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.
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.
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.
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.
5 And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
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.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
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.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
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;
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.
15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
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.
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.
18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
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:
22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
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.
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
1. Yahweh gives Noah last-minute instructions seven days before the Flood begins.
2. Noah, his family, and all the animals enter the Ark.
3. The water that was stored in the firmament above the earth and under the ground fills the whole earth over a period of forty days.
Verses 1–4. Seven days before the Flood, God provided Noah with several last minute instructions. First, Noah was to load the ark with two of every unclean animal and seven of every clean animal. Evidently, there must have been some knowledge concerning the differences between clean and unclean animals well before Moses received the law on Sinai. Although the godly were still governed by the vegetarian diet law issued by God at Creation, this was soon to change (Gen. 9:3–4). Until the flood, God’s people used the clean animals for sacrifice and presumably for clothing as well. So to guarantee a good supply of these animals for Noah and his descendants, God gave the order to take seven clean animals onto the Ark.
Verses 5–16. Acting in faith, Noah obeyed God’s commands. They all entered the Ark, and Yahweh Himself sealed the door. This divine act must have been a great comfort to the family inside, taken as a tender symbol of the Lord’s care for His people during the most horrible catastrophe in the history of the world.
Verses 17–24. Just as God had declared, this Flood was a worldwide catastrophe of epic proportions. The waters destroyed billions of men and animals. It was far more devastating than any other cataclysm recorded in the annals of world history. Other catastrophes took down empires such as Rome or Babylon, and city states like Sodom and Gomorrah. But there has never been and never will be another flood or other worldwide cataclysm of this magnitude until the end of the world.
Many professing Christians today reject the idea that the Flood covered the entire globe. But if this flood was limited to a single valley or plain as they would like to believe, then it is doubtful that it would have taken almost an entire year for the waters to abate. Assuming the biblical record is God’s truth, why would God provide a 120-year warning and ordain such a radical and unwieldy method of saving the animal population? It would have been much easier for Him to have sent Noah to a land well beyond the immediate area of the flood. The plain reading of this chapter upholds a universal, global flood. It is impossible to read it in any other way.
“The waters covered the high hills under the whole heaven… 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… All flesh on the dry land died. All men died and only Noah and his family remained alive.”
Is there any room for equivocation on the universality of the flood in these words? Verse 21 also specifies that all the birds died in the great catastrophe. You would think that some of the birds might have escaped a local flood, particularly since there are birds that can make it across the Atlantic Ocean in 24 hours of continuous flight!
There are also physical geological evidences everywhere around the globe that point to a major cataclysm in the past, a disaster that far exceeds the magnitude of the most severe earthquakes and volcanoes men have witnessed over the last several thousand years. We find billions of dead animals buried in rock layers all over the earth. By scientific observation, we know that fossils form only when there is rapid solidification of sedimentation, and this usually occurs during a catastrophic flood of some kind. If there were huge earthquakes and volcanoes erupting during the flooding, this would contribute to a rapid solidification process. This is precisely what is described in Genesis 7! Moreover, fossilized sea creatures are often found buried in rock layers at the top of the largest mountain ranges in the world. How did these creatures make it to the tops of these mountains? How were they so quickly captured in watery sedimentation and fossilized? It is hard to imagine that these little clams crawled up a mountain to die there in a flash flood of some sort. A worldwide cataclysmic flood is the most obvious explanation for this physical evidence.
Finally, the story of the Flood is imbedded in the history of every ancient culture in the world, including the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic tale (ca. 2000 BC). This story contains so many similarities to the Genesis account that most rational people would conclude that the two writings refer to the same event. According to the Gilgamesh story, the deluge was divinely planned, the impending catastrophe was divinely revealed to the hero of the deluge, the hero was divinely instructed to construct a huge boat, the hero and his family were delivered, birds were sent forth at intervals, the hero worshiped after his deliverance, and the specified duration of the flood also concurs with the biblical account. Do you recognize this story?
The earliest confirmed Chinese orthography dates back to 1200 BC, so it should be no surprise to see references to the worldwide flood in the characters of the Chinese language. The character for “ship” (“chuan”) is made up of three sub-characters: the character for the number eight, the character for “people” or “mouth,” and the character for “vessel.” It comes as no surprise that the memory of the flood is everywhere, though most cultures would never have incorporated the story of Abraham and the children of Israel (or even Christ) into their oral traditions. If the entire world was destroyed by a flood and only eight people survived, it would have been impossible to forget such a remarkable event! Such an experience would have been indelibly recorded in the hearts and minds of Noah and his family for a thousand years or more. That is why this story is so deeply imbedded in the language and folklore of so many ancient cultures.
1. Whenever we find a fossil of a sea creature somewhere above sea level, we need to remember that God’s judgment came to this earth almost 4500 years ago. The world around us rejects the metaphysical idea that God could bring His righteous judgment to our world at any time. That is what makes the worldwide Flood so offensive to the ungodly. They do not like to think that God has an ethical interest in their lives and that He might bring judgment upon them. But we look at a fossil and we fear the God who destroys a world because of the sin of man. The apostle Peter reminds us in 2 Peter 2:9 that God will most certainly punish the unjust at the end of the world, even as He brought a severe judgment upon the ancient world.
2. Let us also remember that God is always merciful, even in His judgment. Just as He prepared the Ark for Noah and his family, He has prepared an Ark for our family in Jesus Christ. Noah believed God, trusting in His plans for the Ark as a means of saving his family from the worldwide Flood. Then Noah obeyed God by building the Ark and taking his family into it. In similar fashion, we believe in God’s provision of Jesus Christ as our Savior. People may have laughed at Noah as he entered the ark. They could not believe that God would ever judge the world. After all, it had not rained from the beginning of Creation, and they had never seen the judgment of God demonstrated in a mighty flood before. The world may laugh at us too, as we present Jesus as the only Savior for man. But one day, judgment will come. Once again, all those that believe the Word of God will be saved, and those who refuse to believe will be destroyed in eternal fire.
1. What are the themes of Chapters 1 through 7?
2. How many of each clean and unclean animal came onto the Ark? Why did God require more clean animals than unclean animals on the Ark?
3. Who closed the door of the Ark?
4. How does this catastrophe compare with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea?
5. What are the indications from Scripture that this flood covered the whole world?
6. What evidence do we find in geology that might substantiate a worldwide flood?
7. What evidence do we find in various cultures and traditions that might substantiate this worldwide flood?
1. How certain is God’s presence and God’s hand of judgment in your mind? When you pick up a fossil, do you tremble just a little to remember how God destroyed our earth in 4500 BC? Why do you think God’s judgment might be something less than real in the minds of men? Why is the reality of God so faint and distant in the consciousness of so many people today?
2. Does our family relate to Noah as he built the Ark? Do we believe in the Ark of God’s salvation? Are we in the Ark of God’s salvation? How do we know that we are in that Ark?