Noah & the Flood
 
Biblical references...
Genesis 3:14... The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
Genesis 3:15...  I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Genesis 6:5-8...  The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Genesis chapters 5 thru 9... The story of Noah and the Flood... written below in edited "story form" using excerpts from Genesis chapters 5 thru 9.

This story starts with Adam.  When Adam was 130 years old he fathered a son named Seth.  When Seth was 105 years old he fathered Enosh. When Enosh was 90 years old he fathered Kenan.  When Kenan was 70 years old he fathered Mahalalel.  When Mahalalel was 65 years old, he fathered Jared.  When Jared was 162 years old, he fathered Enoch.  When Enoch was 65 years old, he fathered Methuselah.  When Methuselah was 187 years old, he fathered Lamech.  When Lamech was 182 years old, he fathered a son named Noah.  After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  When man began to multiply on the face of the land, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, that the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was corrupt and filled with violence.  And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, along with animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.  Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.  And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.  Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.  Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.  Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.  This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits.  Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side.  Make it with lower, second, and third decks.  For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven.  Everything that is on the earth shall die.  But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.  And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.  They shall be male and female.  Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive.  Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up.  It shall serve as food for you and for them.”  Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.  Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.  Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate,  and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.  For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”  And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.  Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.  And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.  Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground,  two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.  And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.  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 forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.  And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.  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,  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.  They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.  And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him.  And the Lord shut him in.  The flood continued forty days on the earth.  The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.  The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.  And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.  The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.  And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.  Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.  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.  And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.  But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.  And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.  The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained,  and the waters receded from the earth continually.  At the end of 150 days the waters had abated,  and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.  And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.  At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven.  It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth.  Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground.  But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth.  So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him.  He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark.  And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf.  So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth.  Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.  In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth.  And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.  In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out.  Then God said to Noah,  “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.  Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh... birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth... that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”  So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.  Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.  And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.  Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.  And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  From the three sons of Noah, all the people of the world will be created.  Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, that never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”  And God said, “As a sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and all future generations: I have set my bow (rainbow) in the cloud.  After the flood Noah lived another 350 years. 

Discussion Thoughts... Some interesting facts about Noah and the Ark
1. We don't know Noah's wife's name.  She's only mentioned as Noah's wife in the Bible.  According to Jewish tradition her name was Naamah, a descendant of Cain.
2. The Ark's wood is a mystery... most Bible versions say the Ark was made from "gopher wood"... problem is that "gopher wood" does not exist today.  That, in itself, is not too surprising... countless plants have become extinct since the time of Noah.  Some Bible translations call the wood "cypress wood" ("cypress wood" makes sense because "cypress wood" was commonly use by Phoenicians when they built ships).  To confuse it a bit further, the Greek Old Testament instead of calling it "gopher wood" refers to it as "squared beams"!  Some translation scholars say that the word was translated wrong and that the word should be "kopher" (translated would be "pitch") not "gopher" which would mean that the bible should say make an Ark of "pitched wood".
3. The Bible says the Ark is 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high... so what is a cubit?  A cubit is the distance from a man's elbow to the tip of his middle finger... on average that dimension is 17.5 inches.  However... the Israelites also used a "short" cubit (distance from the elbow to the knuckles of a clenched fist... about 15 inches), and a "long" cubit (one handbreadth longer than a standard cubit... about 20.4 inches).  If we assume that Noah used the "normal" cubit of 17.5 inches the Ark was about 438 ft by 73 ft by 44 ft... close to 1.5 million cubic feet (that could hold about 1,300 of the standard 20-foor shipping containers that you see on cargo ships).  The cubit is not a standard measurement.  It ranges between 15 and 20.4 inches, so the exact dimensions of the Ark could vary.
4. The ratio of the Ark... 300x50x30 was used by shipbuilders until the 1900s.
5. The Titanic was about three times bigger than the Ark, with a volume of 4.6 million cubic feet.
6. Biblical scholars have estimated it took about 75 years to build the Ark (this is mostly based on when Noah's sons were born... they needed to be about 25 years old to help in building the Ark).  At the time the Ark went off on its journey, Noah was 600 years old.
7. There were two of each animal on the Ark – or were there?  In another passage of the Bible, God told Noah to take “seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, one pair of every kind of unclean animal, and seven pairs of every kind of bird.”  This could mean there were 14 of each clean animal on the Ark.
8. We don’t know exactly how many animals were on the Ark.  One "expert" says the Ark could have held at least 2.15 million sheep.  But there had to be room for sleeping and eating, leading another "expert" to say there were only 16,000 animals on the Ark.
9. What were "clean" and "unclean" animals on the Ark?  Clean animals... land animals that chew the cud and have a divided hoof, such as cattle, deer, goats, and sheep; seafood with both fins and scales, such as bluegill, grouper, and cod; certain birds, including chickens, doves, and ducks; and even some insects, such as grasshoppers and locusts.  Unclean animals... land animals that either do not chew the cud or do not have a split hoof, such as pigs, dogs, cats, horses, donkeys, and rats; seafood lacking either fins of scales, such as shellfish, lobster, oysters, and catfish; some birds, such as owls, hawks, and vultures; and other animals, such as reptiles and amphibians... the New Testament teaches that we are no longer judged by what foods we eat, however nutritionists have noted that the listing of clean and unclean foods provide a guideline for a healthy diet.
10. The Ark had three stories and a roof with a small opening below it – but no steering wheel.  It was made to float... God steered the ship at His will.
11. Rain and “floodgates of the heavens were opened” for forty days and forty nights.  The flood did not occur just from the rain... water gushed from the earth as well.  According to the Bible, the water was 15 cubits (about 23 feet) above the highest mountain.
12. The rain and floodwaters stayed for 150 days, and then they receded for another 100 days.  That’s when Noah sent out a dove... the 3rd time he sent out a dove it did not return.  29 days after the dove did not return Noah removed the covering from the Ark... 57 days later Noah and his family (wife, sons, and sons’ wives), and all the animals on the Ark disembarked from the Ark.  Total time on the Ark was one year and ten days before they were allowed to leave the Ark.
13. After coming off the Ark, God created a rainbow as a sign of his covenant (promise) for all mankind that he would never flood the Earth like that again.
14. After the flood Noah created the first vineyard in the history of mankind; then, he drank his invention until he fell asleep naked in his tent.  His son, Ham, found him drunk and naked in his tent but did nothing other than tell his brothers, Shem and Japheth.  When Shem & Japheth arrived, they walked backward into Noah’s tent to avoid seeing his nakedness and covered his body with a garment.  Because Ham didn’t help Noah, Noah cursed Ham’s son Canaan to become a slave to Shem and Japheth.  Noah then blessed Shem & Japheth for their actions.  This also explains the later feud and fight between the Canaanites (descendants of Ham and Canaan) and the Semites (descendants of Shem).
15. Noah lived to be 950 years old, 350 years after the Flood.
16. No one knows where the Ark is currently located.  After it came to rest on Mount Ararat, many expeditions have tried to find it, but there has been no hard evidence yet.  Recent archaeologist studies have found human activity and marine materials samples on Mount Ararat that carbon date to the date of Noah's Ark.       
17. Why did God flood the Earth?  Genesis 6:5-7 explains that God flooded the planet because he had a change of heart after creating humans.  Genesis 6:5-7 states... The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
18. Look at our Biblical Time Lines Study and you will see that the flood came about 1650 years after Adam and Eve.  Then, about 2340 years after the flood, Jesus Christ was born.

Conclusions... (1) This was an interesting study that revealed several details about Noah and the flood.
(2) Genesis 9:11 is very specific where it says "neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth"... however... the earth will be destroyed again by Armageddon as explained in Revelation chapter 16 and in Revelation 21 it mentions that the "first earth passed away"!
(3) Notice some subtle differences between the flood and Armageddon... in the flood, man was not given a choice to repent... during Armageddon man is given a choice to repent but he does not!  In the flood, the earth was not destroyed... during Armageddon the earth is destroyed!

My Beliefs... (1) During the flood, unborn babies, babies and those who have not reached the age of accountably went to Heaven...  Genesis 3:15 says that some of the descendants of Eve would be evil and that some would be good... (for an in depth study of Genesis 3:15 see our study entitled "Protoevangelium").  Genesis 6:5-8 suggests that all men, except for Noah and his family, were evil... it would be logical to conclude that some of Eve's descendants (who had died prior to the flood) were good and that they will be judged in the "final" judgment determined by what is written about them in "Gods books of life".
(2) Armageddon will be a bit different... unborn babies, babies and those who have not reached the age of accountably will go to Heaven... during Armageddon, when man (those who have reached the age of accountably) is given a choice to repent, they do not... conclusion seems obvious!

Other studies... see the related study "Lifespan 120 years" which discusses whether or not God decreed that we were to only live 120 years.

[Return to home page to see the list of other questions discussed]
  See Home Page for Copyright dates... All rights reserved
This website is casual informational only.  No representation is made or warranty given as to its content.
User assumes all risk for use of all information on this website.
 Data on this web site may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner.
 Refer to the home page for email address responses