Noah and The Flood

Noah and the Flood
Genesis 6-8; 25 May 08

The story…
If this story were made into a summer blockbuster, how would it be presented? Lots of CGI, no doubt!
You can imagine the images of screaming people, banging on the door of the ark as the waters rose, bobbing up and down in the water…
Strange that NOTHING is said about the deaths of those who were not in the ark. God is not after gratuitous violence!
God does not appear to relish the destruction of his own creatures; he judges in an effort to stop the madness.

Read the text Genesis 6:11—8:16

Resonance with what has gone before…

Waltke:
Noah had three sons. …to link Noah with Adam and his three sons, to present Noah as head of the nuclear family, to foreshadow the destiny of Noah and his three sons as the common ancestors of humanity.
Turner:
a) Earth covered by water 1.2a 7.24
b) Wind/spirit moves 1.2b 8.1b
c) Waters recede 1.9a 8.1c-5a
d) Dry land emerges 1.9b 8.5b

The Point…

I. God instructs the righteous to prepare to escape the judgment of the wicked. 6:9-22.
God prepares us to escape the judgment due the wicked by hiding within the Ark.

a. The righteous walk with God, but the wicked corrupt the earth, 9-12.
Waltke
…God wipes out the seed of the Serpent, which had become utterly corrupt. By means of a divinely specified ark God spares the righteous seed of the woman vis-à-vis Noah and his family, and with them his creation in miniature. Noah and his family, having survived the punishing and purging Flood, emerge from the ark to a renewed earth that will last to the end of time as we know it. Tragically, however, Noah and his family again give birth to the seed of the Serpent, though they also perpetuate as the seed of the woman.
…the character of the covenant partners drives the plot. The narrator feels no need to explicitly characterize God as just, merciful, and faithful to his word. God’s actions speak for themselves as he both unleashes the Flood on time and spares Noah in time. it comes as no surprise that God remembers Noah at the pivot.

Gen. 6:9 ¶ This is the account of Noah. ¶ Noah was a godly man; he was blameless ¶ among his contemporaries. He walked with God.
Gen. 6:10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Gen. 6:11 ¶ The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.
Gen. 6:12 God saw the earth, and indeed it was ruined, for all living creatures on the earth were sinful.
We walk with God by reversing the chaos/corruption of the earth.
God can speak and bring order out of chaos, but
We must be in the world in order to set the world back to order.
b. God resolves to make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, 13-22.
Gen. 6:13 So God said to Noah, “I have decided that all living creatures must die, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am about to destroy them and the earth.
Gen. 6:14 Make for yourself an ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and out.

Kidner: Ark: ‘chest’ not ship

Gen. 6:15 This is how you should make it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
Gen. 6:16 Make a roof for the ark and finish it, leaving 18 inches from the top. Put a door in the side of the ark, and make lower, middle, and upper decks.
Gen. 6:17 I am about to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under the sky all the living creatures that have the breath of life in them. Everything that is on the earth will die,

Allen Ross:
Why would God use a flood to bring judgment?
First, God is sovereign over all creation and frequently uses nature to judge humankind. The sea has always been a symbol of chaos—something that human beings cannot control (Job 38:8-11). But God has power over it and all nature (see Psa. 29, which alludes to the flood).
Second, the great flood would be a most effective way of purging the world—certainly the most graphic. It would wash the earth clean, so that not a trace of the wicked or their wickedness would be found. God thus purified the earth of all but the remnant. Later the law used the terminology of washing with water as a symbol for purging before worship (eg, Lev. 8:6, 21). The NT also drew on these motifs (eg., Titus 3:5).
Third, the flood was used by God to start a new creation. The first creation with Adam was paralleled here by the second with Noah. Just as the dry land appeared from the waters of the chaos in Genesis 1:9, so here the waters abated until the ark came to rest on Ararat. Once Noah and his family emerged from the ark into God’s new creation, he was commissioned to be fruitful and have dominion as Adam had been. The use of a flood that enveloped the whole earth was thus God’s way of beginning again. The narrative of the flood, then, includes the uncreation/re-creation theme.

Gen. 6:18 but I will confirm my covenant with you. You will enter the ark–you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
Gen. 6:19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
Gen. 6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive.
Gen. 6:21 And you must take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten, and gather it together. It will be food for you and for them.
Gen. 6:22 ¶ And Noah did all that God commanded him–he did indeed.
We show our distinction from the wicked by our work of restoration.

II. The Lord destroys the wicked and their world but saves a remnant through the obedience of one man, 7:1-24.
The Lord suspends his judgment of the wicked while he saves a remnant through the obedience of his sons and daughters.
a. The Lord ensures the deliverance of the righteous from judgment 1-9.
Gen. 7:1 ¶ The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, for I consider you godly among this generation.
Gen. 7:2 You must take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, the male and its mate, two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate,
Gen. 7:3 and also seven of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of the earth.
Gen. 7:4 For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”
Gen. 7:5 ¶ And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
Gen. 7:6 ¶ Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters engulfed the earth.
Gen. 7:7 Noah entered the ark along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives because of the floodwaters.
Gen. 7:8 Pairs of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground,
Gen. 7:9 male and female, came into the ark to Noah, just as God had commanded him.
b. The Lord’s judgment completely destroys the wicked and their world, 10-24.

Gen. 7:10 And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth.
Gen. 7:11 ¶ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month–on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
Gen. 7:12 And the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Gen. 7:13 ¶ On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons’ three wives.
Gen. 7:14 They entered, along with every living creature after its kind, every animal after its kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, everything with wings.
Gen. 7:15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life came into the ark to Noah.
Gen. 7:16 Those that entered were male and female, just as God commanded him. Then the Lord shut him in.
Gen. 7:17 ¶ The flood engulfed the earth for forty days. As the waters increased, they lifted the ark and raised it above the earth.
Gen. 7:18 The waters completely overwhelmed the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.
Gen. 7:19 The waters completely inundated the earth so that even all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered.
Gen. 7:20 The waters rose more than twenty feet above the mountains.
Gen. 7:21 And all living things that moved on the earth died, including the birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all humankind.
Gen. 7:22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
Gen. 7:23 So the Lord destroyed every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived.
Gen. 7:24 The waters prevailed over the earth for 150 days.

III. The delivered “righteous remnant” establishes order in the earth, 8:1-22.
a. God restores his creation after the judgment is complete, 1-19.
NIDOTTE, Gordon Wenham
But just as obvious is the parallel between the original process of creation and the world’s re-creation as described in Gen 8–9. The turning point of the story is 8:1: “God remembered Noah . . . and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” Here the heaven-sent wind echoes the wind of God hovering over the waters before the first act of creation. And, as in Gen 1, there follows the progressive separation of water from the land: first the mountain tops appear, then the fresh growth of the trees, and eventually the earth was dried out. As God created the animals to swarm and multiply in the earth, so Noah is directed to send them out to do the same again (1:20–22; 8:17).
Waltke:
8:1 REMEMBERED
Unlike English “remembered,” which refers merely to mental recall and entails having forgotten, the Hebrew term, especially with reference to God, signifies to act upon a previous commitment to a covenant partner (see 9:14-15; 19:29; 30:22; Ex. 2:24; 6:5; 32:13; 1 Sam. 1:19; Judg. 16:28; Job 14:13; Ps. 8:4; 9:12; 74:1-3; 98:3; 105:8; 106:45; 111:5; Jer. 15:15). By acting on his earlier promise to Noah (6:18), God shows himself to be a trustworthy ocvenant partner. This crucial expression shows that the subsiding waters of the Flood are subject to God’s undisputed will.
By contrast, in the Babylonian accoutns “the gods were terror-struck at the forces they themselves had unleashed. They were appalled at the consequences of their own actions over which they no longer had congtrol.”

Kidner:
8:7-12 The raven and the dove almost ask to be treated as a parable; indeed the HS, by taking the form of a dove, probably pointed to this episode with its suggestion of that which is sensitive and discriminating, the harbinger of the new creation (this, rather than peace, is the promise of the freshly plucked olive leaf, 11 RSV) and the guide of those who await it. The raven, in contrast, content with its carrion, was no harbinger of anything: its failure to return was as uninformative…

b. The restored remnant acknowledges their gratitude to the Lord in worship, 20-22.


1 June 08 Noahic Covenant & Canaanite Curse
Covenants with Adam, Noah, Abram: be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.

Turner
A Noah and his three sons (6:9-10)
B Violence in God’s creation (6:11-12)
C First divine address: resolution to destroy (6:13-22)
D Second divine address: command to enter ark (7:1-10)
E Beginning of the flood (7:11-16)
F The rising flood waters (7:17-24)
GOD’S REMEMBRANCE OF NOAH (8:1a)
F’ The receding flood waters (81b-5)
E’ The drying of the earth (8:6-14)
D’ Third divine address: command to leave ark (8:15-19)
C’ God’s resolution to preserve order (8:20-22)
B’ Fourth divine address: covenant blessing and peace (9:1-17)
A’ Noah and his three sons (9:18-19)
[adapted from Anderson 1978: 23-39)]