significance of the family in the kingdom of God and in the Church.The covenant of God with Noah in its significance, and the unfolding of this covenant.The covenant of God with Noah a covenant of salvation for himself and his house, and for the preservation of the human race. The direction for building the ark, or the sacred archetypes of the kingdom of God.The ark in its figurative significance: 1. An image of a house consecrated to God, 2. of the Church of Christ, 3. of the Christian state.As the ark floats on in the great flood, so does the ship of the Church sail on amid the storm-judgments of the worlds history.As the ark never goes under, so never sinks the Church.The ark a sermon: 1. In its own time, 2. for all times, 3. for the last times, and especially, 4. for our times. Ham, too, was in the ark, so also the unclean beasts (in opposition to the Donatist extravagances).In the one person, Noah, were both his house and his future race delivered; therefore is Noah a type of Christ (s. v. 18): Go thou into the ark, thou and thine house, that is, thy sons. Noah as the middle member of the line between Enoch and Abraham (with reference to Hebrews 11).The distinction between the pure and the impure animals, or, that which is proper for an offering to God is also proper for the enjoyment of men.How the instinct of safety brings together man and beast into the asylum of deliverance.Through death to life.The judgment of God on the first world in its still enduring efficacy: 1. as a sign of light for the understanding of the course of the world; 2. as an everlasting sign of warning; 3. as a sign of salvation full of the blessing of salvation. The humanity baptized to humaneness. The heart in the covenant of Elohim is the covenant of Jehovah. Through faith is humanity saved.

Starke, Gen 6:9 : The ground of Noahs piety was grace on the side of God, Gen 7:8, but this was obtained, in no way, through his chastity, as the Papists allege, on account of which he remained five hundred years unmarried. Grace went before all his works. On his side, faith in the Messiah was the ground of pietyfaith in the God of the promise, and his word of promise. He proved it in four ways: 1. He was possessed by a holy fear, in which he held for true the threatening of God in respect to the flood, although the event was yet far off; 2. he prepared the ark according to the divine command, although he had to contend with the ridicule of the Cainites on account of the judgment being so long delayed; 3. he preached righteousness to others (2Pe 2:5), whilst, 4. he himself walked irreproachably.Noah walks with God.What God says to Noah has three parts; the first is the announcement of the flood, the second the command to build the ark, the third a promise relating to the preservation of his life.

Lisco: Noahs life deliverance includes in it that of the whole human race; to this also does the covenant of God with Noah have relation in its widest sense.Calwer, Handbuch: Noah, with those that belong to him, is to bring from the old into the new world, not merely naked life, but the pure worship of God, to which the offerings pertained.Schrder, v. Genesis 13 : God speaks to Noah in his relation to him as creator and preserver. And so his covenant with him has in view the whole human race. The whole of creature-life is embraced in this voyage from the old to the new world.

Calvin, Gen 7:6 : Not without cause is the statement of Noahs age repeated; for among other faults of old age, it renders men sluggish and obstinate; therefore Noahs faith comes more clearly into view, in the fact that even at such an age it did not fail him.

Footnotes:

[1] [For a more direct and significant mention by Plato of the flood, see the Dialogue, De Legibus, lib. iii. p. 677, A. B., where he supposes that there may have been many such catastrophes in the immense past time, but speaks specially of one as well known . After which he speculates upon the condition of those who may have escaped, and their subsequent culture.T. L.]

[2] [The description of Ovid (although he takes the Greek names) is nearer to the Scripture account than that of Pindar or Apollodorus, and it may be inferred that he had access to other traditional sources, Hebrew perhaps, or Syrian. The moral ground in him is more prominent; and the righteous man who found grace is brought out with a clearer emphasis

Non illo melior quisquam, nec amantior qui
Vir fuit, aut illa metuentior ulla Deorum.
His manner, too, of describing the subsidence of the waters, and the becoming visible of the mountains, is strikingly like that of the Scriptures, and makes it not extravagant to suppose that he may have had some knowledge of the Hebrew account, and its graphic language, .

Flumina subsidunt; colles exire videntur;

Surgit humus; crescunt loca decrescentibus undis;
Postque diem longam nudata cacumina montium.

All the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The Latin poet gives the same optical appearance, though in different language:
Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant;
Omnia pontus erant; deerant quoque litora ponto.T. L.]

[3][Lange tells us (see p. 293), that Sndflut did not originally mean in German a sin-deluge, but there is no other rendering that will preserve his intended, contrast.T. L.]

[4][The etymology of Delitzsch cannot be sustained, as no such formation can be grammatically made from . The reasons Rdiger gives for its Egyptian origin are inconclusive, and if something like it existed in the old Egyptian, that would not prove that it had not come into it from the still older language of Shem and Noah. Fuerst regards it as Shemitic, from , to which he gives the sense excavare, hence hollowness and capacitycognate to the Latin tuba, taberna. Kimchi makes it from , but this is not at all easy. The word is doubtless the one used at the time,a peculiar archaic term for a very unusual thing, like , the term for the flood itself,though afterwards transferred to any smaller vessel. It is not likely that it would be ever lost, or another used for it by way of translation, in any subsequent version of the tradition. It might be conjectured to be cognate to the Syriac redundavit, supernatavit (Heb. ), or the Arabic , elatus fuit supra aquam, were it not that the change of for is so very rare a thing in Hebrew, although they are letters of the same organ. It may be difficult to trace it to any Hebrew root afterwards in common use; but that the word is Shemitic is rendered almost certain from its being so constant in all the branches of that family. Thus the Chaldaic (the Targum word for ), the Arabic , thiopic , and even the Maltese tebut. The Syriac Version, instead of the old Shemitic root, uses , or , which is simply the Greek . Gesenius regards the word as Shemitic, though he expresses some doubt about it.T. L.]

[5] [The difficulty which some have in respect to the magnitude of the ark, and the greatness of the work, arises from overlooking the extreme simplicity of its structure, the length of time allowed, the physical constitution of the fabricators, and the facilities for obtaining the materials, which, it is easy to suppose, may have existed in abundance in their near vicinity. Four men of primitive gigantic strength, to whom the architects of Stonehenge, the raisers of Cyclopean walls (structures found in Greece and in other parts of Europe, which, to our modem eyes, seem almost superhuman), the lifters and drawers of the immense stones of the pyramids, and the diggers of the deep granite caverns of Upper Egypt, were junior and inferior,four such men (to say nothing now of any other probable help) with iron tools, simple perhaps, yet well adapted to cutting, splitting, and hewing (see Gen 4:22), and surrounded by forests of the gopher-pine, firm and durable, yet light and easy for workingcould certainly have built such an ark in much less time than is allowed for it in the Scripture. It is nothing incredible, nothing even strange, that they should have laid such a flooring, 300 cubits long (450 feet), and 50 wide, and that they should have raised upon it walls and a roof 30 cubits high,that they should have strengthened the whole with wedges, spikes, and girding timbers (see the construction of Ulysses Schedia, Odys. v. 243261),

making it like a large dry-dock rather than a shipand then have rendered it water-tight by a copious use of the rosin and bitumen that abounded in that region. What in there incredible in it, or even strange, we say? Add to this the considerations mentioned by Lange, the feeling of necessity, the conviction of a divine impulse, together with the increased vigor that ever comes from the consciousness of a great work, and the difficulties which at first appear so startling are immediately diminished, if they do not wholly disappear.

There is more force in the objection arising from the stowage of the ark, if we take the common estimate of the animals. But here, again, everything depends upon the theory with which we start. Throughout the account the several alls, as already remarked in the text-notes, become universal or specific, widen or contract, according to our prejudgment of the universality or partiality of the flood itself. See remarks on this in the Excursus, p. 318.

Had the narrator been more guarded and specific in his language, it would have justly impaired his credit. It would have been an affectation of knowledge he could not have possessed. In giving his divine convictions, as derived from visions, or in any other manner, he presents them according to his conceptions as dependent on his knowledge of things around him. Greater care in his language would have looked like distrust in himselflike an anticipation of cavil, and an attempt to get credit for accuracy. And this is the peculiar character of the narrative. Precise is it even to minuteness in things that fall directly within the observations of sense; here the narrator gives us numbers, dates, and even cubits of measurement; whilst he is general, even to the appearance of hyperbole, in what was beyond such range. It is the characteristic of a truthful style,that is, truthful to the conception and the emotion.T. L.

[6] [In interpreting the expression, to a cubit shalt thou finish it above, , much depends on getting the right sense of the preposition, or adverb, . The Hebrew language, so tense in other parts of speech, rejoices in double, triple, and even quadruple forms of its particles. Thus, upon, above, with local , upward, to upward, or to above, from above to above. Thus, in Gen 7:20, the waters prevailed from higher to higher, from the top of the mountain to the summit of the flood, or in the other direction, as in Jos 3:13; Jos 3:16. There is an exactness here which is not to be disregarded: from the eave of the ark up toward the ridge of its roof, thou shalt finish it to a cubit; that is, leaving a cubit unfinished, open, or unclosed. There is also an emphasis in the Piel verb , especially if we regard its objective pronoun as referring to the ark itself, or the roof of the ark. Thou shalt make it complete, all except a cubit space which was to be left. It is not easy to understand how this vacant cubit could be in the side, or at the eave. In the other way we get the idea which would seem to be given by Aben Ezra, that the roof of the ark was triangular, , (that is, in its section) with a sharp top, , and so also its corners or angles, , so that it could not turn upside down ( ), whilst its door was on one side. That is, the roof was not flat, but made by two planes, more or less inclined. To a cubit shalt thou finish it, That is, it was to be left open (or unfinished) on the ridge, to the breadth of a cubit extending the whole length. This was the (Zohar), a word whose strong primary sense is light, splendor, the light of heaven, or of the meridian sun; like the similar Arabic words, , or . So it was emphatically to the ark. Their light was from above. This showed the open sky, or heaven, through its whole length, like a meridian line, and this suggests, and is suggested by, that other use of the word in the dual, , for noon, or the midday light (see Gen 43:16; Gen 43:25; Psa 37:6; Son 1:7, etc.), like another Arabic word, , still more closely resembling it. Its dual form in Hebrew denotes exact division, or the noon splendor when it divides the day (meridies, ), or the time the Greeks called , when the day appears stationary, or evenly balanced. It may be also said that the Hebrew dual denotes not only what includes two things, but likewise what is exactly between two things. As for example, 1Sa 17:4; 1Sa 17:23, an epithet applied to Goliath. It is the dual of , as though we should say, a man of betweens. The LXX. have well rendered it , and the Vulgate, most absurdly, vir spurius. It denotes one who comes out, as a champion, in the middle space between two armies, like Homers , the bridge, or ridge, of the battle. The Hebrew and the Syriac ascribe number to these prepositions, and to this mode of conceiving is also due the double use of , as in Gen 1:4, between the light and between the darkness.

The , thus regarded, was a dividing, meridional line to the ark itself. It very probably served, also, as a means of knowing the astronomical meridian, when the solar light fell perpendicular, showing the noon, or the shadows falling in the line of the arks longitude, helped to ascertain the course. The same information might have been obtained from observing the line of stars that appeared through it at night. In this way it may have imperfectly answered some of the purposes of a dial, or chronometer, and of a compass. Such a view will not appear extravagant, when we bear in mind that the observation of the stars for time purposes, annual and diurnal, was peculiar to the earliest periods, and that the very names now given to the constellations are lost in the most remote antiquity. The necessity of some such guide for the year and its seasons, made these early men more familiar with the actual aspect of the heavens than many in modern times who learn astronomy solely from books. The was evidently something different from the , also rendered window, Gen 8:6. We need give ourselves no difficulty about the covering of the , when it rained. Noah, doubtless, found some method for that purpose, whenever it was needed. The Vulgate rendering of Gen 6:16, comes the nearest to the views stated, although it does not exactly express them: Fenestram in area facies, et in cubito consummabis summitatem ejus.T. L.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 16
PRESERVATION OF NOAH

Gen 7:1. And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark.

THE Church of God has frequently been at so low an ebb, that its existence cannot now be traced. There have been times, even since the promulgation of Christianity, when the righteous have been but few: they appear to us indeed much fewer than they really were: and, if we had authentic records respecting them, as we have concerning the Jews, it is probable that we should find several thousand worshippers of Jehovah for one whose name has been transmitted to us [Note: 1Ki 19:14; 1Ki 19:18.]. But in the patriarchal ages we are certain that the knowledge of God was very limited: yea, so universal was the degeneracy of man before the flood, that piety was confined to one single family: nor were all of them truly religious, though for their parents sake they were all made partakers of the same deliverance. The history before us presents to our view a most distressing scene; a world of sinners doomed to destruction; and the only righteous family in the world selected out of them, to be monuments of Gods sparing mercy. The account given of Noah in the text will lead us to shew,

I.

The provision made for his security

Righteousness is universally an object of Gods regard: and though it is not meritorious in his sight so as to justify men before him, yet is it so pleasing and acceptable to him, that he will on account of it bestow many temporal blessings, and in the eternal world will confer a more exalted state of glory [Note: Eze 9:4 with 1Ti 4:8.]. On account of his eminent piety, God distinguished Noah [Note: See the words following the text.], and instructed him to make an ark for the saving of himself and his household.

This ark was typical of the Church of Christ. St. Peter compares it with baptism, by which we are initiated into the Church; and tells us, that as Noah was saved by his admission into the one, so are we by our introduction into the other [Note: 1Pe 3:20-21.].

To mark the resemblance between the type and antitype, we may observe that the ark was,

1.

Divinely appointed

[As the Tabernacle in the time of Moses, so the Ark in Noahs times was made according to a pattern devised by God himself.
Noah never could have thought of constructing such a vessel himself: the suggestion originated with God: the model for it was given by God: nor was even the smallest part of it left to be formed after mans device.
And who among the sons of men ever conceived the idea of saving man through the incarnation and death of Gods only-begotten Son? Who could ever have imagined that Jehovahs Fellow should become a man; that He should submit to this degradation, yea, moreover should endure the accursed death of the cross, for the purpose of reconciling us to his offended Father, and of gathering together into one body all things both in heaven and on earth [Note: Eph 1:10.] ? Who, I ask, would have ever thought of forming a church in such a way, and of saving man by such means? The whole plan bears the stamp and character of a divine origin, according to what is said by the Apostle, By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God [Note: Eph 2:8. , it should seem, refers rather to the sentiment expressed, than to , which is of the feminine gender.].]

2.

Wisely framed

[The ark, it must be confessed, did not accord with those principles of navigation which obtain amongst us: it was defective in some of the most essential points: it had no mast, no sails, no rudder. But it was so constructed as to convince all who were saved in it, that their salvation was of God alone, and that to him alone was all the glory due. At the same time it was so formed, that every creature in it found ample accommodation.
The Church too is constituted far otherwise than human wisdom would have framed it. Man would have left room for the display of his own skill, and for the establishment of his own righteousness. He would not have chosen to stand indebted wholly to the righteousness of another: that is too offensive to his natural pride: it is to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness [Note: 1Co 1:23.]. To have no sails or rudder left for him to manage, would be disgusting; because it would necessitate him to feel his entire dependence on God, and to acknowledge, that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy [Note: Rom 9:16.]. Yet in all these things Gods wisdom is displayed. This way of salvation is justly called, the wisdom of God, and the power of God [Note: 1Co 1:24.]. It cuts off all possible occasion for boasting [Note: Rom 3:27.], and compels us to say, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise. At the same time it is the most suitable that can possibly be imagined. While the moral and discreet are constrained to seek refuge in Christ, the vilest prodigal is not left to despair of mercy: he may enter in at the same door with others, and participate the salvation which God has provided for him.]

3.

Richly furnished

[There was in the ark an abundant store of provision both for man and beast: so that no creature, from the largest animal to the smallest insect, lacked any thing that was needful for it.
Surely in this respect it beautifully represents the Church of Christ, wherein the ordinances of divine grace are administered, and exceeding great and precious promises are given for our support. There is not a person in it, from the greatest to the least, who may not find all that can conduce to his health and comfort. There is milk for babes, and meat for those who are of full age [Note: Heb 5:13-14.]. There is a feast of fat things provided for our daily sustenance. There are the richest cordials, even wines upon the lees well refined, that are dispensed freely to all who desire them. Nothing is lacking: we need never fear lest the store should be exhausted. Nothing is grudged to the meanest servant in the family: all is given to one as well as to another; and to every one, without money and without price.]

We may yet further trace the typical import of the ark in,

II.

The direction given in reference to it

Noah having finished the ark, waited for further intimations of the divine will, which at length were given him. The direction, as it relates to us, implies two things;

1.

That we should use the appointed means of salvation ourselves

[God having formed his church, and provided every thing requisite for the preservation of our souls, now speaks to every one of us, Enter thou into the ark.
Christ says to us, I am the door; I am the way, the truth, and the life. By Him therefore we are to enter in [Note: Joh 10:9.]. By faith in him we shall be placed beyond the reach of harm, and may rejoice in hope of the glory of God [Note: Rom 5:2.]. This is the duty to which we are called.

We are not to amuse ourselves with indulging idle speculations about the fitness of the ark to answer its intended purpose: we have no time to lose: the danger is imminent: if we lose the present moment, we may be undone for ever. We have nothing to do but to enter in, and to commit ourselves to the care of our heavenly Pilot.]

2.

That we should exert ourselves for the salvation of others

[We should not be contented to go to heaven alone: we should say with the church of old, Draw me; and we will run after thee [Note: Son 1:4.]. It is the height of impiety to ask, Am I my brothers keeper? We are all appointed to watch over each other: What the Minister is amongst his flock, that every Parent and Master is among his children and servants. We should employ all the influence we possess, for the advantage of those around us. God testified his approbation of Abraham on account of his fidelity in improving this talent; and inflicted signal judgments upon Eli for neglecting to exert his parental authority. If, like Lot, we cannot prevail upon our relatives to follow our advice, we shall not be responsible for them: but if they perish through our neglect, their blood will be required at our hands [Note: Eze 33:8-9.]. We should therefore warn our children and servants to flee from the wrath to come. We should open to them the way of salvation through faith in a crucified Saviour We should declare faithfully to them, that there is no other name given under heaven whereby we can be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ; and we should urge them with all possible earnestness to embrace his covenant, and seek acceptance through him: In short, we should separate both ourselves and them from an ungodly world, and seek to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness, but that which is of God by faith in him.]

We are aware that many objections will arise against this advice: which therefore we will briefly consider.

1.

We are in the ark already

[It is granted, that as far as the ark designates the visible Church of Christ, we are all inclosed in it [Note: In the baptismal service we pray, that, as Noah and his family, were saved in the ark from perishing by water, so we, being received into the ark of Christs Church, may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that we may be finally brought to the land of ever-lasting life.]. But we must distinguish between the visible and the invisible church. Our blessed Lord has taught us carefully to distinguish between the fruitful and unfruitful branches; which, though they are both in him, will be very differently dealt with by the great Husbandman [Note: Joh 15:2.]. The Gospel net incloses many fishes; but the good only will be preserved: the bad will be cast away [Note: Mat 13:47-48.]. In the field, the tares grow together with the wheat: but a separation will be made at last; the-one for the fire of hell, the other for the granary of heaven [Note: Mat 13:30.]. The Jews were the peculiar people of God: and St. Paul tells us, that to them pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises: Yet he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart on account of them; which he would not have had, if he had thought that the possession of those outward privileges was sufficient. But he accounts for his feelings by saying, that all are not Israel, who are of Israel [Note: Rom 9:3-6.]. And he elsewhere assures us, in still stronger terms, that it is not any outward privilege or profession that constitutes us Christians, but an inward change of heart, which approves itself to the all-seeing God [Note: Rom 2:28-29.]. Let us not then deceive ourselves, or imagine that we must of necessity be saved because we have been baptized: for there was an accursed Ham in the ark, as well as a righteous Noah: but let us inquire into the dispositions and habits. of our minds: let us examine whether we have given up ourselves unreservedly to God; and whether we are striving to glorify him with our bodies and our spirits, which are his?]

2.

We do not see that we are in any danger

[This was the case with the antediluvian world. They saw no appearance of any deluge: they could not persuade themselves that God would ever inflict such a tremendous judgment on the earth: and they imputed the anxiety of Noah to superstition, credulity, and folly. But did their unbelief make void the truth of God? Yea rather, did it not harden them to their own destruction? What security then will our unbelief afford us? We see not any symptoms of that wrath which is threatened against an ungodly world: but will it therefore never come? Will the word of God fail of its accomplishment? Is it safe for us to set up our opinions against the positive declarations of Heaven, and to found all our hopes of salvation upon the presumption that God will lie? Seen, or unseen, our danger is the same: and if all perished at the deluge who took not refuge in the ark, so will all perish at the day of judgment who have not fled for refuge to the hope set before them.]

3.

We shall become singular

[This is an objection which we cannot but allow; and it is with pain and grief that we confess its force. We acknowledge that, if we will seek in earnest the salvation of our souls, we must be singular. But whose fault is this? It was not Noahs fault that he was singular in the old world: it was the fault of those who refused to listen to the voice of mercy, and to obey the commands of God. And surely Noah would have paid a very unbecoming deference to the world, if he had followed their example rather than his own convictions, and consented to perish with them, rather than secure his own salvation. Why then should we carry our complaisance to such a criminal extent, when the everlasting salvation of our souls is at stake? We regret that we are compelled to be singular: but we must confess, It is better to be saved with Noah and his little family, than to perish with an ungodly world: It is better to walk in the narrow and unfrequented way which leadeth unto life, than to go in the broad road which terminates in destruction.]

Dismissing then your objections, suffer a word of exhortation

[To every one we would address the words of our text, Enter thou, and all thy family, into the ark. Consider, how near the day of mercy may have come to its close! The day of judgment may be far off, as it respects the world at large; but it may be nigh at hand as it respects ourselves. The hour of death may be much nearer to us than we imagine: and that will, in effect, be the day of judgment to us. O what shall we then do, if we be not found in the true ark? What shall we do, if we belong not to Him of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, and be not numbered amongst his little flock, on whom alone the kingdom of heaven will be conferred? Let us only paint to ourselves the distress we should have felt, if we had seen the waters rapidly surrounding us, and the ark shut against us: yet this would be a very faint image of what we shall feel, when the vials of Gods wrath shall be poured out upon us, and no hope of deliverance be afforded. Let us then not seek merely, but strive, to enter in. Let us endeavour to bring all we can along with us. It will be a painful sight, if we be saved ourselves, to see our wife, our children, our servants, our friends perishing around us, and swallowed up in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. On the other hand, what a joy will it be to present them unto God, saying, Here am I, and the children, thou hast given me! Let us then exert our influence while we can; and I pray God that our labours may be crowned with success; and that, instead of going to heaven alone, we may all have some to be our joy and crown of rejoicing in that solemn day!]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Contents

This is a very interesting Chapter, in that it enables us to look back and read the destruction of the old world, by water; as the scriptures teach us to look forward to the sure destruction of the world that now is, by fire, in the great day of the Lord Jesus. We here behold Noah and his household entering into the ark, on the seventeenth day of the second month, in the year of the world, 1656, before Christ’s manifestation in the flesh, 2348 years, and in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. The fountains of the great deep are broken up from beneath; the rains descend from above; and forty days without intermission, the deluge continues to increase, until the highest mountains are covered, and the waters prevail, to the depth of nine yards, above the surface of the earth. All flesh is destroyed excepting Noah, and those who are with him in the ark; and the flood continues upon the earth for the space of one hundred and fifty days.

Gen 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

This invitation to Noah, if we consider the ark (as scripture authorizes us to do, See 1Pe 3:20-21 ) as a type of Jesus, will be best explained by those parallel passages, Isa 26:20 ; then Mat 11:28 and then Rev 22:17 . The first of them, is the call of God the Father: Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, etc. And what are those chambers, but the covenant of redemption, in Christ Jesus? The second is the invitation of Christ himself; Come unto me, and I will give you rest, etc. see also Isa 28:12 ; Jer 6:16 . And the third is the call of God the Holy Ghost; And the Spirit and the Bride say come, etc. proving the gracious part which that Eternal Spirit bears, in the work of redemption. Reader! is it not refreshing to the soul, to discover testimonies in every part of scripture, carrying with them such decided evidences to the truth as it is in Jesus? In this verse, also, God saith to Noah, Thee have I found righteous, etc. For the clear apprehension of this, consult Rom 4:3 , and then compare it with Heb 11:7 . No doubt but that the righteousness of Abraham and Noah was the same; believing in God, which was counted for righteousness.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Story of the Flood

Gen 7:8

It has been remarked that though the narrative [of the Flood] is vivid and forcible, it is entirely wanting in that sort of description which in a modern historian or poet would have occupied the largest space. ‘We see nothing of the death-struggle; we hear not the cry of despair; we are not called upon to witness the frantic agony of husband and wife, and parent and child, as they fled in terror before the rising waters. Nor is a word said of the sadness of the one righteous man who, safe himself, looked upon the destruction which he could not avert.’ The Chaldean tradition, which is the most closely allied to the Biblical account, is not so reticent. Tears are shed in heaven over the catastrophe, and even consternation affected its inhabitants, while within the ark itself the Chaldean Noah says: ‘When the storm came to an end and the terrible water-spout ceased, I opened the window and the light smote upon my face. I looked at the sea attentively observing, and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like seaweed the corpses floated. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and wept and my tears fell upon my face.’

Marcus Dods.

References. VII. 1. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Bible Object Lessons, p. 1. M. Badger, American Pulpit, p. 96. J. Keble, Sermons for Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p. 171. Sermons for the Christian Year, vol. iii. p. 171. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 118. VII. 1-7. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii. No. 1336. VII. 15. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. liii. No. 3042. VII. 16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1613.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

XIV

LESSONS OF THE FLOOD

Gen 7

Before we go on I wish to impress very solemnly on your minds certain great lessons connected with the deluge.

The first question is: Is this history, this account of the destruction of the world by a flood? My answer is: In all the rest of the Bible the back references to it treat it as plain matter of fact; no allegory about it.

The next question is: What was the extent of the deluge? Your record says that the water prevailed fifteen cubits, or twenty-eight feet, over all the mountains under the whole heavens. The natural impression made upon the mind by reading this account is that it was intended to be a complete destruction of the world that then was; that the world was to make a new start. When we come to the New Testament it will tell about the second deluge that is coming which will be a deluge of fire; certainly that will be universal. A great many people, who imagine that what they call science is always true and what we call the Bible is never true unless science vouches for it, seem to think it impossible that the deluge covered the whole world. But notice how slight the elevation of the land is over the sea, that in a body 8,000 miles thick and 25,000 miles around, the difference between the water level and the highest mountain is so slight that in a globe representing the earth the height of the mountain would not be any more than the rind of an orange, or not so much as that, hardly as much as a coat of paint. There would have to be only a very slight elevation of the bottom of the sea, or a very slight subsidence of the land in order for the water to cover the whole thing. We know that at one time the water did cover it all. Listen to this account in the first chapter of Genesis: “And the earth was waste and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” It was all liquid. It was only later that the waters were separated from the land. We study bow that separation took place by the creation of the atmosphere so as to take above a great deal of the water and a subsidence of the land so as to provide sea beds for the rest of the water. Now, just reverse that process and the earth is covered with water again. The windows of the heavens are opened and the water up there is let down. The fountains of the great deep are broken up. There you have the storm above and the upheaval below that will bring about the prevalence of the water over the whole globe. It seems that it would be just as easy for God to cover the whole earth with water again as it was to take it from a state where it was covered with water and to bring the land up. He can do one wonder just as easily as the other. A great many of them try to make out that the deluge covered only a small part of the earth, the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, touching the Black, Caspian, and Mediterranean seas. In order to test that, Mount Ararat is 17,260 feet high. Now, add twenty-eight feet to that, for the water stood above Mount Ararat. Yet the water did not go beyond the Caspian and Black seas. That is a greater miracle than the other, a great bulk of water there does not fall down and does not obey the law of gravitation. I have always had less difficulty in believing just what the Bible says about this flood than in trying to believe it less than the Bible says.

The second thing is the style of this account. I have been reading history all my life. I commenced at four years old. I never read a piece of history that is more vivid in its eyewitness style than this account of the flood. Nothing is as circumstantial as that. Take the history of the conflagration of Rome written by an eyewitness. It is not nearly so definite and particular in all its parts as this is. Take the accounts of the earthquake in San Francisco. The style in which that account is written by any of the men who have tried to describe it does not approach this in clearness of the statements and minute exactness.

Notice, for one thing, the dates. He evidently wants to he understood that this occurred at a particular time. I will read you some of the statements about dates. “And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth.” That gives you the year. In v. II it says, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, and on the seventeenth day of the month the same day were all the fountains of the great abyss broken up and the windows of heaven opened.” It says that the rain fell forty days and nights, but it does not mean to say that no rain fell after that. Dr. Conant’s translation says, “And the heavy rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”

Listen to the description as to how these waters gradually rose and gradually fell; see if you can remember anything in literature more vivid. “And the heavy rain was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased and bore up the ark. It rose up from the earth. And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth and the ark went upon the face of the waters.” First it floated, then it moved. “The waters prevailed mightily upon the earth and all the high mountains that were under the whole heavens were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered.” That tells you how it rose. “And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” Notice this circumstantial account. He is going to describe now how they began to fall. “And God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the waters subsided.” The fountains of the abyss and the windows of the heavens were closed. The heavy rains from the heavens were restrained, the waters returned to the earth continually, and the waters abated from the end of one hundred and fifty days, and the ark rested in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month on the mount of Ararat. And the waters were continually abating until the tenth month. On the tenth month and on the first day of the month the tops of the mountains were seen. It came to pass at the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark and sent forth a raven. And he went, going forth and returning, but he never came back into the ark, just going to and fro. He sent forth a dove to see if the waters were lightened and he waited “another seven days.” Notice again that I am just calling dates. “It came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first of the month, the waters were dried up.” No man living could be more particular about every specification. “In the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry.” There is the full account of the year divided into its parts. I have never read anything that impressed me as this I have just quoted. One of my examination questions will likely be: What have you to say about the graphic description of the gradual rising of the waters and the gradual subsidence of the waters? The literary style is perfect.

Now I have another question I am going to give as a general question. Those of you that have been about farm yards have noticed that hogs begin to run around and pick up straws to make a bed, and you just know that cold weather is coming. You see flights of the birds as winter approaches, going south. Rats leave a ship before it begins to sink. Now the question: Was it instinct that got these animals into the ark? These were wild animals, elephants, lions, tigers, snakes, birds: were they warned by instinct of the approaching storm, and knew that the ark was the only safe place? And if not, how do you account for their getting there? You don’t suppose that Noah could go out and drive up those wild beasts. There is an answer that is absolutely correct, but I will pass it for the present.

The lessons concerning this deluge to which I call your attention, first, gather around the name of Noah, one of the most remarkable names of the times. As Adam’s name stands out as the head of the human race, so this man’s name stands out as the second head of the human race. The Adam world is all gone. This man is going to start on a new earth and make a new beginning for the human race. There were only this man and his wife, his three sons and their wives eight people. What is said about the character of this man? The Scripture testimony is that he walked with God and was perfect in his generation. What is said about his faith? I will read you what is said. Heb 11:7 , “By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house; through which he condemned the world, and became the heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” The chapter commences by saying, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Now, no man could foresee that flood. God said it would come in 120 years. The first time he limited it, he said it should come at the death of Methuselah. The next time he limits it, he says 120 years. The next time he says, “yet seven days.” There was not a sign in the sky above nor in the earth beneath to warn anybody. But God told Noah that it was coming, and, moved with godly fear, taking hold of the invisible things that had been made known to him, by faith he built that ark. You think that was a small undertaking. Well, suppose one man and his three boys, and as many people as he could hire, should start out to build a ship as big as the Great Eastern. It cost an immense amount of money. Those people who did not believe that the flood was coming would not contribute anything to it. Noah had to put his own money into it. That faith means a tremendous financial sacrifice on his part, to put everything in the world he had in it. It meant to put the labor of his hands. The people who were working for him would laugh at him and call him a crazy old fool. Of course, they would take his money, as carpenters want work, but they had no faith in it. I call the attention of the class to a sermon by Dr. Andrew Fuller of England, “The Faith of Noah in Building the Ark,” as one of the finest sermons ever preached on faith in all homiletics. Faith does not stop at a mere intellectual perception of a truth, or the assent of the heart to a truth. Faith steps out and works and does everything in the world that is necessary to be done.

Notice the strength of Noah’s faith in this. He stood alone against the judgment of the entire world. He is the only man that believes that the flood will come. One of you start out today in any community and let nobody in that community believe in what you are doing. Let them laugh at you and make fun of your work. How long would you hold your faith? It is one of the most sublime demonstrations in all the Word of God; that he would stand as Elijah did later against the whole world and maintain that what God said was true and work to it.

What is said about his preaching? All the time he was work ing he was also preaching. In 2Pe 2:5 , he is called a preacher of righteousness, that is, he preached that men should do right and do what God tells them to do. 1Pe 3:21 , says that Christ by the Spirit went and preached to the antediluvians in the days of Noah. That is, Christ, not in person, but in the Spirit through Noah, preached 120 years. Noah did the preaching as Christ’s representative, the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the truth of it. 1Pe 4:6 , has this strange expression if you want to see commentators stalled consult them on this scripture: “For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.” In other words, as Paul says, this means that the gospel has been preached all over the world and they have not heard. “Their line has gone out to the ends of the earth.” “Jesus Christ lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” There is a sense in which the truth of God in some form has reached every heart and conscience that there is in the world. Why was the gospel sent to these people that are now dead and lost? God had in view when it was preached to them that they might be judged in the flesh and live according to the spirit, but rejecting it they were lost in both body and spirit. You must get fixed on your mind that old man’s faith, standing there by himself and continually pleading with his neighbors and telling them that 120 years from now, 119 years from now, 100 years from now, fifty years, ten years and the end comes. All that was the space for repentance, and at last when you come down to seven days the ministry stops. The Lord says, “Noah, you move in,” and he moves in and the door is shut. Then, “Where is Noah?” “He is inside.” “Where is the rain?” It has not come and another day passes. “Where is your rain? Hallo, old man, where is that storm you were talking about?” No rain. Yet seven days, and the day of grace is ended. No chance for anybody to be saved in that seven days because the door is shut. God shut him in. He is shut up; they are shut out. A whole week passes just that way. It is one of the most suggestive and impressive lessons that I know of.

Such was the man’s preaching. There is a reference to him in Eze 14:14 , where he speaks about a certain wicked city, and he says, “Though Noah, Job and Daniel were in this city they could save only themselves by their righteousness.” Whenever the number of righteous men gets so small that the salt cannot preserve the world, or whenever the testimony of the righteous becomes so low that it ceases to conserve, then doom comes and that doom is irretrievable.

Let us see what the lessons are about the flood itself. In 2Pe 3:4-7 , we have: “Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” Just as certain as the flood came and swept away the first world it came by the word of God, though the crowd did not believe it just so certain the world that now is will be destroyed by fire. Peter goes on to describe that fire in this same connection. “The day will come that the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up.” If God could destroy the first world by a flood of water, and according to his Word that first destruction did come, we have the same Word of God to assure us that the world next time will be destroyed by fire.

The second lesson is Mat 24:37-39 , and Luk 17:26 . Jesus is talking: “And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of man.” That is, its suddenness and their unpreparedness for it. It comes like a thief in the night when they are not looking for it. When Jesus comes again there will be some people at the ballroom, just like Byron describes it:

There was a sound of revelry by night

And Belgium’s capital had gathered then

Her beauty and her chivalry and bright

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again

And all went merry as a marriage bell.

But hush. Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell.

“What is that sound?” “It is the cannon’s opening roar.” And the Battle of Waterloo snatched those gay dancers from their partners and hurried them to the feast of death. They will be dancing just that way when the lightning flashes from one end of the heavens to the other when Jesus comes. There will be two fellows quarreling over the price of a mutton chop, others quarreling over taxes. There will be men building pigpens; boys going in swimming in the creeks. And the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ will come like a flash of lightning. That is a very solemn lesson. Those people right up to the time when heaven’s windows opened and the fountains of the great deep burst up, in utter disbelief of any end of the world, so it found them and they went down

With a bubbling groan,

Unwept, unhonoured, and unknown.

The next lesson is found in 2Pe 3 , describing why the second coming of Christ is deferred. Some people say, “He made us suspect that he is coming soon and he has not come.” Peter says that Christ is not slack about his promises. That if he has not come his object is that his long-suffering might lead men to repentance. Just like through that period of 120 years and throughout the whole life of Methuselah. Why didn’t that boy die at five years of age, etc.? It is God suspending the judgment. God is holding that awful penalty hair-swung, nothing but the breath of the Almighty to send it down in a moment, in order that man might have space to repent.

The next lesson is Isa 54:9 . This is not so dark a picture. I will commence at Isa 54:7 : “For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In overflowing wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting love and kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith Jehovah, my Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.” God has said to his people that he will never destroy the earth by another flood. “I swear to thee that though thou hast forsaken me many a time, that I will never, no never, destroy thee.” It is one of the greatest doctrines on the final perseverance of the saints in the Bible. A very sweet lesson. That is all I have to say about the lessons of the flood. Let us look at

THE LESSONS OF THE ARK The first lesson about the ark is that it was intended for a perfectly sure means of escape from that doom, pitched within and without, water-tight, perfectly safe, everybody and everything within it was safe. No matter how it rained. No matter how high the water stood; that the mountains disappeared. That ark represents Christ. If we get in Christ, shut in Christ, as Paul puts it, “I am dead and my life is hid with Christ in God,” then let the storms come.

Notice that to get into that ark there was only one door. Noah did not have a door put at the top for the birds to come in, and a little hole under the floor for the snakes to crawl under, and a great big gate for the elephants to get in. No matter whether you are a big beast or a little beast, you have to go in at the same place. You could not exhibit any pride about it. The eagle swooping from his eyrie on the top of the mountain had to come in at that door, the very door through which the snail crawled. That is a point for you in your preaching. Christ says: “I am the door. I am the way. I am the truth and I am the life, and there is no other way known under heaven or among men.”

In the next place, that ark of Noah’s is reproduced in the covenant at Mount Sinai. As the first ark was made of cypress wood, this ark is made of acacia, that is, an indestructible and long-lasting wood. This ark has the mercy seat and the Shekinah. This ark has the throne of grace and the only way to get into paradise is to come to that place.

We come to the last lesson on the ark in Act 10 . Without reading I will tell it to you. Peter was just as narrow as the edge of a knife in his Jewish prejudices, and he held the key that would open the door of the kingdom of heaven to the Gentile world, and he was letting it get rusty in his girdle. On the day of Pentecost he opened the door and let in three thousand Jews at a jump, but not a Gentile. God brought him to Joppa where he could look out from the housetop upon that sea whose waters washed the shores of the Gentile world, alien, without God, and without hope in the world. Peter fell into a trance and God let down an ark. You can call it a great white sheet held up at the four corners, if you want to. But it was an ark, just as curious a sight as Noah’s old ark, and in this ark was every manner of beast and bird and creeping thing, clean and unclean. The world had almost forgotten about that ark into which hawks and doves and tigers and lambs and snakes and men went in together. God shows Peter that sight again and says, “Arise, Peter, kill and eat.” Peter says, “I have never eaten anything unclean.” God says, “What I have cleansed do not thou call common or unclean. I want to teach you the lesson of the ark, the symbolism of that ark in the days of Noah.” The entrance of those birds and animals into the ark was a foreshadow of the reception of all people and all nations, tribes and kindred into Jesus Christ.

I have only to present the sabbath, and I am through with the special lessons about the ark. The sabbath day runs all through, as “another seven days,” showing that long before Moses put into the Ten Commandments “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy,” the seventh day was an institution that began when God created the world and for man as man.

QUESTIONS 1. Is the Genesis account of the flood history?

2. What was the extent of the flood, upward and outward?

3. What was the process of the flood?

4. How high above the sea level are the loftiest mountain peaks of Armenia where the ark rested?

5. What is the theory of the critics and what is the scientific difficulty in accepting it?

6. What evidence from the style of the account in general?

7. What in particular from the dates mentioned?

8. What of the description of the rising and falling of the waters?

9. How did Noah get the animals into the ark? Give reasons for your answer,

10. What four lessons from Noah’s life?

11. What is said about the character of this man?

12. What is said of his faith?

13. What shows the strength of his faith?

14. What is said about his preaching?

15. With whom does the prophet Ezekiel rank Noah and on what characteristic?

16. What four lessons for the flood itself?

17. What four lessons from the ark?

18. What lesson here on the question of the sabbath?

QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND RESEARCH (Inferential and otherwise.) 19. What double test of faith did God prove Noah by?

20. What New Testament proof of his meeting the test and what great Baptist preacher has a sermon on the text?

21. What was the financial difficulty to be overcome by Noah’s faith?

22. What scientific difficulty?

23. What social difficulty?

24. What labor difficulty?

25. What waiting difficulty?

26. What several time divisions are found in the account of the deluge?

27. Who else in the world besides Noah’s family ever saw such an assemblage of animals as were in the ark?

28. Why did not this strange gathering change the wicked?

29. Cite Isaiah’s comparison of man’s stupidity with the intelligence of the beasts.

30. Cite Job’s description of the absorption of the wicked in worldly pleasures till death suddenly smites them.

31. The significance of one door to the ark and a type of what?

32. The meaning of “Jehovah shut him in”?

33. According to the New Testament, who is vested with power to open and shut?

34. How long did the heavy rain continue?

35. What the extent of the destruction?

36. Cite three great proofs that the deluge was universal.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Gen 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Ver. 1. For thee have I seen righteous before me. ] Not only before men, as Pharisees, Luk 16:15 and civil justiciaries, Rom 2:29 but before me who see the inside, and love “truth in the hidden man of the heart”. Psa 51:6 1Pe 3:5 And here Noah’s sincerity prevailed with God for his safety, as did likewise Lot’s, whom God hid in Zoar; and Abram’s, to whom God was a shield to save him from the deadly thrusts of destruction, when he pursued the four kings and foiled them, because he “walked before him, and was upright.” Gen 15:1 ; Gen 14:15 So true is that of Solomon, “He that walketh uprightly, walketh safely,” Pro 10:9 as if he were in a tower of brass, or town of war. And again, “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children have a place of refuge”. Pro 14:26 The old Rock is still ready to relieve them. Isa 26:3

In this generation. ] Called by St Peter, “a world of ungodly ones,” 2Pe 2:5 far worse, no doubt, than those in Enoch’s days. The greater praise was it to Noah, that, by a holy antiperistasis, he kindled from their coldness, and became nothing the worse, but much the better (as it is the nature of true goodness) by their oppositions. It was an invincible faith, whereby he both conquered the world and “condemned” it. What else could have carried him over so many difficulties, as he must needs encounter? Well might the apostle say, “By faith he prepared an ark”. Heb 12:7 For if he had been led by sense, he would have fled as far as Jonah did, ere ever he had gone about it.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 7:1-5

1Then the LORD said to Noah, Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time. 2You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female; 3also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made. 5Noah did according to all that the LORD had commanded him.

Gen 7:1 the LORD said to Noah It is the covenant name for God, YHWH, here but in Gen 7:16 He is called Elohim. The rabbinical understanding of these terms referring to God as savior (YHWH) and as Creator (Elohim) seems to fit the usages of the Pentateuch. See SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY .

Enter the ark This VERB (BDB 92, KB 112) is a Qal IMPERATIVE.

for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time The term righteous here is used in the same sense as referring to Job as blameless (see SPECIAL TOPIC: Righteousness ). This does not imply a sinlessness but one who has conformed to and performed all that they understand or is culturally expressed in relation to God. Notice that Noah’s righteousness affects his family. This is a biblical truth. This does not mean that someone can be right with God based on another person’s merit, but it does imply that spiritual blessings flow from those who know God to those with whom they are acquainted and with whom they are intimately involved (compare Deu 5:9-10; Deu 7:9 and 1Co 7:14).

Gen 7:2 clean animals by sevens, a male and his female Note the distinction between clean and unclean in this context because it is in a pre-Mosaic sacrificial setting (cf. Leviticus 1-7). Nothing is said about the criteria or purpose of the clean animals. It is obvious that Moses developed this distinction later on in Leviticus (cf. Leviticus 11) in connection with the food laws and the sacrificial system. There has been much discussion about the seven pairs (cf. NRSV, NJB, JPSOA). Does it mean seven individual animals or seven pairs of animals? See Special Topic: Symbolic Numbers in Scripture .

Gen 7:4 seven more days, I will send rain on the earth Rashi says that this was the period of mourning for the righteous Methuselah who had just died. The rabbis believed that God did not send the flood until Methuselah passed away.

The seven day week is so ancient that its origin has never been traced. Both the month and the year can be deduced from the phases of the moon and change of seasons, but not the week. For believers Genesis 1 sets the pattern.

forty days and forty nights The term forty is used quite often in the Bible (see a concordance). At times it is meant to be taken literally but at other times it simply means a long period of indefinite time (longer than a lunar cycle which is twenty-eight and one-half days, but shorter than a seasonal change). In several Mesopotamian accounts the time frame of the flood is seven days. See SPECIAL TOPIC: Symbolic Numbers in Scripture .

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

LORD = Jehovah in His covenant-relation with Noah, and in connection with the seven clean beasts for sacrifice. See note on Gen 6:12, Gen 6:19.

house = household. Metonymy (of subject). App-6.

generation. Hebrew. dor, as in Gen 6:9 = those who were then alive: Noah’s contemporaries.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 7

And so the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all of your house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Now of the clean beast thou shalt take by sevens, male with his female ( Gen 7:1-2 ):

So seven pair of the clean beasts.

and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of the fowls of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep the seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For in seven days, I will cause it to rain upon the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according to all that the LORD commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. And of the clean beasts, and the beasts that were not clean, and the fowls, and every thing that creeps upon the earth, There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened ( Gen 7:2-11 ).

Now you remember back in the first chapter of Genesis there God set a space-the raqiya-the heavens separating the waters, which were above the heavens, and the waters which were upon the earth. These waters now condensed and fell to the earth. But with that, the great fountains of the deep being broken up, there were great upheavals, no doubt, upward thrust of mountain ranges.

It could be at this time that the Himalayas did rise out of the sea. As former mountain ranges collapsed into the sea, the pressure of the water as the body, the ocean bodies were moved. The pressure pushing downward upon the new ocean beds would thrust upwards mountain ranges and would create a whole violent change in the geographical surface of the earth. And I have no doubt but that there were many dramatic changes, as far as geography is concerned at the time of the flood, as mountain ranges would disappear, the great fountains of the deep broken up, the rain descending, the pressure of the new oceans and the changing of oceans, and so forth, would of course create great changes.

There used to be a vast ocean up in the area of middle northern America, up in the area of Salt Lake and they feel that that’s all that’s left of which of what was once a very vast ocean. You go over to the south rim of the Canyon there and you find at the eight thousand foot level fossil remains of sea fish, shells, mollusks and so forth, so that area was once covered by a vast ocean.

Dinosaurs lived around its edges. The Painted Desert is an interesting area to search for dinosaur artifacts. I have a very interesting vertebrae of a dinosaur from the Painted Desert there. And it’s very interesting to go and search for the remains of the dinosaurs that were once around the shores of the vast ocean that was up in that area or the vast sea, whichever the case may be. But there have been great cataclysmic changes; upward thrust, pressures by the water changing its beds and so forth.

And all testify to the truth, the biblical account of there one time being a great cataclysmic upheaval in which the fountains of the deep were opened. Changes of the ocean floors. Changes of mountain ranges. Upward thrust, other areas sinking and disappearing. It could be that the lost continent of Atlantis, that there is in reality a basis of fact that this did exist and they could have been eliminated by this great flood, by the whole change of the structures.

They have found in the middle Atlantic vast beds of sand. You only have sand on the seashore. It’s caused by the action of the movement of the water wearing down the rocks and so forth, the granite. Much of the sea is covered by silt through the centuries, just the silt settling down to the bottom of the ocean. But these great beds of sand are something they can’t explain out in the middle of the Atlantic showing that it was once a beach, a seashore. Why isn’t it covered by several feet of silt? How did it get there? All interesting things that the scientists have not yet figured out. But the flood with the changes of the surface of the earth would easily explain all of these things.

So “the great fountains of the deep were broken up, the windows of heaven were opened.”

And the rain was upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. And in the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort ( Gen 7:12-14 ).

I only wish that he could have gotten those two fleas at that time.

And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all the flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in. And the flood was for forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail; and the mountains were covered ( Gen 7:15-20 ).

Now there are some who try to make this a local flood. That it only happened in the Babylonian plain. Well then, why would God put Noah to the job of building such a big boat? Why didn’t He say, “Move out of this plain, Noah, over to the next mountain, you know, range and all and get into that valley over there cause this thing is going to get flooded”?

And how could the ark be deposited on Mount Ararat and how could the waters cover Mount Ararat fifteen feet above which is seventeen thousand feet high? How could the waters just be piled up in that one area without being dispersed around the face of the earth? So those who try to just make this a local flood have many problems. Why bring all the animals in? It would not at all be necessary if it were just a localized flood.

But evidence, of course, the Scripture declares it was a worldwide flood and evidence would seem to go along with the Scriptures on this. That is the whales being found here in Vermont, five hundred feet above sea level and the cavern in Maryland, and things of this nature with the various animals thrust in and broken up.

“The flood was forty days upon the earth; the waters increased, bare the ark, it was lifted up above the earth. The waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.” That is, fifteen feet above the highest mountain.

And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and cattle, and beast, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, creeping things, the fowl of heaven; they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth for a hundred and fifty days ( Gen 7:21-24 ).

Almost a half a year the waters prevailed upon the earth, during this time of great cataclysmic upheaval. Now Jesus, when talking to His disciples about the signs of His coming and the end of the world said, “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of man be” ( Mat 24:37 ).

The days of Noah were days of rapid population explosion. “It came to pass in those days, when men began to multiply upon the face of the earth” ( Gen 6:1 ), population explosion during Noah’s day. The days of Noah were days of abnormal sexual behavior. “The sons of God seeing the daughters of men.” Jesus says that they were days in which marriage vows were cast aside and men were marrying and giving in marriage, or live-in type of relationships, not honoring the marriage vows, casting them aside.

The days of Noah were days of wickedness, man’s mind being evil continually. They were days of corruption and they were days of violence. As it was in the days of Noah, so it is today. Noah was to be a sign of the coming of Jesus Christ. I believe that Noah also gives to us another sign of sorts, for Noah was upon the earth at the time of God’s great judgment of the earth because of the wickedness. And God is going to again judge the earth because of wickedness. But I do not believe that Noah is the type of the church that God preserves during His period of judgment.

There is a group that God is going to preserve during the period of coming judgment that will be sheltered by God, these are the 144,000, the Israelites who will be sealed by God and be sheltered from many of the judgments of God that are coming. That seal upon their forehead, the name of God upon their forehead will be, as it were an ark.

But I believe that Enoch is a type of the church who walked with God and was not for God took him. But before God took him he had this testimony that he pleased God and Enoch was taken up before the flood, before the judgment of God, being a type of the church. And Noah, the type of the 144,000 Israelites that are sealed, is protected by God and taken through the judgment of God that is coming upon the earth, even as the 144,000 will be protected and taken through.

The interesting thing to me is that God placed Noah in the ark and He shut the door. The Bible says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He was preaching to these people during the hundred-year period that he was building the ark, warning them of God’s impending judgment that was to come. But the people no doubt scoffed at Noah and laughed at his warnings and mocked the crazy old coot building a big boat out in the area where there is no water.

But Noah by faith built the boat to the saving of his family. It brought salvation because he obeyed God and God shut him in. At that point, the die was cast; Noah, his family, safe inside. The others, on the outside; it’s too late. That marked an interesting day between the mercy and the grace and the patience of God and now the necessary judgment. For God said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man.”

God’s spirit does strive with man. That in itself is a miracle and a marvel. Why should God strive with me? Who am I that God should strive with me? Who are you that God should strive with you? What a miracle of grace that God would even strive with man! What a marvelous demonstration of His condescension and of His love and of His concern that God would even bother to strive with man.

But what an awesome and solemn warning. God’s spirit won’t always strive with you. In Hebrews we read of those “who have done despite to the spirit of grace. Who have counted the blood of the covenant wherewith Jesus was sanctified an unholy thing. Done despite to the spirit of grace.” And there remains for them that “certain looking forward to the fiery indignation of the wrath of God by which His enemies shall be devoured. For if he who despised Moses’ law perished in the mouth of two or three witnesses: how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, he should be counted worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, counted the blood of his covenant an unholy thing, done despite to that Spirit of grace” that’s been dealing with his heart ( Heb 10:27-29 ).

“God’s spirit will not always strive with man.” There is a time we know not when, a line we know not where; that marks the destiny of men twixt sorrow and despair. There is a line though by man unseen, once it has been crossed, even God Himself in all His love has sworn that all is lost.

It’s possible for you to say “no” once too many times. It’s possible for you to do despite to the spirit of grace. It’s possible for you to cross that line between the grace and the mercy and the patience and the long-suffering of God, and the judgment of God. There came that day when Noah went in and God shut him in. What a glorious day when God shuts us in to himself, to that ark of refuge that He has provided for us through Jesus Christ, and I become a part of His beautiful kingdom through faith.

May God by His Holy Spirit speak to each of us as we continue our journey through Genesis.

Father, we thank You for the privilege of studying Your Word together, looking over these interesting things. Thank You for the record, Lord, that leads us to Jesus Christ and to eternal life in Him. Lord, let Thy Holy Spirit now implant upon our hearts Thy truths. In Jesus’ name, Amen. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Gen 7:1. And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark;

Notice that the Lord did not say to Noah, Go into the ark, but Come, plainly implying that God was himself in the ark, waiting to receive Noah and his family into the big ship that was to be their place of refuge while all the other people on the face of the earth were drowned. The distinctive word of the gospel is a drawing word: Come. Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; and he will say to his people at the last, Come, ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Depart is the word of justice and judgment, but Come is the word of mercy and grace. The Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark;

Gen 7:1. For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Therefore God drew a distinction between him and the unrighteous, for he always hath a special regard for godly people.

Gen 7:2-3. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

Of the clean creatures which might be offered in sacrifice to God you see that there was a larger proportion than there was of the unclean, that there might be sufficient for sacrifice without the destruction of any species. The unclean beasts were mostly killers and devourers of others, and therefore their number we to be less than that of the clean species. Oh, that the day might soon come when there would be more of clean men and women than of unclean, when there would be fewer sinners than godly people in the world, though even then there would be the ungodly by two like the unclean beasts.

Gen 7:4. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

It is the prerogative of the king to have the power of life and death, and it is the sole prerogative of the King of kings that He can create, and he can destroy. But what destructive power is brought into operation because of human sin! Sin must be a very heinous thing, since God, who despiseth not the work of his own hands, will sooner break up the human race, and destroy every thing that liveth rather than that sin should continue to defile the earth. He has destroyed the earth once by water because of sin, and he will the second time destroy it by fire for the selfsame reason. Wherever sin is, God will hunt it; with barbed arrows will he shoot at it; he will cut it in pieces with his sharp two-edged sword, for he cannot endure sin. Oh, how foolish are they who harbour it in their own bosoms, for it will bring destruction to them if they keep it there!

Gen 7:5. And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

Here was positive proof of his righteousness, in that he was obedient to the word of the Lord. A man who does not obey Gods commands may talk about righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, but it is clear that he does not possess it, for faith works by love, and the righteousness which is by faith is proved by obedience to God. Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him, and so proved that he was righteous before God.

Gen 7:6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

He was nearly five hundred years old when he began to preach about the flood, a good old age to take up such a subject. For a hundred and twenty years he pursued his theme, three times as long as most men are ever able to preach, and now at last Gods time of long-suffering is over, and he proves the truthfulness of the testimony of his servant by sending the flood that Noah had foretold.

Gen 7:7-8. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

This largest and most complete menagerie that was ever gathered together was not collected by human skill; divine power alone could have accomplished such a task as that.

Gen 7:9. There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

They went in. Noah had not to hunt or search for them, but they came according to Gods plan and purpose, even as, concerning the salvation which is by Christ Jesus, his people shall be willing to come to him in the day of his power; with joyfulness shall they come into the ark of their salvation.

Gen 7:10-11. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noahs life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Perhaps the world was in its prime, when the trees were in bloom, and the birds were singing in their branches, and the flowers were blooming on the earth, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Gen 7:12-13. And the rain was upon the earth forty day and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noahs wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;

These eight persons are very carefully mentioned. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up or, shut up my jewels, as he was about to do in the case. In similar fashion, God makes a very careful enumeration of all those who believe in him, precious are they in his sight, and they shall be preserved when all others are destroyed.

Gen 7:14. They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

Every bird of every sort, that is, every kind of bird; they are all mentioned over again. God makes much of salvation, oh, that we also did! We may recount and rehearse the story of our rescue from universal destruction, and we need not be afraid or ashamed of repeating it. As the Holy Ghost repeats the words we have here, you and I may often tell out the story of our salvation, and dwell upon the minute particulars of it, for every item of it is full of instruction.

Gen 7:15-16. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

Now the jewels are all in, and therefore the casket is closed.

Gen 7:17. And the flood was forty days upon the earth;

Just as it had been foretold, for Gods providence always tallies with his promises or with his threats. Hath he said, and shall he not do it?

Gen 7:17. And the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

You can see it begin to move until it is afloat. The same effect is often produced on us; when the flood of affliction is deep, then we begin to rise. Oh, how often have we been lifted up above the earth by the very force that threatened to drench and drown us! David said, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, and many another saint can say that he never was floated until the floods were out, but then he left the worldliness with which he had been satisfied before, and he began to rise to a higher level than he had previously attained.

Gen 7:18-19. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

If Moses had meant to describe a partial deluge upon only a small part of the earth, he used very misleading language; but if he meant to teach was that the deluge was universal, he used the very word which we might have expected that he would use. I should think that no person, merely by reading this chapter, would arrive at the conclusion that has been reached by some of our very learned men, too learned to hold the simple truth. It looks as if the deluge must have been universal when we read that not only did the waters prevail exceedingly upon the earth, but that all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven; that is, all beneath the canopy of the sky, were covered. What could be more plain and clear than that?

Gen 7:20-23. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

This is the counterpart of what will follow the preaching of the gospel those who are in Christ shall live, shall rise, and reign with him for ever but none of those who are outside of Christ shall so live. Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Gen 7:24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

At last the work was completed, and the man who by faith had done that which was evidence of his folly in the eyes of the world entered the Ark, leaving behind him all his possessions.

Then came the swift and final judgment of God against the corrupted race.

The righteousness of this judgment can be challenged only by such as fail to notice carefully the corruption of the race as to its nature and extent. The only way in which it was possible to ensure the eventual purity of the race, and thus realize the divine ideal m its creation was by the destruction of that which was utterly and irrevocably corrupt.

Love, illumined by light, acts not merely in the interests of the present moment, but of all the coming centuries. There is a severity which is of the very essence of tenderness; and the story of the Flood is an instance of the actuality of the love of God.

Questions as to the universality of the Flood are not relevant to the story as it is written in Genesis. All that this story declares is that the destruction was coextensive with the region occupied by man. The Hebrew word used uniformly for “the earth” through this section, erets, is used sometimes of the whole earth, sometimes of a part of it, as we may use the word ‘land.” All that this account demands is that we should understand that a corrupt race was swept away and a godly remnant spared.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Great Flood

Gen 7:1-24

What anguish! They climbed the highest story of their towers, then to the hills, but the greedy waters followed them, till the last crag was covered, and all living things in the first homes of human life had perished. Equally sudden and unexpected shall be the days of the Son of Man. See Luk 17:26; 2Pe 3:7. But what drowns other men only lifts the child of God nearer his home. The waters bear up the ark. When the loftiest refuges of lies and pride are submerged, and the whole landscape is covered with a monotonous waste of trouble, God says to the soul, Come into the ark. It is as though He is inside and wants us to enter into close fellowship with Himself. See Psa 27:5. When God shuts the door behind us, no power can force, no skeleton key can unlock, and no wedge can pry the door. For the extent of the Deluge it is appropriate to consider Luk 2:1-3.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Gen 7:1

I. The first fact that strikes us in the story of the flood is this: that God, on account of the wickedness to which the world had grown, had made up His mind to sweep it away, once and for all.

II. Out of the seed of Noah God had determined to people the earth once more with a race that would not be so wicked as the one He destroyed.

III. Noah was told to go into the ark because his life was to be saved from the flood. God has provided another ark for us; He tells us to go into it and be saved.

IV. Noah’s family was taken with him into the ark, showing the value God sets on family life.

V. God gave it as a reward to Noah for his righteousness that his children went with him into the ark. A holy and loving example preaches a sermon to those who watch it, and remains in the memory of the godless son and the godless daughter long after the parents have been laid in the grave.

Bishop Thorold, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 17.

References: Gen 7:1.-J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year, vol. iii., p. 171; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 118; The Weekly Pulpit, vol. i. (1887), p. 84; Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 17. Gen 7:1-7.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii., No. 1336. Gen 7:1, etc.-J. dimming, Church Before the Flood, pp. 307, 333. Gen 7:8, Gen 7:9.-J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 1st series, p. 26. Gen 7:16.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1613; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 157; B. Isaac, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. x., p. 425. Gen 7:19, Gen 7:20.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vii., p. 240.

Gen. 6-7

A long period elapsed between the commencement of the building of the ark and the actual flood. During that period we notice: (1) the strength of Noah’s faith. God has told him of a deluge of which there is no appearance; he has commanded him to build a strange vessel for no apparent purpose; he has told him that one hundred and twenty years of toil must elapse before the vessel can be of any use to him. And yet, in the face of all these difficulties, Noah forms and keeps his resolution to obey God. (2) Notice the reception which Noah’s work and message probably met with. The first feeling excited would be one of derision and mirth, then would come wonder, then pity, then disappointment and disgust, and lastly, perhaps, a silent contempt.

I. The flood shows us: (1) how absolute is God’s control over the natural world; (2) it illustrates the evils of sin and the light in which it appears to the eye of God; (3) it reminds us of another deluge, of which all unreconciled sinners stand in jeopardy. No dove wings its way across that deluge; no mountains lift their tops through its departing billows. From this deluge let us all flee. Christ’s ark still waits for us; His door stands open, and His voice says, “Turn ye to your strongholds, ye prisoners of hope.”

II. Consider the various purposes that were served by the deluge: (1) it swept away an effete and evil generation, which had become of no use, except to commit sin and thus deprave and weaken the general stock of humanity; (2) the flood was calculated to overawe mankind, and to suggest the idea that other such interpositions might be expected when they were required; (3) the flood furnished an opportunity to God of coming more nearly and closely to men; (4) the flood brought the human family nearer to the promised land of Canaan.

G. Gilfillan, Alpha and Omega, vol. i., p. 241.

References: Gen 6.-Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 223. Gen 6 and Gen 7.-S. Leathes, Studies in Genesis, p. 65.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 7

Noah in the Ark and the Judgment by Water

1. Commanded to enter the ark (Gen 7:1-4)

2. Noahs obedience (Gen 7:5-9)

3. The judgment by water (Gen 7:10-24)

Noah is a type of the Lord Jesus. In the one, Noah, his house was saved. He carried them above and through the judgment waters. Noah is also a type of the Jewish remnant which will pass through the great tribulation and the judgments to come.

The ark of gopher wood, pitched inside and outside with pitch, is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ; Noah preparing the ark, the type of Christ, accomplishing salvation, having finished it.

The deluge is a type of the death of Christ. All Thy billows and Thy waves have gone over Me (Psa 42:7). This was done when on the cross. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. As the earth was covered in the deluge, so the judgment passed over Him, in whom the end of all flesh has come.

And Jehovah said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark. After the ark was finished came the invitation to enter in. The invitation come still goes forth. Come unto Me–will it last forever?

The beasts, clean and unclean, taken into the ark, as well as the fowls of the air, give us the hint that creation will share the blessed effects of salvation. The subsequent prophetic word and Rom 8:19-23, tell us of a coming deliverance of groaning creation.

And they that went in unto Noah, went in male and female of all flesh, as God (Elohim) had commanded him, and the Lord (Jehovah) shut him in (Gen 7:16). In this verse we have Elohim and Jehovah used. God, as Creator, had commanded Noah; Jehovah had announced the judgment, and the ark which had been preparing represented the patient and merciful Jehovah. And now as the hour of mercy was past, Jehovah shut the door. He who had given an open door shut it at last.

Noah and his house in the ark were saved and safe. And so are we in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The rain was forty days and forty nights upon the earth (Gen 7:12). Here for the first time in the Word do we find the number forty. It is not the last time. Forty means endurance and testing. Moses was forty days on the mountain, his life was divided into three forties. Forty years Israel was in the wilderness. Elijah knew the forty days, and Ezekiel lay forty days on his right side, a typical action (Ezekiel 4). Jonah preached, yet forty days and Ninevah shall be destroyed; and Christ was forty days in the wilderness to be tested.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Chapter 11

The Ark

“And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Gen 7:1

Three arks are mentioned in the Scriptures. All three were places of refuge and means of salvation. All three were pictures of grace, typical of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. The ark of the covenant sheltered the two tables of stone upon which the law of God was written. There, in that ark, under the mercy-seat were found the broken law that demanded death, — the manna that gave life, — and the rod of power that led and protected Israel. The ark of bulrushes protected Gods chosen one, Moses, from the wrath and murderous designs of Pharaoh, the wicked ruler of Egypt. The ark which Noah built was the ark of Gods salvation for him and his family. This ark was also a beautiful type of Christ and a clear, instructive picture of the grace of God in him. Noah and his family were saved in the flood by a ship, an ark, which God commanded him to build.

As there was but one ark in the days of Noah, there is but one way of salvation for poor, helpless, guilty sinners. The whole world was drowned under the flood of Gods wrath, except for those eight happy souls in the ark. Even so, the whole world shall be destroyed in the everlasting wrath of almighty God, except those happy, blessed men and women who are in Christ. Christ alone is the Savior of men. There is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. If we would be saved, we must come into the Ark, Christ Jesus. We must be washed in his blood and robed in his righteousness. We must flee from the wrath of God, and fleeing, we must flee to Christ

A Planned Ark

The ark was planned, purposed, and provided by God (Gen 6:13-16). Long before the flood came, long before the first drop of water fell from heaven, the Lord God provided for the salvation of his own. The ark was not an afterthought with God. It was not hurriedly put together after the waters began to rise. It was something God planned and purposed long before. It was God himself and God alone who determined the size, shape, and material of the ark. God alone determined who would be saved by the ark. The ark was designed, built and stocked to house a specific number of residents, both of men and beasts. God determined where, how, and when the ark would be built.

Are you getting the picture? In just this same way, the Lord God planned and purposed the salvation of his people by Christ in his eternal purpose of grace. The Lord Jesus was provided and set up in the purpose of God from eternity, long before the clouds of Divine wrath began to swell against fallen men. Our salvation was not an afterthought with God. The Lord our God made provision for the salvation of his people in his Son long before the world began (Act 2:23; 1Pe 1:18-20; 2Ti 1:9; Eph 1:3-6). Christ is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8).

Long before we sinned in Adam, the Lord God planned the salvation of his elect in Christ. The plan of salvation is not a path you follow to find God. It is the path God follows to find his elect. It is an eternal plan! God determined from eternity who he would save (2Th 2:13). God purposed from eternity that he would save his elect by the substitutionary sacrifice of his dear Son (Rom 3:24-26). And Gods purpose of grace is sure and immutable (Rom 8:28-30).

In the fulness of time, God provided his own dear Son to be the salvation of sinners (Joh 3:16; 1Jn 4:9-10; Gal 4:4-5). As the ark was Gods provision for Noah and his family, Christ is Gods provision for sinners. As the ark was a provision of pure, free grace, so Christ is the provision of Gods grace.

A Sufficient Ark

The ark which Noah built was an all-sufficient refuge for all who entered it. The ark was a huge, immense ship. There was no lack of room in it; but there was no wasted space. There was room enough for Noah and his family. There was room enough for two of every unclean bird, beast, rodent and insect in the world. There was room enough for seven of every clean animal. There was room enough in the ark to supply all the people and animals on board with food for a full year. The ark was an immense ship, about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high.; and it housed all kinds of creatures.

Even so, the Lord Jesus Christ is a great and mighty Savior, an all-sufficient Refuge for sinners of every kind. As the ark was an immense vessel, in which a vast multitude of animals, as well as Noah and his family, floated safely through the storm of Gods wrath, so Christ is an immense Savior. His salvation is an immense salvation, delivering a vast multitude, which no man can number, from the wrath of God.

There was one door, only one door, in the ark; but that one door was enough. All who entered the ark, clean and unclean, large and small, male and female, all came in through the same door. There is but one Door of salvation for sinners. That Door is Christ (Joh 10:9; Joh 14:6). If we would be saved, we must enter in by the Door, Christ Jesus. Grace is a great equalizer It puts all on common ground. We cannot come to God, except as sinners in need of grace, trusting his Son. This one Door is sufficient. All who will may enter into life eternal by Christ the Door.

There was only one window in the ark; but that one window was enough. It gave light to all and gave all the light that was needed. That window represents the Spirit of God through whom Christ, the Light of the world, the Sun of Righteousness, shines into the hearts of men. All who come to Christ and receive salvation by him are illuminated and taught by God the Holy Spirit (Joh 16:13; Joh 6:44-45). And all who are taught of God are well taught. When God teaches, those who are taught of him get the lesson. He teaches and convinces all his own of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment Of their own sin. Of righteousness accomplished by Christs obedience. Of judgment finished, atonement made, and condemnation ended forever, by the death of Christ who bore the wrath of God for us, as our Substitute.

There was plenty of room in the ark for all who came into it. So too, every needy sinner who comes to Christ finds all his needs abundantly supplied in him. All the grace e need is in Christ (Eph 1:3). All the temporal blessings we need in this life are in Christ (Php 4:19). And all the spiritual blessings we need, for all eternity, are in Christ (Joh 1:15; Col 1:18; Col 2:9-10). Everything that God can or will do for sinful men and women, he has done for us in Christ. Everything that God can or will require of sinners, he has supplied in Christ. And everything that God can or will give to sinners, he has given to us in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is a mighty, all-sufficient, able Savior for needy sinners. He is able to do all that he has promised (Rom 4:21). He is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him (Heb 7:25). He is able to keep that which we have committed unto him (2Ti 1:12). He is able to keep us from falling (Jud 1:24-25). He is able to raise us from the dead (Php 3:20-21).

Called To Enter

Noah and his family came into the ark by divine invitation (Gen 7:1). I will leave it to others to argue about whether the gospel call comes as an invitation or a command. Being the call of the sovereign God, it is certainly a call that no man is allowed to despise with impunity. That makes it a command. Yet, it comes to needy sinners like the sweetest, most gracious, most magnanimous invitation imaginable.

God graciously revealed his thoughts of mercy, love, and grace to Noah. Had the Lord not made himself known to Noah, Noah would have perished with the rest of the world. In the same way, the Lord graciously reveals his love, mercy, and grace in Christ in the hearts of his elect by the gospel (2Co 4:6).

Look at Gods call to Noah and learn about the call of grace. This was a divine call. God himself spoke to Noah. It was a personal, particular, distinguishing call. The Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark! Noahs family benefited from the call; but only Noah was called (1Co 7:14). This was a sovereign, powerful, effectual, irresistible call. Noah went in (Gen 7:5). Most gladly, most willingly, most cheerfully, all who are called by God the Holy Spirit flee to Christ, the Ark of salvation. All who hear his voice enter into the Ark (Psa 65:4; Psa 110:3).

A Picture Of Atonement

This ark, by which Noah and his family were saved, beautifully represents our atonement for sin in Christ. There are two things in particular which set forth our Lords work of atonement. First, Noah was commanded to pitch the ark within and without with pitch (Gen 6:14). The word which is here translated pitch simply means to cover, or to take away. At least seventy times in the Old Testament it is translated to make atonement. The pitch was a covering which sheltered Noah, and all who were in the ark, from the terrible storm of Gods wrath. As the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat covered the broken law of God on the day of atonement, so the pitch covered the ark. This is a picture of Christs blood atonement. The pitch without portrays redemption accomplished (Heb 9:12). The pitch within pictures redemption applied (Heb 9:14). Second, the storm of Gods wrath fell upon the ark with all the fulness of its fury. As the rains descended and the depths of the earth were broken up, the angry, merciless billows of Gods unmitigated wrath beat down upon the ark. Everyone in that ark went through the terrible storm of Gods undiluted wrath. But it was the ark which took all the punishment.

Do you see the picture? When Christ was made to be sin for us, the terrible storm of Gods wrath fell full force upon him and beat him to death, without mercy, until his justice and wrath were fully satisfied and totally expended. As our adorable Redeemer hung upon the cross, dying as our Substitute, he cried, All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me (Psa 42:7). As those in the ark went through the flood, in Christ all Gods elect have gone through the storm of his holy wrath. But it was Christ, our Ark, took all the punishment. Having once endured Gods wrath, Noah had no cause to fear another flood. He was assured that he would never again suffer the flood of wrath. He had Gods promise for it, and the bow of Gods covenant to attest it (Gen 9:11-13). So too, those who endured the wrath of God once in Christ, the sinners Substitute, shall never endure it again, not to any degree, not at any time, not for any reason.

Safety In The Ark

All who were in the ark were perfectly safe The Lord shut him in (Gen 7:16). Though the ark passed through the horrible storm of Gods wrath, all who were in the ark were perfectly safe and secure. The Lord brought them in. The Lord shut them in. And the Lord kept them in.

There were three stories in the ark, the lower, the second, and the upper decks (Gen 6:16). Perhaps, these three stories represent the believers threefold salvation in Christ: past, present, and future. We have been saved by election, redemption, and regeneration. We are being saved by divine preservation. We shall yet be saved in our translation into heaven at the death of the body, by the resurrection from the grave, and in ultimate glorification.

Certainly, there is also a picture of the safety of all Gods elect in Christ. Some who are in Christ are in the lower deck of doubt and fear. Some are up in the second deck of strong faith. Some are in the upper deck of full assurance. Yet, all who believe are in the Ark. And all who are in the Ark Christ Jesus are perfectly safe and secure. God has shut them in. It is not the strength of our faith that gives us security, but the strength of our Savior, the Ark (Joh 10:28-29; Rom 8:31-39). All who entered the ark passed through the flood and came out of the ark unharmed (Gen 8:18; Joh 18:9; Rom 8:29-30; Heb 2:13). So it shall be with all who are in Christ.

The ark was a place of peace and rest for those who were in it. It had many rooms (nests) in it (Gen 6:14). In Christ we have something more than a refuge. We have a resting place. We are like young birds in their nests, the objects of anothers constant, loving care. As the dove found rest only in the ark, sinners cannot find rest for their souls except in Christ. Christ is our Rest, our Sabbath. Believing on him we find rest (Mat 11:28-29). Though they were tossed upon the stormy tempests, all Gods elect are safe and secure in the Christ. Like frightened birds, we nestle down in our resting place. Is it not true with you? In Christ we pass through he storms of life and trials of faith unharmed, if not unalarmed (Isa 43:1-7). With David, we say, What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

There is safety and security in the ark, Christ Jesus. All on board the good ship Grace are safe, immutably safe, and forever safe. Satan cannot harm us. The law cannot condemn us. God has sworn that his wrath shall not be poured out upon us again (Gen 8:20-22; Isa 54:9-10; Rev 4:3). The Lord Jesus Christ cannot fail to save all who trust him (Isa 42:1-4).

Firm as His throne the gospel stands, My Lord, my Hope, my Trust.

If I am found in Jesus hands, My soul can not be lost!

His honor is engaged to keep the weakest of His sheep.

All that his heavenly Father gave, His hands securely keep.

Not death, nor hell shall ever remove His people from His breast

In the dear bosom of His love, We shall forever rest!

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

am 1656, bc 2348

Come: Gen 7:7, Gen 7:13, Job 5:19-24, Psa 91:1-10, Pro 14:26, Pro 18:10, Isa 26:20, Isa 26:21, Eze 9:4-6, Zep 2:3, Mat 24:37-39, Luk 17:26, Act 2:39, Heb 11:7, 1Pe 3:20, 2Pe 2:5

thee: Gen 6:9, Psa 33:18, Psa 33:19, Pro 10:6, Pro 10:7, Pro 10:9, Pro 11:4-8, Isa 3:10, Isa 3:11, Phi 2:15, Phi 2:16, 2Pe 2:5-9

Reciprocal: Gen 6:11 – before Gen 6:12 – for all Gen 6:18 – come Gen 8:16 – General Gen 19:12 – Hast Exo 23:2 – follow Lev 11:4 – unclean unto you Jos 2:18 – thy father 1Ch 1:4 – Noah Ecc 2:26 – in his sight Eze 14:14 – Noah Luk 1:6 – righteous Luk 3:36 – Noe

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

The Waters Prevailed

Gen 7:1-24

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

As introductory we wish to bring before you statements concerning Noah and the ark which are found in the First Epistle of Peter.

1. While the ark was preparing. The ark was a tremendous ship. We have been told that the great ocean liners of today are builded after the pattern of the dimensions of the ark. That there is a ratio between the lengths and the widths thereof.

While this monster ark was in course of building, the long-suffering of God was waiting. Waiting for man to repent; giving him every opportunity to turn from his evil deeds.

It is so, even unto this day. God is never hurried in His judgments. He is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the Truth. It is this long-suffering patience of God which should lead men to repentance.

We can imagine the ark in course of preparation, and how the news spread over the earth that Noah was building the ark. We can imagine that many men beside Noah and his sons were employed in the ark construction. We may call these Noah’s carpenters. They helped build the ark, but they were not saved in it.

Once more the analogy is plain. How many people there are on the earth like Noah’s carpenters. They help build churches; they are well wishers to every effort of Christian people, but they know nothing of salvation. They fail to enter the ark.

2. Wherein a few were saved. To what extent and with what cost will God move to save just a few souls! There was no little work required, and no little time needed to build the ark. It was a tremendous structure, which took many, many months to complete, and yet all of this was done that eight souls might be saved, so as by water.

Calvary itself was a tremendous task, requiring untold suffering and anguish, yet all of the woes of Calvary were gone through by our Lord Jesus Christ in order that we might be saved. God spared no sacrifice to perfect man’s salvation.

I. GOD WORKS ON SCHEDULE (Gen 7:4)

How forceful are the words, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” Seven days is a typical number. Seven always stands Scripturally, for perfection. In this verse it stands for the perfection of God’s mercy and long-suffering. Forty days is a typical number. It stands for the time of testing and trial. Both of these numbers, however, set forth three things.

1. There are no disorders in God’s method of procedure. Everything Divine moves on schedule. Nothing merely happens. God’s affairs are planned and purposed. We read that when the fullness of time came God sent forth His Son. We read, “When the day of Pentecost had fully come.” We read of the “day and the hour,” and of the “times and the seasons” of Christ’s Second Coming. All of the feasts of Jehovah were on designated days.

These statements all certify that God has a time element for everything He-does, and He works on time. This is so in natural creation. The heavenly bodies move to a hairs-breadth-on schedule. With God there is order everywhere; confusion nowhere, for God is not a God of confusion.

2. There are no happen-sos with God. It did not happen to rain forty days and forty nights. It did not happen to begin to rain after seven days. It was ordered; it was planned; it was purposed. Jesus Christ did not happen to be born; His birth was promised in the Garden of Eden. Jesus Christ did not happen to die; His death was foreordained before the foundation of the world.

3. There are no “hurry-ups” with God. God had already waited while the ark was preparing. With the ark now completed, God said, “Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain.” The “Yet seven days” shows, as we have suggested, perfection of patience. God may seemingly have hurried, as He ran to meet the prodigal son, but He never hurries in His judgments. He moves with steady, stately, solemn purpose His wonders to perform.

II. THE WAGES OF SIN (Gen 7:4-21)

1. I will destroy man. God has said, “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” God did not destroy man from off the face of the earth as a demigod, moved by a mere caprice of mind, or by a sudden desire for vengeance furiously flies into a passion, God destroyed man because man’s sin had become ripened, his rebellion had reached its zenith.

2. I will destroy beast. Every beast, every bird, every creeping thing, everything that had breath fell under God’s curse upon man. There is, in all of this, a tremendous lesson. The creation was made for man, and not man for the creation. The creation was placed upon the earth as part of God’s munificence toward the human race. Everything, therefore, that affected man, affected the beasts of the earth, and the birds of the air.

There is, however, another side to this. When Noah entered into the ark, and was secure, certain of the beasts and birds and creeping things went in with him. The whole creation is not only subjected to vanity because of man’s sin, but the whole creation feels the force of deliverance, because of man’s redemption. When Christ comes again and man enters into His Millennium of rest, the earth will also enter into its rest. Longevity will be restored to the creation as well as to man. If man laughs out in gladness, the trees will clap their hands for joy, and the hills will rejoice. The lion and the lamb will lie down together, the bear and the ox will feed together, the wilderness will bloom and blossom as a rose.

III. SALVATION (Gen 7:1)

1. Salvation provided. The ark was prepared not only according to God’s provision, but according to God’s command. When the ark was finally completed, the Lord God said unto Noah, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.” Then, in Gen 7:7 we read, “And Noah went in.” In Gen 7:9 we read, “There went in.”

Here is a message we must not overlook. Calvary is a completed work. God has prepared our ark. Salvation is possible. Salvation, however, is not operative until we enter in by faith. There are three little words we sometimes like to use: The Cross of Christ is sufficient for all, the Cross of Christ is deficient to none, the Cross of Christ is EFFICIENT only to those who believe.

2. Salvation procured. When Noah, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives, entered into the ark, then their safety was assured. We want to dwell upon this for a moment. It is the result of our first statement. A table is spread with the fat of the land; it groams beneath the burden of the good things provided. That bounty, however, will satisfy the hunger only of those who eat. Others might have been saved in the ark, Noah was saved. Others might have entered in, Noah entered.

God has all things made ready. He is saying, “Come and dine.” His invitations are sent out. His call is made. Many are they who make excuse. One says, “I have married a wife, * * and I cannot come”; another says, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them”; another, says, “I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it.” Of all these, Christ said, “None of those * * shall taste of My supper.”

IV. FAMILY RELIGION (Gen 7:7; Gen 7:9)

1. Noah went in and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives. Here was a whole family for God. Has not God given the promise? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Did not Joshua say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”?

Divided households work havoc everywhere. Father and mother, both saved assure a united testimony for the boys and the girls whom God gives unto them. When, however, the one parent is saved, and the other is not, the unity of testimony is broken.

Family religion is a joy to the heart of God. We must all grant that the home is, and must remain, the hope of the State as well as of the Church. We have been in some churches where they count members by families. We do not know how they work this, because we have found but few families which seem to be saved and out and out for God. We do, however, realize, that the aim of every church should be a definite experience of grace in every member of each family.

We believe, moreover, that if family religion, the family altar, and the family conception, were pressed more in our churches, we would approach nearer to the plan of God.

2. And they went in two and two-male and female. This verse describes the entrance of beasts, and fowls, and creeping things, as they went in to the ark. Once more, the thought of the family prevailed. Some one says, “That the idea of two and two, male and female, was that the earth might be filled and replenished by man and beast, after the ark rested upon the earth.” This is correct. However, we are hunting spiritual lessons, and we believe that the Gospel will spread rapidly when husband and wife come together to follow Christ; their children will certainly be the more willing to follow in the footsteps of their parents.

Two by two also carries the thought of unity and strength in purpose and action. The Twelve went out two by two; the seventy were sent out two by two; Peter and John went up together. In unity there is strength.

V. GOD’S PREVAILING JUDGMENTS (Gen 7:10; Gen 7:19)

1. The wrath of God. As the waters fell upon the earth, the judgment of God fell. The Book of Romans says that the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. This was pre-eminently true in the flood. Men did not like to retain God in their knowledge. They knew Him not as God, they glorified Him not, they were not thankful. Men became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. They changed the Truth of God into a lie; they worshiped the creature, more than the Creator; they gave themselves over to vile affections, and became vain in their imagination. They were unrighteous, full of wickedness, of envy, murder, debate, deceit. It was for this cause that the judgment of God fell upon them. They were worthy of death.

2. The wrath of God prevailed. Not only were there waters on the earth, but there were waters that could not be withstood-prevailing waters, overwhelming waters, waters which swept everything before them. No man escaped.

The Book of Revelation tells how the judgment will fall upon this earth, and how men will seek to hide themselves in the dens and the caves of the earth as they cry, “The great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” God’s judgments will prevail.

VI. MERCY IN THE MIDST OF WRATH (Gen 7:17-18)

1. The ark was lifted up above the waters. As the waters increased instead of wrecking the ark, they bore it up and lifted it. We read, “The ark went upon the face of the waters.” No other craft survived that flood.

There were, no doubt, many other boats, but all of them went down. There are many other religions today, but there is only one Ark of safety. There are many other names which men worship, but there is none other name than the Name of Christ by which men can be saved.

The waters lifted up the ark and bore it on their bosom. The child of God cannot be overwhelmed. The waters prevailed over all flesh, but the ark prevailed over the waters. The ark stood forth as a victor, leading Noah in the train of its triumph. Jesus Christ knew no sin, He did no sin, and in Him there was no sin. He met the enemy and made a show of him, triumphing over him in it. In Him we are more than conquerors, in Him we shall prevail.

2. Jesus Christ is lifted up above the earth. He came forth in resurrection glory, ascended up on high, and is seated far above principalities and powers, and the world rulers of this darkness. All things are under His feet.

If we would be borne above the torrent of God’s tempestuous sea of judgments, we must be safely housed in our Ark; we must be safe within the Rock of Ages.

VII. THE SECURITY OF THE SAVED (Gen 7:16)

1. The Lord shut him in. There was no chance of Noah and his family being lost in the flood, without the loss of the ark. He was not only in the ark, but he was shut in.

Where are we? God hath shut us up in Christ. The Word says, “My sheep hear My voice, * * and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.”

Our Lord said, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” He meant, that His life is held in lieu of ours. Satan can never touch us until he can touch the One who is our Surety. If Christ lives, we need not despair. Where is he who doubts that Christ is able to keep those who have committed their all unto Him? Our Lord has already met Satan in the wilderness and vanquished him. He has met him upon the Cross and triumphed over him. He met him in the empty tomb, and came out a Victor with the keys of hell and death in His hands. He met him in His ascension and took His seat far above him. He is able, therefore, to meet him when He comes the second time. We trust a victorious Christ; One who leads us on in His victory.

2. The Spirit has shut us in. We read in Ephesians, “Sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.” In this the Holy Spirit has become our surety. The very fact that He dwells within us, is God’s earnest of our certain redemption. The devil cannot break the Spirit’s seal. God hath undertaken for us, and He will complete His undertaking.

AN ILLUSTRATION

Dr. T. T. Shields of Toronto says:

“I remember talking, a few days after the Armistice, with a Belgian gentleman in Brussels, before the railways were restored giving access to Belgium’s capital. He told me of the four years of bondage when they were required, when going along the street and meeting a German officer, to step off and give him right-of-way land salute him; and of how they had to go to military stations and report periodically; of how, without permission, the enemy walked into their houses and took an inventory of all they possessed, and helped themselves to anything they wanted. After describing those four years of terror under the tyrant’s heel he said, ‘We knew something was happening outside that ring of fire, but we did not know what; and not until an hour or so before the German army evacuated Brussels had we any idea that the war had gone so well, and that deliverance was near. But still we kept up a cheerful heart. We lived by hope, although we had but little on which to base our hope.’

“Perhaps there are some who hear me this evening who may be described as ‘prisoners of hope’? What a picture this is! Can you imagine the emotions of the prisoners? Confined within their dungeons, their thoughts have wandered far afield; and though their feet were in fetters, imagination took to itself wings, like Noah’s dove, to explore and bring news of the other world. And into the prison there came at last news of a great Conqueror who was rapidly approaching. Presently they heard the sound of bugles, and of trumpets, and the tramp of a great army-even of chariots which were twenty thousand. And as the invincible and irresistible Conqueror drew nigh, a great multitude acclaimed Him, saying, ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation.’ That word came through the iron bars, and penetrated even to the deepest and darkest dungeon, and found its ways to the lowest depths of the horrible pit. And wherever that word was heard it came as a Gospel, and the prisoners became prisoners of hope.”

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

Gen 7:1. Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark His family consisted only of eight persons, 1Pe 3:20, namely, Noah and his three sons, and their four wives, Gen 6:18. By this it appears that each man had but one wife, and consequently it is probable, that, as polygamy began in the posterity of Cain, so it was confined to them, and had not, as yet, got footing among the sons of God. For if ever polygamy had been allowable, it must have been now for repeopling of the perishing world. For thee have I seen righteous before me With the righteousness of faith, as it is explained Heb 11:7, evidenced by the fruits of righteousness and true holiness. Those are righteous indeed, that are righteous before God; that have not only the form of godliness, by which they appear righteous before men, who may easily be imposed upon; but the power of it, by which they approve themselves to God, who searcheth the heart.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Gen 7:2; Gen 7:8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. Gods special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

Gen 7:11. The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up. The Lord by a cause known to himself, increased the powers of gravitation, by which the seas rushed on the land in tides which augmented till the mountains were washed, and till the latent rocks presented their shaggy and contour cliffs. By consequence every tide would leave the channels of the deep exposed on the shores from which the seas receded. And the windows, or as the LXX read, the cataracts of heaven were opened. Tides have descended with such velocity from the Norwegian mountains, that in some of the creeks no soundings can be found with a line of a thousand fathoms.Bp. Pontoppidon s Hist.

Gen 7:12. Forty days. Blessed be God that they were not destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah in a moment; it leaves a probability that besides the infants, some of them might be saved. See them flying from the plains to the hills, if they had adjacent hills: see the giants and monsters of the earth, vanquished by an omnipotent arm. See the infidel age, ah! not infidel now, confounded to see Noah and his family safely afloat. Hear the children load their long-lived fathers with the bitterest reproaches for teaching them to despise religion, to indulge in crimes, and to scoff at the ark. See them ere they had half uttered their wrongs, washing away by the next rolling wave, and their souls hurrying to the prison of hell, as St. Peter affirms, to renew their alternate reproaches.

REFLECTIONS.

What useful instructions are here presented to the surviving world. Did Noah bring his whole family into the ark? Then let all heads of houses imitate his good example, and use their utmost endeavours to dedicate their families to God.

Was the ferocious nature of the wild beasts restrained and tamed while in the ark? Then God is able again to fulfil the prophecies of the latter-day glory; not only in subduing the nature of wicked men, but in making the lion and the lamb lie down together. We clearly perceive that the destruction of the old world was by the special hand and visitation of Almighty God. The rains which descended were quite out of the order of nature. The floods which overflowed the mountains were not held in that high station by any laws of gravity. Every circumstance in this awful deluge repels the idea of its having been occasioned by the approach of a comet. Hence we learn, that whatever ordinary judgments God may inflict upon the wicked, when the day of crisis comes, he will go out of his way to accomplish his threatenings, and to make his peculiar providence and vengeance known.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Genesis 7

Had Noah any anxiety about the billows of divine judgement? None whatever. How could he? He knew that “all” had been poured forth, while he himself was raised, by those very outpoured billows, into a region of cloudless peace. He floated in peace on that very water by which “all flesh” was judged. He was put. beyond the reach of judgement; and put there, too, by God Himself. He might have said, in the triumphant language of Romans 8, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” He had been invited in by Jehovah Himself, as we read in Genesis 7: 1, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark;” and when he had taken his place there, we read, “the Lord shut him in” Here assuredly, was full and perfect security for all within. Jehovah kept the door, and no one could go in or out without him. There was both a window and a door to the ark. The Lord secured, with His own omnipotent hand, the door, and left Noah the window from which he might look upward to the place from whence all the judgement had emanated, and see that no judgement remained for him. The saved family could only look upward, because the window was “above” (Gen. 6: 16) They could not see the waters of judgement, nor the death and desolation which those waters had caused. God’s salvation – the “gopher wood,” stood between them and all these things. They had only to gaze upward into a cloudless heaven, the eternal dwelling-place of the One who had condemned the world, and saved them.

Nothing can more fully express the believer’s perfect security in Christ than those words, “the Lord shut him in.” Who could open what God had shut? None. The family of Noah were as safe as God could make them. There was no power, angelic, human, or diabolical, which could possibly burst open the door of the ark, and let the waters in. That door was shut by the selfsame hand that had opened the windows of heaven, and broken up the fountains of the great deep. Thus Christ is spoken of as the One” that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth.” (Rev. 3: 7) He also holds in His hand” the keys of hell and of death.” (Rev. 1: 18) None can enter the portals of the grave, nor go forth there from, without him. He has “all power in heaven and on earth.” He is head over all things to the Church,” and in Him the believer is perfectly secure. (Matt. 28: 18; Eph. 1: 22) Who could touch Noah? What wave could penetrate that ark which was “pitched within and without with pitch?” Just so now, who can touch those who have, by faith, retreated into the shadow of the cross? Every enemy has been met and silenced – yes, silenced for ever. The death of Christ has triumphantly answered every demur; while, at the same time, His resurrection is the satisfactory declaration of God’s infinite complacency in that work which is, at once, the basis of His righteousness in receiving us, and of our confidence in drawing nigh unto Him.

Hence, therefore, the door of our ark being secured, by the hand of God Himself, nothing remains for us but to enjoy the window; or, in other words, to walk in happy and holy communion with Him, who has saved us from coming wrath, and made us heirs and expectants of coming glory. Peter speaks of those, who “are blind, and cannot see afar off and have forgotten that they were purged from their old sins.” (2 Peter 1: 9.) This is a lamentable condition for any to be in, and it is the sure result of not cultivating diligent, prayerful communion with Him, who has eternally shut us in in Christ.

Let us, now, ere we proceed further with Noah’s history, glance, for a little, at the condition of those, to whom he had so long preached righteousness. We have been looking at the saved, let us now look at the lost; we have been thinking of those within the ark, let us now think of those without. No doubt, many an anxious look would be cast after the vessel of mercy, as it rose with the water; but, alas! “the door was shut” the day of grace was over – the time of testimony closed, and that for ever, so far as they were concerned. The same hand which had shut Noah in, had shut them out, and it was as impossible for those without to get in, as it was for those within to get out. The former were irrecoverably lost; the latter, effectually saved. The long-suffering of God, and the testimony of His servant had both been slighted. Present things had engrossed them. “They did eat, they drank, they married wives, and were given in marriage, until the day that Nosh entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17: 26, 27) There was nothing wrong in any of these things, abstractedly looked at. The wrong was not in the things done, but in the doers of them. Every one of them might be done in the fear of the Lord, and to the glory of His Holy name, were they only done in faith. But, alas! they were not so done. The word of God was rejected. He told of judgement; but they did not believe. He spoke of sin and ruin; but they were not convinced. He spoke of a remedy; but they would not give heed. They went on with their own plans and speculations, and had no room for God. They acted as if the earth belonged to them, by a lease, for ever. They forgot that there was a clause of surrender. They thought not of that solemn “until.” God was shut out. “Every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually;” and hence, they could do nothing right. They thought, spake, and acted for themselves. They did their own pleasure, and forgot God.

And, my reader, remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, how He said, “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man.” Some would have us to believe, that ere the Son of man appears in the clouds of heaven, this earth shall be covered, from pole to pole, with a fair mantle of righteousness. They would teach us to look for a reign of righteousness and peace, as the result of agencies now in operation; but the brief passage just quoted cuts up by the roots, in a moment, all such vain and delusive expectations. How was it in the days of Noah? Did righteousness cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea? Was God’s truth dominant? Was the earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord? Scripture replies, “the earth was filled with violence.” “ALL flesh had corrupted his way on the earth.” “The earth also was corrupt before God.” Well, then, “so shall it be in the days of the Son of man.” This is plain enough.” “Righteousness” and “violence” are not very like each other. Neither is there any similarity between universal wickedness and universal peace. It only needs a heart subject to the Word, and freed from the influence of preconceived opinions, in order to understand the true character of the days immediately preceding “the coming of the Son of man.” Let not my reader be led astray. Let him reverently bow to Scripture. Let him look at the condition of the world, “in the days before the flood;” and let him bear in mind, that “as” it was then, “so” shall it be at the close of this present period. This is most simple – most conclusive. There was nothing like a state of universal righteousness and peace then, neither shall there be anything like it by and by.

No doubt, man displayed abundant energy in making the world a comfortable and an agreeable place for himself; but that was a very different thing from making it a suitable place for God. So, also, at this present time; man is as busy as he can be, in clearing the stones off the pathway of human life, and making it as smooth as possible; but this is not “making straight in the desert a highway for our God;” nor is it making “the rough places smooth,” that all flesh may see the salvation of Jehovah. Civilisation prevails; but civilisation is not righteousness. The sweeping and garnishing are going forward; but it is not in order to fit the house for Christ, but for Antichrist. The wisdom of man is put forth in order to cover, with the folds of his own drapery, the blots and blemishes of humanity; but, though covered, they are not removed! They are and will, ere long, break out in more hideous deformity than ever. The painting of vermilion will soon be obliterated, and the carved cedar wood destroyed. The dams, by which man sedulously seeks to stem the torrent of human wretchedness, must soon give way before the overwhelming force thereof. All the efforts to confine the physical, the mental, and the moral degradation of Adams posterity within those enclosures, which human benevolence, if you please, has devised, must, in the sequel, prove abortive. The testimony has gone forth. “The end of all flesh has come before me.” It has not come before man; but it has come before God; and, albeit, the voice of the scoffers may be heard, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation;” yet the moment is rapidly hastening on, when those scoffers will get their answer. “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up.” (2 Peter 3: 4-10) This, my reader, is the answer to the intellectual scoffs of the children of this world, but not to the spiritual affections and expectations of the children of God. These latter, thank God, have a totally different prospect, even to meet the Bridegroom in the air, before evil shall have reached its culminating point, and, therefore, before the divine judgement shall be poured forth thereon. The Church of God looks not for the burning up of the world, but for the arising of “the bright and morning Star.”

Now, in whatever way we look at the future, from whatever point of view we contemplate it, whether the object, which presents itself to the soul’s vision be the Church in glory, or the world in flames, the coming of the Bridegroom, or the breaking in of the thief, the morning Star, or the scorching sun, the translation, or the deluge, we must feel the unspeakable importance of attending to God’s present testimony in grace, to lost sinners. “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6: 2) “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” (2 Cor. 5: 19) He is reconciling now, He will be judging by and by; it is all grace now; it will be all wrath then; He is pardoning sin now, through the cross; He will punish it then, in hell, and that for ever. He is sending out a message of purest, richest, freest grace. He is telling sinners of an accomplished redemption through the precious sacrifice of Christ. He is declaring that all is done. He is waiting to be gracious. “The long-suffering of our Lord is salvation.” “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3) All this makes the present moment one of peculiar solemnity. Unmingled grace declared! – unmingled wrath impending. How solemn! How deeply solemn!

And, then, with what profound interest should we mark the unfolding of the divine purposes! Scripture sheds its light upon these things; and such a light, too, that we need not, as another has said,” vacantly stare on passing events, as those, who know not where they are, and whither they are going.” We should accurately know our bearings. We should fully understand the direct tendency of all the principles now at work. We should be well aware of the vortex, toward which all the tributary streams are rapidly flowing on. Men dream of a golden age; they promise themselves a millennium of the arts and science; they feed upon the thought, that “tomorrow shall be as this day, and more abundant.” But, oh! how utterly vain are all those thoughts, dreams, and promises. Faith can see the clouds gathering thickly around the world’s horizon. Judgement is coming. The day of wrath is at hand. The door will soon be shut. The “strong delusion” will soon set in, with terrible intensity. How needful, then, it is, to raise a warning voice – to seek, by faithful testimony, to counteract man’s pitiable self-complacency. True, in so doing, we shall be exposed to the charge which Ahab brought against Micaiah, of always prophesying evil: but no matter for that. Let us prophesy what the word of God prophesies, and let us do this simply for the purpose of “persuading men.” The Word of God only removes from beneath our feet a hollow foundation, for the purpose of placing instead thereof, a foundation which can never be moved. It only takes away from us a delusive hope, to give us, instead, “a hope which maketh not ashamed.” It takes away “a broken reed,” to give us “the rock of ages.” It sets aside “a broken cistern, which can hold no water,” to set in its place “the fountain of living waters.” This is true love. It is God’s love. He will not cry “peace, peace, when there is no peace;” nor “daub with untempered mortar.” He would have the sinner’s heart resting; sweetly in His own eternal Ark of safety, enjoying a present communion with Himself, and fondly cherishing; the hope, that, when all the ruin, the desolation, and the judgement, have passed away, it shall rest with him in a restored creation.

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Gen 6:5 to Gen 9:17. The Flood.This section has been very skilfully composed from both J and P. There are numerous repetitions: Gen 6:5-8 and Gen 6:12 f.; Gen 7:7-9 and Gen 7:13-16; Gen 7:11 and Gen 7:12; Gen 7:17 and Gen 7:18 f.; Gen 7:21 and Gen 7:23; Gen 8:2 a and Gen 8:2 b. There are also differences of representation. According to Gen 6:19 f., Gen 7:15 f., the animals go in by pairs; according to Gen 7:2 f. the clean go in by sevens (or seven pairs), the unclean by pairs. In Gen 7:11 the Flood is caused by the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep and the opening of the windows of heaven, in Gen 7:12 by a long-continued rain. According to Gen 7:12 the rain continued forty days, according to Gen 7:24 the waters prevailed 150 days. There are also phraseological and stylistic differences, those characteristic of P being specially prominent. The analysis into two sources has been effected with almost complete unanimity. To P belong Gen 6:9-22, Gen 7:6; Gen 7:11, Gen 7:13-16 a, Gen 7:17 a (except forty days), Gen 7:18-21, Gen 7:24, Gen 8:1-2 a, Gen 8:3 b Gen 8:5, Gen 8:13 a, Gen 8:14-19, Gen 9:1-17. To J belong Gen 6:5-8, Gen 7:1-5, Gen 7:7-10; Gen 7:12; Gen 7:16 b, Gen 7:22 f., Gen 8:2 b Gen 8:3 a, Gen 8:6-13 b, Gen 8:20-22. In both cases some slight elements are due to the redactor. When the analysis has been effected, two all but complete stories appear, bearing the marks of P and J.

Difficult questions are raised as to the relation in which these stories stand to other Deluge narratives. A very large number exists, and of these many are independent. It is still debated whether the legends go back to the primitive period of history before the dispersion; this is not probable, for the date would be so early that oral tradition would hardly have preserved it. Presumably many were local in their origin, for such catastrophes on a small scale must have been numerous, and some of the stories may have been coloured and enriched by contamination with others. These parallels, however, must be neglected here, except the Babylonian accounts. Two of these are known to us, and fragments of a third have been recently discovered. The two former tell substantially the same story, though with considerable differences in detail. One is preserved in the extracts from Berossus given by Alexander Polyhistor. The other was discovered by George Smith in 1872. It comes in the eleventh canto of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It describes how the god Ea saved Utnapistim by commanding him to build a ship and take into it the seed of life of every kind. He built and stored it, and when the rain began to fall entered the ship and closed the door. A vivid description is given of the storm, and the terror it inspired in the gods. On the seventh day he opened the ship, which settled on Mount Nizir. After seven days he sent out a dove, and then a swallow, both of which returned; then a raven, which did not return. Then the ship was left and he offered sacrifice, to which the gods came hungrily. Bels anger at the escape was appeased by Ea on the ground that the punishment had been indiscriminate, and the hero with his wife was granted immortality. The coincidences with the Biblical account are so close that they can be explained only by dependence of the Biblical on the Babylonian story, though not necessarily on the form known to us. Probably the Hebrews received it through the Canaanites, and it passed through a process of purification, in which the offensive elements were removed. The Hebrew story is immeasurably higher in tone than the Babylonian. In the latter Bel in his anger destroys good and evil alike, and is enraged to discover that any have escaped the Flood. The gods cower under the storm like dogs in a kennel; and when the sacrifice is offered, smell the sweet savour and gather like flies over the sacrificer. In the Biblical story the punishment is represented as strictly deserved by all who perish, and the only righteous man and his family are preserved, not by the friendly help of another deity, but by the direct action of Him who sends the Flood.

The question as to the historical character of the narrative still remains. The terms seem to require a universal deluge, for all flesh on the earth was destroyed (Gen 6:17, Gen 7:4, Gen 7:21-23), and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered (Gen 7:19 f.). But this would involve a depth of water all over the world not far short of 30,000 ft., and that sufficient water was available at the time is most improbable. The ark could not have contained more than a very small proportion of the animal life on the globe, to say nothing of the food needed for them, nor could eight people have attended to their wants, nor apart from a constant miracle could the very different conditions they required in order to live at all have been supplied. Nor without such a miracle, could they have come from lands so remote. Moreover, the present distribution of animals would on this view be unaccountable. If all the species were present at a single centre at a time so comparatively near as less than five thousand years ago, we should have expected far greater uniformity between different parts of the world than now exists. The difficulty of coming applies equally to return. Nor if the human race took a new beginning from three brothers and their three wives (Gen 7:13, Gen 9:19) could we account for the origin, within the very brief period which is all that our knowledge of antiquity permits, of so many different races, for the development of languages with a long history behind them, or for the founding of states and rise of advanced civilisations. And this quite understates the difficulty, for archology shows a continuous development of such civilisations from a time far earlier than the earliest to which the Flood can be assigned. A partial Deluge is not consistent with the Biblical representation (see above). And an inundation which took seventy-three days to sink from the day when the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat till the tops of the mountains became visible (Gen 8:4 f.) implies a depth of water which would involve a universal deluge. The story, therefore, cannot be accepted as historical; but it may and probably does rest on the recollection of an actual deluge, perhaps produced by a combination of the inundation normally caused by the overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates with earthquake and flooding from the Persian Gulf.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

PRESERVED THROUGH THE FLOOD

Certainly so tremendous a project as the preparing of the ark would attract great attention by all the people, for in spite of Noah’s preaching of righteousness (2Pe 2:5), none were persuaded that God would judge the world by a flood. They likely considered him mentally affected and became “scoffers walking after their own lusts” (2Pe 3:3-7). When the time came, God instructed Noah to enter the ark with all his household, not because his household is said to be righteous, but because God had seen Noah to be righteous, the only one in his generation. At least he had enough influence in his own family that they would willingly enter the ark also. Yet they were included on the basis of his faith, a principle of real importance in God’s dealings. He is concerned not only as to individuals, but as to households.

God’s instructions as to animals and birds are repeated in verses 2 and 3. Then a respite of seven days is given before the flood would come. This shows again the long suffering of God. When men saw the large number of animals coming to the ark and then the family of Noah all entering this completed gigantic vessel, at least then they ought to have realized that this project was not merely conceived by Noah’s imagination, in spite of the fact that rain had evidently never before fallen (ch.2:5-6). but God gave men another week to change their minds. Perhaps as those few days passed, people were becoming more confident each day that nothing was going to happen, rather than being sensibly concerned.

In verse 11 God gives the date of the beginning of the flood in relation to the age of Noah, not only the general time, but the exact day, the 17th day of the second month, in Noah’s 600th year. The many dates, names and places recorded in scripture are an invitation to anyone to check as he pleases as to the accuracy of the word of God. In this verse we are told however that, not only were the windows of heaven opened, but first that the fountains of the great deep were broken up. This must have involved a tremendous tidal way, the seas throwing up such waters as to cover the whole habitable earth. For it is claimed that the skies above us would be absolutely full to saturation point if they contained enough water to cover the earth to a depth of only thirty feet. One scientist has written that if a planet, — Saturn for instance, — were to come into close proximity to the earth, and make two passes around the earth, it could cause a tidal wave that would cover the whole earth, lasting 150 days. Of course, God could use such means as this if He pleased, or He could accomplish what He did apart from such means. But to add to the awesome inundation, the rain fell for forty days and forty nights (v.12).

After all were in the ark (possibly by the end of the seven days’ respite) God shut them in. It was not merely that Noah shut the door. Once God had shut the door, it could not be opened again to allow others in who might be so terrified when the rain began to fall that they would rush to seek refuge. It was too late when the door was closed. How solemn a lesson for those who neglect the salvation of their souls until too late!

The duration of the flood and its eventually covering even the high mountains, insured that all human and animal life would be destroyed. Of course this did not affect the life in the seas. It is reported that there are some high hills in the mid-east almost covered with human and animal bones, perhaps the result of people and animals trying to reach the highest elevation they possibly could for safety, but all in vain.

Of course the ark floated on the waters, and all inside were preserved. The ark itself is typical of the Lord Jesus, the one safe refuge from judgment for every child of Adam who will receive Christ as Savior. Evidently including the forty days of rain, the waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days (cf.v.11 and ch.8:4).

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen {a} righteous before me in this generation.

(a) In respect to the rest of the world, and because he had a desire to serve God and live uprightly.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

God graciously invited Noah to enter the ark with his family (Gen 7:1). This is the first occurrence of the offer "come" in the Bible. This invitation continues throughout Scripture, the last offer being in Rev 22:17. God extends the invitation to people, He urges them to take advantage of the perfect provision He has made for their preservation, and He offers it in a time of impending judgment and gloom.

"It is not that Noah’s works of righteousness gains [sic] him salvation, for none is cited. Rather, his upright character is noted to condemn his generation, which merits death." [Note: Mathews, p. 371.]

"Sinful men do not deserve to live on God’s earth. This is the basic message of the Genesis Flood." [Note: John C. Whitcomb, Esther: The Triumph of God’s Sovereignty, p. 21.]

God did not reveal the basis for His distinction between clean and unclean animals here (Gen 7:2). Israel’s pagan neighbors also observed clean and unclean distinctions between animals though they varied from country to country. In the Mosaic Law, God further distinguished between foods. Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul taught that now these distinctions no longer need affect people as far as our relationship to God goes (Mar 7:15; Mar 7:18-19; cf. Act 10:15; Act 11:9; Rom 14:14).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

THE FLOOD

Gen 5:1-32; Gen 6:1-22; Gen 7:1-24; Gen 8:1-22; Gen 9:1-29

THE first great event which indelibly impressed itself on the memory of the primeval world was the Flood. There is every reason to believe that this catastrophe was co-extensive with the human population of the world. In every branch of the human family traditions of the event are found. These traditions need not be recited, though some of them bear a remarkable likeness to the Biblical story, while others are very beautiful in their construction, and significant in individual points. Local floods happening at various times in different countries could not have given birth to the minute coincidences found in these traditions, such as the sending out of the birds, and the number of persons saved. But we have as yet no material for calculating how far human population had spread from the Original centre. It might apparently be argued that it could not have spread to the seacoast, or that at any rate no ships had as yet been built large enough to weather a severe storm; for a thoroughly nautical population could have had little difficulty in surviving such a catastrophe as is here described. But all that can be affirmed is that there is no evidence that the waters extended beyond the inhabited part of the earth; and from certain details of the narrative, this part of the earth may be identified as the great plain of the Euphrates and Tigris.

Some of the expressions used in the narrative might indeed lead us to suppose that the writer understood the catastrophe to have extended over the whole globe; but expressions of similar largeness elsewhere occur in passages where their meaning must be restricted: Probably the most convincing evidence of the limited extent of the Flood is furnished by the animals of Australia. The animals that abound in that island are different from those found in other parts of the world, but are similar to the species which are found fossilised in the island itself, and which therefore must have inhabited these same regions long anterior to the Flood. If then the Flood extended to Australia and destroyed all animal life there, what are we compelled to suppose as the order of events? We must suppose that the creatures, visited by some presentiment of what was to happen many months after, selected specimens of their number, and that these specimens by some unknown and quite inconceivable means crossed thousands of miles of sea, found their way through all kinds of perils from unaccustomed climate, food, and beasts of prey; singled out Noah by some inscrutable instinct, and surrendered themselves to his keeping. And after the year in the ark expired, they turned their faces homewards, leaving behind them no progeny, again preserving themselves intact, and transporting themselves by some unknown means to their island home. This, if the Deluge was universal, must have been going on with thousands of animals from all parts of the globe; and not only were these animals a stupendous miracle in themselves, but wherever they went they were the occasion of miracle in others, all the beasts of prey refraining from their natural food. The fact is, the thing will not bear stating.

But it is not the physical but the moral aspects of the Flood with which we have here to do. And, first, this narrator explains its cause. He ascribes it to the abnormal wickedness of the antediluvians. To describe the demoralised condition of society before the Flood, the strongest language is used. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great,” monstrous in acts of violence, and in habitual courses and established usages. “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,”-there was no mixture of good, no relentings, no repentances, no visitings of compunction, no hesitations and debatings. It was a world of men fierce and energetic, violent and lawless, in perpetual war and turmoil; in which if a man sought to live a righteous life, he had to conceive it of his own mind and to follow it out unaided and without the countenance of any.

This abnormal wickedness again is accounted for by the abnormal marriages from which the leaders of these ages sprang. Everything seemed abnormal, huge, inhuman. As there are laid bare to the eye of the geologist in those archaic times vast forms bearing a likeness to forms we are now familiar with, but of gigantic proportions and wallowing in dim, mist-covered regions; so to the eye of the historian there loom through the obscurity colossal forms perpetrating deeds of more than human savagery, and strength, and daring; heroes that seem formed in a different mould from common men.

However we interpret the narrative, its significance for us is plain. There is nothing prudish in the Bible. It speaks with a manly frankness of the beauty of women and its ensnaring power. The Mosaic law was stringent against intermarriage with idolatresses, and still in the New Testament something more than an echo of the old denunciation of such marriages is heard. Those who were most concerned about preserving a pure morality and a high tone in society were keenly alive to the dangers that threatened from this quarter. It is a permanent danger to character because it is to a permanent element in human nature that the temptation appeals. To many in every generation, perhaps to the majority, this is the most dangerous form in which worldliness presents itself; and to resist this the most painful test of principle. With natures keenly sensitive to beauty and superficial attractiveness, some are called upon to make their choice between a conscientious cleaving to God and an attachment to that which in the form is perfect but at heart is defective, depraved, godless. Where there is great outward attraction a man fights against the growing sense of inward uncongeniality, and persuades himself he is too scrupulous and uncharitable, or that he is a bad reader of character. There may be an undercurrent of warning; he may be sensible that his whole nature is not satisfied, and it may seem to him ominous that what is best within him does not flourish in his new attachment, but rather what is inferior, if not what is worst. But all such omens and warnings are disregarded and stifled by some such silly thought as that consideration and calculation are out of place in such matters. And what is the result? The result is the same as it ever was. Instead of the ungodly rising to the level of the godly, he sinks to hers. The worldly style, the amusements, the fashions once distasteful to him, but allowed for her sake, become familiar, and at last wholly displace the old and godly ways, the arrangements that left room for acknowledging God in the family; and there is one household less as a point of resistance to the incursion of an ungodly tone in society, one deserter more added to the already too crowded ranks of the ungodly, and the life-time if not the eternity of one soul embittered. Not without a consideration of the temptations that do actually lead men astray did the law enjoin: “Thou shalt not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, nor take of their daughters unto thy sons.”

It seems like a truism to say that a greater amount of unhappiness has been produced by mismanagement, folly, and wickedness in the relation subsisting between men and women than by any other cause. God has given us the capacity of love to regulate this relation and be our safe guide in all matters connected with it. But frequently, from one cause or another, the government and direction of this relation are taken out of the hands of love and put into the thoroughly incompetent hands of convenience, or fancy, or selfish lust. A marriage contracted from any such motive is sure to bring unhappiness of a long-continued, wearing, and often heartbreaking kind. Such a marriage is often the form in which retribution comes for youthful selfishness and youthful licentiousness. You cannot cheat nature. Just in so far as you allow yourself to be ruled in youth by a selfish love of pleasure, in so far do you incapacitate yourself for love. You sacrifice what is genuine and satisfying, because provided by nature, to what is spurious, unsatisfying, and shameful. You cannot afterwards, unless by a long and bitter discipline, restore the capacity of warm and pure love in your heart. Every indulgence in which true love is absent is another blow given to the faculty of love within you-you make yourself in that capacity decrepit, paralyzed, dead. You have lost, you have killed the faculty that should be your guide in all these matters, and so you are at last precipitated without this guidance into a marriage formed from some other motive, formed therefore against nature, and in which you are the everlasting victim of natures relentless justice. Remember that you cannot have both things, a youth of loveless pleasure and a loving marriage-you must make your choice. For as surely as genuine love kills all evil desire; so surely does evil desire kill the very capacity of love, and blind utterly its wretched victim to the qualities that ought to excite love.

The language used of God in relation to this universal corruption strikes every one as remarkable. “It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.” This is what is usually termed anthropomorphism, i.e., the presenting of God in terms applicable only to man; it is an instance of the same mode of speaking as is used when we speak of Gods hand or eye or heart. These expressions are not absolutely true, but they are useful and convey to us a meaning which could scarcely otherwise be expressed. Some persons think that the use of these expressions proves that in early times God was thought of as wearing a body and as being very like ourselves in His inward nature. And even in our day we have been ridiculed for speaking of God as a magnified man. Now in the first place the use of such expressions does not prove that even the earliest worshippers of God believed Him to have eyes and hands and a body. We freely use the same expressions though we have no such belief. We use them because our language is formed for human uses and on a human level, and we have no capacity to frame a better. And in the second place, though not absolutely true they do help us towards the truth. We are told that it degrades God to think of Him as hearing prayer and accepting praise; nay, that to think Of Him as a Person at all, is to degrade Him. We ought to think of Him as the Absolutely Unknowable. But which degrades God most, and which exalts Him most? If we find that it is impossible to worship an absolutely unknowable, if we find that practically such an idea is a mere nonentity to us, and that we cannot in point of fact pay any homage or show any consideration to such an empty abstraction, is not this really to lower God? And if we find that when we think of Him as a Person, and ascribe to Him all human virtue in an infinite degree, we can rejoice in Him and worship Him with true adoration, is not this to exalt Him? While we call Him our Father we know that this title is inadequate; while we speak of God as planning and decreeing we know that we are merely making shift to express what is inexpressible by us-we know that our thoughts of Him are never adequate and that to think of Him at all is to lower Him, is to think of Him inadequately; but when the practical alternative is such as it is, we find we do well to think of Him with the highest personal attributes we can conceive. For to refuse to ascribe such attributes to Him because this is degrading Him, is to empty our minds of any idea of Him which can stimulate either to worship or to duty. If by ridding our minds of all anthropomorphic ideas and refusing to think of God as feeling, thinking, acting as men do, we could thereby get to a really higher conception of Him, a conception which would practically make us worship Him more devotedly and serve Him more faithfully, then by all means let us do so. But if the result of refusing to think of Him as in many ways like ourselves, is that we cease to think of Him at all or only as a dead impersonal force, then this certainly is not to reach a higher but a lower conception of Him. And until we see our way to some truly higher conception than that which we have of a Personal God, we had better be content with it.

In short, we do well to be humble, and considering that we know very little about existence of any kind, and least of all about Gods, and that our God has been presented to us in human form, we do well to accept Christ as our God, to worship, love, and serve Him, finding Him sufficient for all our wants of this life, and leaving it to other times to get the solution of anything that is not made plain to us in Him. This is one boon that the science and philosophy of our day have unintentionally conferred upon us. They have laboured to make us feel how remote and inaccessible God is, how little we can know Him, how truly He is past finding out; they have laboured to make us feel how intangible and invisible and incomprehensible God is, but the result of this is that we turn with all the stronger longing to Him who is the Image of the Invisible God, and on whom a voice has fallen from the excellent glory, “This is My beloved Son, hear Him.”

The Flood itself we need not attempt to describe. It has been remarked that though the narrative is vivid and forcible, it is entirely wanting in that sort of description which in a modern historian or poet would have occupied the largest space. “We see nothing of the death-struggle; we hear not the cry of despair; we are not called upon to witness the frantic agony of husband and wife, and parent and child, as they fled in terror before the rising waters. Nor is a word said of the sadness of the one righteous man, who, safe himself, looked upon the destruction which he could not avert.” The Chaldean tradition which is the most closely allied to the Biblical account is not so reticent. Tears are shed in heaven over the catastrophe, and even consternation affected its inhabitants, while within the ark itself the Chaldean Noah says, “When the storm came to an end and the terrible water-spout ceased, I opened the window and the light smote upon my face. I looked at the sea attentively observing, and the whole of humanity had returned to mud, like seaweed the corpses floated. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and wept and my tears fell upon my face.”

There can be little question that this is a true description of Noahs feeling. And the sense of desolation and constraint would rather increase in Noahs mind than diminish. Month after month elapsed; he was coming daily nearer the end of his food, and yet the waters were unabated. He did not know how long he was to be kept in this dark, disagreeable place. He was left to do his daily work without any supernatural signs to help him against his natural anxieties. The floating of the ark and all that went on in it had no mark of Gods hand upon it. He was indeed safe while others had been destroyed. But of what good was this safety to be? Was he ever to get out of this prison house? To what straits was he to be first reduced? So it is often with ourselves. We are left to fulfil Gods will without any sensible tokens to set over against natural difficulties, painful and pinching circumstances, ill health, low spirits, failure of favourite projects and old hopes-so that at last we come to think that perhaps safety is all we are to have in Christ, a mere exemption from suffering of one kind purchased by the endurance of much suffering of another kind: that we are to be thankful for pardon on any terms; and escaping with our life, must be content though it be bare. Why, how often does a Christian wonder whether, after all, he has chosen a life that he can endure, whether the monotony and the restraints of the Christian life are not inconsistent with true enjoyment?

This strife between the felt restriction of the Christian life and the natural craving for abundant life, for entrance into all that the world can show us, and experience of all forms of enjoyment-this strife goes on unceasingly in the heart of many of us as it goes on from age to age in the world. Which is the true view of life, which is the view to guide us in choosing and refusing the enjoyments and pursuits that are presented to us? Are we to believe that the ideal man for this life is he who has tasted all culture and delight, who believes in nature, recognising no fall and seeking for no redemption, and makes enjoyment his end; or he who sees that all enjoyment is deceptive till man is set right morally, and who spends himself on this, knowing that blood and misery must come before peace and rest, and crowned as our King and Leader, not with a garland of roses, but with the crown of Him Who is greatest of all, because servant of all-to Whom the most sunken is not repulsive, and Who will not abandon the most hopeless? This comes to be very much the question, whether this life is final or preparatory?-whether, therefore, our work in it should be to check lower propensities and develop and train all that is best in character, so as to be fit for highest life and enjoyment in a world to come-or should take ourselves as we find ourselves, and delight in this present world? whether this is a placid eternal state, in which things are very much as they should be, and in which therefore we can live freely and enjoy freely; or whether it is a disordered, initial condition in which our main task should be to do a little towards putting things on a better rail and getting at least the germ and small beginnings of future good planted in one another? So that in the midst of all felt restriction, there is the highest hope, that one day we shall go forth from the narrow precincts of our ark, and step out into the free bright sunshine, in a world where there is nothing to offend, and that the time of our deprivation will seem to have been well spent indeed, if it has left within us a capacity permanently to enjoy love, holiness, justice, and all that is delighted in by God Himself.

The use made of this event in the New Testament is remarkable. It is compared by Peter to baptism, and both are viewed as illustrations of salvation by destruction. The eight souls, he says, who were in the ark, “were saved by water.” The water which destroyed the rest saved them. When there seemed little hope of the godly line being able to withstand the influence of the ungodly, the Flood came and left Noahs family in a new world, with freedom to order all things according to their own ideas. In this Peter sees some analogy to baptism. In baptism, the penitent who believes in the efficacy of Christs blood to purge away sin, lets his defilement be washed away and rises new and clean to the life Christ gives. In Christ the sinner finds shelter for himself and destruction for his sins. It is Gods wrath against sin that saves us by destroying our sins; just as it was the Flood which devastated the world, that at the same time, and thereby, saved Noah and his family.

In this event, too, we see the completeness of Gods work. Often we feel reluctant to surrender our sinful habits to so final a destruction as is implied in being one with Christ. The expense at which holiness is to be bought seems almost too great. So much that has given us pleasure must be parted with; so many old ties sundered, a condition of holiness presents an aspect of dreariness and hopelessness; like the world after the flood, not a moving thing on the surface of the earth, everything levelled, prostrate, and washed even with the ground; here the corpse of a man, there the carcase of a beast: here mighty forest timber swept prone like the rushes on the banks of a flooded stream, and there a city without inhabitants, everything dank, dismal, and repellent. But this is only one aspect of the work; the beginning, necessary if the work is to be thorough. If any part of the sinful life remain it will spring up to mar what God means to introduce us to. Only that is to be preserved which we can take with us into our ark. Only that is to pass on into our life which we can retain while we are in true connection with Christ, and which we think can help us to live as His friends, and to serve Him zealously.

This event then gives us some measure by which we can know how much God will do to maintain holiness upon earth. In this catastrophe every one who strives after godliness may find encouragement, seeing in it the Divine earnestness of God-for good and against evil. There is only one other event in history that so conspicuously shows that holiness among men is the object for which God will sacrifice everything else. There is no need now of any further demonstration of Gods purpose in this world. and His zeal for carrying it out. And may it not be expected of us His children, that we stand in presence of the cross until our cold and frivolous hearts catch something of the earnestness, the “resisting unto blood striving against sin,” which is exhibited there? The Flood has not been forgotten by almost any people under heaven, but its moral result is nil. But he whose memory is haunted by a dying Redeemer, by the thought of One Whose love found its most appropriate and practical result in dying for him, is prevented from much sin, and finds in that love the spring of eternal hope, that which his soul in the deep privacy of his most sacred thoughts can feed upon with joy, that which he builds himself round and broods over as his inalienable possession.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary