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The Flood – Part Two
Genesis 7:1 – 8:21
1 ¶ Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.
2 “You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female;
3 “also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.
4 “For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.”
Judgment day arrived. There is a new way
that the grace of God is being presented in some evangelical circles today. They are making reference to 'the wideness of God's mercy and grace'. Trying to get God off the hook and not appear to be mean, they are saying that a merciful, loving God such as we have, would never destroy people for their rejection of Him and because of their wickedness. So they say the flood did not happen, and if a local flood did happen, God did not do it.
They are clearly wrong because in chapter seven verse four God takes full credit and responsibility. “I will cause it to rain” He says, and “I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made”. God loves us, of this we are certain, but we need to be very careful about putting our preferred concept of God in place of scripture.
5 And Noah did according to all that the LORD commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.
7 So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth,
9 two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.
The flood prevailed. 7:10 – 20
10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth.
11 The fountains of the GREAT deep were broken up.
Scientists tell us that, at any one time, the sky only contains about .001 percent of the water that is upon the earth.
When God created the earth it was totally covered in water. That is, the land was totally submerged. God had caused dry land to appear by doing two things … One, he separated some of the water by lifting it up into the 'heavens'. And two, by saying 'Let the dry land appear'. This likely was a 'raising and sinking’ of the part of the ocean bed until it became dry land.
We were told that the newly created earth did not have rain, but that it was watered by a mist (or springs) that rose up from the ground. We should not get the mental image of high mountains nor of desert plains. All of the earth could be considered as 'low land', or wetland. In addition to the mist that watered the earth, we are told of several rivers that flowed. In our way of thinking a river cannot flow without there first being snow-capped mountains, and regular rains. We think of rivers as being a drainage system of water flowing back to the sea.
But we have to adjust our thinking of what we traditionally know of our present earth's ecological system. If we can correctly grasp verse 11, the descriptive word, 'great' in front of deep must have significance. Great … according to whom or compared with what reference point? The 'Great Deep' defies our imagination.
For rivers to flow without there having been any rain, we probably have to think of an 'artesian' type of water pressure. In addition to a system where water has some kind of a cycle, we must be open to the idea of vast storage pockets of water deep under the surface of the earth.
12 And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Some things took place that we will never fully understand, including a buckling of the earth … as in earthquakes or volcanic action … that broke the seal and allowed water that was under great pressure to come to the surface. In the process, God could have allowed great sections of land to 'go down' and fill the void that the water just came out of.
It took forty days for all of the water from the canopy to come down. There is a great range in terms of kilometers that an object can be positioned so that it can orbit the earth. The moon is on average 384 thousand kilometers above the earth. In a sense it is suspended. If it were much closer, gravity would pull it down to the earth. If it were much farther, the earth's gravitational pull would be too weak to keep it near the earth and it would venture off into space. Smaller objects, having less velocity, can be nearer the earth and still not come crashing down. The Hubble telescope satellite, for example, orbits at 600 kilometers above the earth's surface.
Now consider the canopy of water that God put up there. It would have to have just enough gravity to hold it there. When God decided to send it down to earth it would take some time to gain momentum. At first it may have been a shower but then it would have increased into a torrential downpour.
Water came down from the canopy above, and water came up from beneath until the surface of the earth was once again as it was in Genesis 1:2. All alone and looking very small would be the ark floating and moving over the surface. Here is a passage from the Psalms that could be speaking of creation, but if so, it includes the time of the great flood.
"He established the earth upon its foundations so that it will not totter forever and ever. Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters were standing above the mountains. At Thy rebuke they fled, at the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which Thou didst establish for them. Thou didst set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth." Psalm 104:5-9
13 ¶ On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,
14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature.
15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.
16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.
17 ¶ The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.
20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.
21 ¶ And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.
22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.
23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
1
All flesh perished. (Verses 21 - 24)
As the canopy came crashing to the earth over a forty day period, as water from the reservoirs under the earth was released, tremendous change took place on this planet. Weather that had never before been experienced left its permanent mark. The once temperate planet now is suffering sudden and intense cold in the north and in the south. Huge glaciers were formed.
An estimated five million mammoths were buried and frozen in the ice. An article from Encyclopedia Britannica says, "The Siberian deposits have been worked for centuries and the store of mammoth bones appears to be as inexhaustible as a coal field. Some think that a day may come when the spread of civilization may cause the utter disappearance of the elephant in Africa and it will be to these deposits that we may have to turn as the only source of animal ivory."
The action of the flood caused great amounts of earth to move backward and forward. Many 'scientists' would tell us that strata are laid down a layer at a time. And this is supposed to have happened over many billions of years. In truth, strata are formed quickly, not a layer at a time, but by side to side movement of soil under water. Unheard of mudslides would be happening all over the earth, taking down vegetation, habitation and animals as it moved, burying some of the objects very deeply. The exception to 'all flesh' being destroyed would be the animals in the boat.
Noah had been told by God to enter the ark on a specific day. As usual, Noah obeyed. He did not round up the animals. He had nothing to do with it, except to welcome them into the ark. Did he take Kangaroos on the ark? How could he? Everybody knows that they only exist in Australia. But wait a minute … Did Adam name the kangaroos? Then they were in the garden of Eden, originally. The question is not, How did the kangaroos come all the way from Australia to get on to the ark … the real question is, how did the kangaroos get from the ark to Australia? We will have to wait for a later chapter in Genesis to read the answer to this question.
So why did the animals all come to the ark at just the right time if Noah did not trap them or round them up? The answer is, in the same way that they all came marching past Adam originally to get their names. God did it then. God did it this time as well.
What about dinosaurs … did they all stay out and die? Dinosaurs are reptiles. Reptiles, essentially, are the only creatures that grow as long as they live. We have every reason to believe that they were living as long as humans were living at that time. Dinosaurs are very much like a large lizard. Can you imagine the size of a nine hundred year old lizard?
The dinosaurs that Noah allowed into the ark would be young ones … maybe 20 or 30 years old. The lifespan of all creatures, human and animal, was significantly shortened in the 'after – flood' environment.
The size and volume of the ark was immense. Using a sheep as an 'average' size the ark could have held 125,000 different animals plus supplies. Ge 6:21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
So Noah and family entered the ark. 7:1-4 Seven days later it began to rain. Specific days and dates are mentioned by Moses as he writes this. Why is he so specific? Why does this matter to us? And what calendar is he using?
Here are some of the specifics:
Chapter 7:6. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came upon the earth.
7:10 - … after seven days the flood waters came upon the earth.
7:11 ¶In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day ….
7:17 The flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark,
7:24 And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.
8:3 And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
8:4 The ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
8:5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
8:6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark (eleventh month)
8:10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark.
8:13 In the 601st year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark
8:14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.
Why be so specific? For one reason, so that we would not make the mistake of saying that this was not a literal, global flood. Some people deny that it happened at all. Others say that, if anything, it was a local flood.
This tells us it was real. This tells us the next one will be even greater. At the end of the millennium the elements will melt and the earth will pass away with a loud noise. Both the flood judgment and the coming judgment are literal events.
Noah and his family were in the ark for a year and 10 days.
Going back …
For seven days before the flood the ark door remained open ... the animals could come in. But so could other humans, if they had chosen to do so.
This reminds us of the future judgment of God. The 'Battle of Armageddon' mentioned in Revelation 16:16 is also called 'The Great Day of God's Wrath'. This will be the judgment of our present world. This will be the reckoning day. Jesus is the ark of safety for believers. Seven years before the judgment day of Armageddon, in which God wipes out unbelievers … the ark door remains open. That is, people can come to Christ and escape the great day of God's wrath. But many will not.
Re 16:9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.
Re 16:11 They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.
Ge 7:16 So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in. Three things to note in this verse.
Elohim had commanded.
Jehovah shut the door.
The door was shut.
Two different words for God are used in this one verse. Why? First we are reminded that the one doing the commanding is the Almighty. The Elohim. (the Plural, Eternal, Mighty One). Who shut the door? Jehovah … The personal name of God … reminding that there is a personal relationship between God and man. He is an all-loving, merciful person … a friend, who carefully closed and sealed the door.
But the door was shut ...to those on the outside. The day of grace was over. From that point no one else could be saved. Again I am reminded of the song lyrics, “There is a line that is drawn, for rejecting our Lord, when the call of the Spirit is lost ...”
That day is a personal day for anyone who is yet unsaved. When has that person had God's grace extended to them for the last time? When is the day that God says, your day of grace is past? There is coming a day when the time of salvation will be past for all unbelievers of this age.
Revelation 10:7 but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.
Revelation 11:15 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!"
1 ¶ Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.
2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
3 And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
4 ¶ Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
God remembered Noah … Does God ever forget anything? With reference to our sin He says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." That is so reassuring. But when He has made us a promise of protection or salvation … He remembers. He is God.
God brings a wind. It is for Noah's good. We are not told that God said to Noah, “Don't be alarmed but you are going to start moving … more violently than anything you felt so far”. As a matter of fact, the last thing recorded that Noah had heard of God's voice was “Go in”. This has been a long, long year. Now they sense movement. After a number of days they feel a small vibration coming from the bottom of the ark … it is coming to a rest. Movement stops. Forty days later … Noah has not heard anything from God ...he sends out a raven. Why a raven? A raven is a scavenger. Noah is wondering, is there evidence of death out there? The raven does not return. Does this mean the raven is lost or dead? Does this mean he or she has found carnage on which to rest and feed? Does this mean that the 'team' … male and female raven … has been broken up and now the species cannot reproduce? No, there were 7 pairs of each type of bird on the ark.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
6 ¶ So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.
7 Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.
8 He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground.
Noah had sent out a black raven … he found evidence of death. Next he sends out a white dove to find evidence of what? Evidence of life. It returns with a freshly plucked Olive leaf. Science shows us that Olive trees are incredibly hardy and can survive underwater for long periods of time. But science is not in control of nature … and the environment … God is. However God had that particular Olive tree within range of the Ark … it was God's doing.
9 But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself.
10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark.
11 Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
12 So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.
Now Noah knows that there is evidence of
life. He sends out a dove for the third time and it does not return. It has moved to the new world.
And it was a new world.
13 ¶ And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.
Noah removes some of the covering, the roof … and for the first time in a year, looks at the horizon and landscape. Can you imagine his expression? We see a mountain that we have never seen before … and we say Wow!
Beautiful! Magnificent! But Noah is looking at what did not exist before the flood. Mountains have pushed up all over the place. Could he have felt the effect of underwater earthquakes and the buckling of the plates of the earth? If he did, now he sees the effect with his own eyes. As yet he has no idea that he is up on a mountain. And he sees the sun in its full brightness … prior to this it was always through the canopy of water.
He sees a different, quiet earth. So clean and fresh. He is (under God) the king of the world. He has a kingdom of seven people.
15 ¶ Then God spoke to Noah, saying,
16 “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.
17 “Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.
19 Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.
Noah finally hears from God. This time God says, “Go out”.
Noah always does what God says. He does not get ahead of God. What an example of what it means to 'Wait on the Lord'!
God speaks to Noah about restarting a new world. How important it is to start right! Noah starts with worship. That is a good place to start. He sacrifices an animal and worships Jehovah, his God. 8:20 ¶ Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
God responds with a promise and blessing. He says, Do not worry … I will never do this again. 21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
22 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”
He blesses them and encourages them to enter the new world.
2 Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
In our next study we will take a closer look at the new world as it took shape. We may even discover how the kangaroos got from the ark to Australia.
2 “You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female;
3 “also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.
4 “For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.”
Judgment day arrived. There is a new way
that the grace of God is being presented in some evangelical circles today. They are making reference to 'the wideness of God's mercy and grace'. Trying to get God off the hook and not appear to be mean, they are saying that a merciful, loving God such as we have, would never destroy people for their rejection of Him and because of their wickedness. So they say the flood did not happen, and if a local flood did happen, God did not do it.
They are clearly wrong because in chapter seven verse four God takes full credit and responsibility. “I will cause it to rain” He says, and “I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made”. God loves us, of this we are certain, but we need to be very careful about putting our preferred concept of God in place of scripture.
5 And Noah did according to all that the LORD commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.
7 So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth,
9 two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.
The flood prevailed. 7:10 – 20
10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth.
11 The fountains of the GREAT deep were broken up.
Scientists tell us that, at any one time, the sky only contains about .001 percent of the water that is upon the earth.
When God created the earth it was totally covered in water. That is, the land was totally submerged. God had caused dry land to appear by doing two things … One, he separated some of the water by lifting it up into the 'heavens'. And two, by saying 'Let the dry land appear'. This likely was a 'raising and sinking’ of the part of the ocean bed until it became dry land.
We were told that the newly created earth did not have rain, but that it was watered by a mist (or springs) that rose up from the ground. We should not get the mental image of high mountains nor of desert plains. All of the earth could be considered as 'low land', or wetland. In addition to the mist that watered the earth, we are told of several rivers that flowed. In our way of thinking a river cannot flow without there first being snow-capped mountains, and regular rains. We think of rivers as being a drainage system of water flowing back to the sea.
But we have to adjust our thinking of what we traditionally know of our present earth's ecological system. If we can correctly grasp verse 11, the descriptive word, 'great' in front of deep must have significance. Great … according to whom or compared with what reference point? The 'Great Deep' defies our imagination.
For rivers to flow without there having been any rain, we probably have to think of an 'artesian' type of water pressure. In addition to a system where water has some kind of a cycle, we must be open to the idea of vast storage pockets of water deep under the surface of the earth.
12 And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Some things took place that we will never fully understand, including a buckling of the earth … as in earthquakes or volcanic action … that broke the seal and allowed water that was under great pressure to come to the surface. In the process, God could have allowed great sections of land to 'go down' and fill the void that the water just came out of.
It took forty days for all of the water from the canopy to come down. There is a great range in terms of kilometers that an object can be positioned so that it can orbit the earth. The moon is on average 384 thousand kilometers above the earth. In a sense it is suspended. If it were much closer, gravity would pull it down to the earth. If it were much farther, the earth's gravitational pull would be too weak to keep it near the earth and it would venture off into space. Smaller objects, having less velocity, can be nearer the earth and still not come crashing down. The Hubble telescope satellite, for example, orbits at 600 kilometers above the earth's surface.
Now consider the canopy of water that God put up there. It would have to have just enough gravity to hold it there. When God decided to send it down to earth it would take some time to gain momentum. At first it may have been a shower but then it would have increased into a torrential downpour.
Water came down from the canopy above, and water came up from beneath until the surface of the earth was once again as it was in Genesis 1:2. All alone and looking very small would be the ark floating and moving over the surface. Here is a passage from the Psalms that could be speaking of creation, but if so, it includes the time of the great flood.
"He established the earth upon its foundations so that it will not totter forever and ever. Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters were standing above the mountains. At Thy rebuke they fled, at the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which Thou didst establish for them. Thou didst set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth." Psalm 104:5-9
13 ¶ On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,
14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature.
15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.
16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.
17 ¶ The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.
20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.
21 ¶ And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.
22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.
23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
1
All flesh perished. (Verses 21 - 24)
As the canopy came crashing to the earth over a forty day period, as water from the reservoirs under the earth was released, tremendous change took place on this planet. Weather that had never before been experienced left its permanent mark. The once temperate planet now is suffering sudden and intense cold in the north and in the south. Huge glaciers were formed.
An estimated five million mammoths were buried and frozen in the ice. An article from Encyclopedia Britannica says, "The Siberian deposits have been worked for centuries and the store of mammoth bones appears to be as inexhaustible as a coal field. Some think that a day may come when the spread of civilization may cause the utter disappearance of the elephant in Africa and it will be to these deposits that we may have to turn as the only source of animal ivory."
The action of the flood caused great amounts of earth to move backward and forward. Many 'scientists' would tell us that strata are laid down a layer at a time. And this is supposed to have happened over many billions of years. In truth, strata are formed quickly, not a layer at a time, but by side to side movement of soil under water. Unheard of mudslides would be happening all over the earth, taking down vegetation, habitation and animals as it moved, burying some of the objects very deeply. The exception to 'all flesh' being destroyed would be the animals in the boat.
Noah had been told by God to enter the ark on a specific day. As usual, Noah obeyed. He did not round up the animals. He had nothing to do with it, except to welcome them into the ark. Did he take Kangaroos on the ark? How could he? Everybody knows that they only exist in Australia. But wait a minute … Did Adam name the kangaroos? Then they were in the garden of Eden, originally. The question is not, How did the kangaroos come all the way from Australia to get on to the ark … the real question is, how did the kangaroos get from the ark to Australia? We will have to wait for a later chapter in Genesis to read the answer to this question.
So why did the animals all come to the ark at just the right time if Noah did not trap them or round them up? The answer is, in the same way that they all came marching past Adam originally to get their names. God did it then. God did it this time as well.
What about dinosaurs … did they all stay out and die? Dinosaurs are reptiles. Reptiles, essentially, are the only creatures that grow as long as they live. We have every reason to believe that they were living as long as humans were living at that time. Dinosaurs are very much like a large lizard. Can you imagine the size of a nine hundred year old lizard?
The dinosaurs that Noah allowed into the ark would be young ones … maybe 20 or 30 years old. The lifespan of all creatures, human and animal, was significantly shortened in the 'after – flood' environment.
The size and volume of the ark was immense. Using a sheep as an 'average' size the ark could have held 125,000 different animals plus supplies. Ge 6:21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
So Noah and family entered the ark. 7:1-4 Seven days later it began to rain. Specific days and dates are mentioned by Moses as he writes this. Why is he so specific? Why does this matter to us? And what calendar is he using?
Here are some of the specifics:
Chapter 7:6. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came upon the earth.
7:10 - … after seven days the flood waters came upon the earth.
7:11 ¶In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day ….
7:17 The flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark,
7:24 And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.
8:3 And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
8:4 The ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
8:5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
8:6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark (eleventh month)
8:10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark.
8:13 In the 601st year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark
8:14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.
Why be so specific? For one reason, so that we would not make the mistake of saying that this was not a literal, global flood. Some people deny that it happened at all. Others say that, if anything, it was a local flood.
This tells us it was real. This tells us the next one will be even greater. At the end of the millennium the elements will melt and the earth will pass away with a loud noise. Both the flood judgment and the coming judgment are literal events.
Noah and his family were in the ark for a year and 10 days.
Going back …
For seven days before the flood the ark door remained open ... the animals could come in. But so could other humans, if they had chosen to do so.
This reminds us of the future judgment of God. The 'Battle of Armageddon' mentioned in Revelation 16:16 is also called 'The Great Day of God's Wrath'. This will be the judgment of our present world. This will be the reckoning day. Jesus is the ark of safety for believers. Seven years before the judgment day of Armageddon, in which God wipes out unbelievers … the ark door remains open. That is, people can come to Christ and escape the great day of God's wrath. But many will not.
Re 16:9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.
Re 16:11 They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.
Ge 7:16 So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in. Three things to note in this verse.
Elohim had commanded.
Jehovah shut the door.
The door was shut.
Two different words for God are used in this one verse. Why? First we are reminded that the one doing the commanding is the Almighty. The Elohim. (the Plural, Eternal, Mighty One). Who shut the door? Jehovah … The personal name of God … reminding that there is a personal relationship between God and man. He is an all-loving, merciful person … a friend, who carefully closed and sealed the door.
But the door was shut ...to those on the outside. The day of grace was over. From that point no one else could be saved. Again I am reminded of the song lyrics, “There is a line that is drawn, for rejecting our Lord, when the call of the Spirit is lost ...”
That day is a personal day for anyone who is yet unsaved. When has that person had God's grace extended to them for the last time? When is the day that God says, your day of grace is past? There is coming a day when the time of salvation will be past for all unbelievers of this age.
Revelation 10:7 but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.
Revelation 11:15 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!"
1 ¶ Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.
2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
3 And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
4 ¶ Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
God remembered Noah … Does God ever forget anything? With reference to our sin He says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." That is so reassuring. But when He has made us a promise of protection or salvation … He remembers. He is God.
God brings a wind. It is for Noah's good. We are not told that God said to Noah, “Don't be alarmed but you are going to start moving … more violently than anything you felt so far”. As a matter of fact, the last thing recorded that Noah had heard of God's voice was “Go in”. This has been a long, long year. Now they sense movement. After a number of days they feel a small vibration coming from the bottom of the ark … it is coming to a rest. Movement stops. Forty days later … Noah has not heard anything from God ...he sends out a raven. Why a raven? A raven is a scavenger. Noah is wondering, is there evidence of death out there? The raven does not return. Does this mean the raven is lost or dead? Does this mean he or she has found carnage on which to rest and feed? Does this mean that the 'team' … male and female raven … has been broken up and now the species cannot reproduce? No, there were 7 pairs of each type of bird on the ark.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
6 ¶ So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.
7 Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.
8 He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground.
Noah had sent out a black raven … he found evidence of death. Next he sends out a white dove to find evidence of what? Evidence of life. It returns with a freshly plucked Olive leaf. Science shows us that Olive trees are incredibly hardy and can survive underwater for long periods of time. But science is not in control of nature … and the environment … God is. However God had that particular Olive tree within range of the Ark … it was God's doing.
9 But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself.
10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark.
11 Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
12 So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.
Now Noah knows that there is evidence of
life. He sends out a dove for the third time and it does not return. It has moved to the new world.
And it was a new world.
13 ¶ And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.
Noah removes some of the covering, the roof … and for the first time in a year, looks at the horizon and landscape. Can you imagine his expression? We see a mountain that we have never seen before … and we say Wow!
Beautiful! Magnificent! But Noah is looking at what did not exist before the flood. Mountains have pushed up all over the place. Could he have felt the effect of underwater earthquakes and the buckling of the plates of the earth? If he did, now he sees the effect with his own eyes. As yet he has no idea that he is up on a mountain. And he sees the sun in its full brightness … prior to this it was always through the canopy of water.
He sees a different, quiet earth. So clean and fresh. He is (under God) the king of the world. He has a kingdom of seven people.
15 ¶ Then God spoke to Noah, saying,
16 “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.
17 “Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.
19 Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.
Noah finally hears from God. This time God says, “Go out”.
Noah always does what God says. He does not get ahead of God. What an example of what it means to 'Wait on the Lord'!
God speaks to Noah about restarting a new world. How important it is to start right! Noah starts with worship. That is a good place to start. He sacrifices an animal and worships Jehovah, his God. 8:20 ¶ Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
God responds with a promise and blessing. He says, Do not worry … I will never do this again. 21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
22 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”
He blesses them and encourages them to enter the new world.
2 Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
In our next study we will take a closer look at the new world as it took shape. We may even discover how the kangaroos got from the ark to Australia.