Noah and the Ark

When the World That Then Was Perished

In the tenth generation from Adam, a man named Lamech held his newborn son and gave him a name full of hope. He called him Noah, a name that sounds like the Hebrew word for rest, and said, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed (Genesis 5:29). The curse of Eden still lay on the world, and Lamech longed for relief.

The world his son grew up in was getting worse, not better. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). The earth was filled with violence (Genesis 6:11). It grieved God at His heart, and He said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth (Genesis 6:6–7).

Then comes one of the great buts of the Bible: But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD (Genesis 6:8). Notice the order. Grace comes first. Only then does Genesis tell us that Noah was a just man who walked with God (Genesis 6:9).

God told Noah to build an ark of gopher wood, three hundred cubits long, fifty wide, and thirty high (Genesis 6:14–16). With a cubit of about eighteen inches, that is roughly 450 feet by 75 by 45: a vessel built to float, not to sail, with one door set in its side. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he (Genesis 6:22). While he built, he preached. Peter calls him a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5) and says the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing (1 Peter 3:20).

When the ark was ready, God gave the invitation: Come thou and all thy house into the ark (Genesis 7:1). Noah went in with his wife, his three sons, and their wives, eight souls in all, with the animals God brought. Then Genesis adds one quiet line: and the LORD shut him in (Genesis 7:16).

The fountains of the great deep broke open and the windows of heaven poured (Genesis 7:11). The waters bare up the ark, and it was lifted above the earth (Genesis 7:17). They covered all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven (Genesis 7:19), and every man outside died. Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark (Genesis 7:23).

And God remembered Noah (Genesis 8:1). The ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4). A little over a year after the rain began, God spoke: Go forth of the ark (Genesis 8:15–16). Noah's first act on the cleansed earth was to build an altar and offer burnt offerings (Genesis 8:20). God blessed him and his sons with the same words He had spoken over Adam: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth (Genesis 9:1). And He set His bow in the cloud as the token of His promise never again to destroy the earth by a flood (Genesis 9:11–13).