R Evans, Genesis in Context - 8

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8. Un-creation and Re-creation: The Flood

NB: not integrated into wiki

Corruption of the earth

In Genesis 5 we are given a genealogical account of Adam’s line. This is the line of responsibility, the line of godliness, the line of priestly delegation.

We are told that with the birth of Seth, men began to call upon the name of Yhwh. Enoch walked with God, and God took him. At the birth of Noah, his father Lamech regards him as being a comfort and a rest from the toil of the Divine curse; that is, a blessing from God. Noah, we are told, walked with God. The emphasis is on Godly character: this is the lineage of the sons of God.

Conversely, in the line of Cain, exiled among the world, there is only mention of secular interests building cities, making music, making tools (and weapons), raising livestock; and a spirit of self-justification and vengefulness, expressed in the words of Lamech. The only woman named in the lineage is Lamech’s daughter Naamah; her name meaning “pleasant, fair”, emphasising attributes of womanly beauty: a premonition of trouble to come. This is the lineage of the daughters of Men.

A clash between the two points of view, the godly and the secular, was inevitable from the outset. “When human beings began to increase in number on the earth (note the allusion to multiplication in Genesis 1), and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful (remember Naamah), and they married any of them they chose. . . ” So the sons of God — the godly descendants of Seth, and those in alliance with them — looked outside of their own circle. They looked on the daughters of men, and saw that they were fair (Heb: towb). And they took unto them wives. Their choice was based upon lust, rather than spiritual qualities. These were choices of alliance arising from their own will, and not according to the will of God.

Thus the Godly line was distracted and drawn away: not by gross sin, not by a catastrophic fall from grace, but by their unequal “yoking” to the daughters of men (2 Cor. 6:14) and by the everyday acts of “eating drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” (Mt 24:38); choices which rendered them deaf and blind to the warnings of God.

In one brief phrase we are told that in those days the Nephilim (from naphal, to fall or cause to fall, the same word used for Cain’s hostile attitude in Genesis 4v6) were on the earth. It is tempting to infer that the Nephilim could be those “fallen from grace”, men of the first creation made in the image of God but intent on ruling Creation and subduing it for their own ends; while the sons of God and the daughters of Men alongside them were principally the descendants of Adam. This would however be a long shot, involving the reading of suppositions into the text.

While the identity of the Nephilim in Genesis is unclear, their behavioural context is not: references to “nephilim” in the land of Canaan (Numbers 13) concur with Genesis and indicate that Nephilim, as a category rather than a race, were beings of presence and stature; men to be feared.

The spiritual choice of the parents was evident in the offspring of these mixed marriages. After the example of these role models, they themselves became “Nephilim” and “gibborim” (the word giants is misleading): warriors, men of might, men of name. The language implies a warrior-culture, with domination, power, personality, heroism and fame as its essence. In modern parlance, the people formed armies, while their children joined the gangs.

And so it was that the world was full of wickedness. Man, having been made in the form (yatser) of God, had now degenerated to a godless state, in which the measure of goodness was the beauty of a woman, and in which “every form (yatser) of the intents of his heart was only evil, all the time”. God set a limit on the time of His breath continuing to animate mankind, or “spirit striving with flesh”, of one hundred and twenty years. This is not a limit on the longevity of individual lives, but a limit upon the endurance of God’s patience in the face of sustained unrepentance.

At the end of the 120 year grace period, despite Noah’s constant preaching, and God’s patient longsuffering, Noah and his family were the only remaining exceptions to a universal state of godlessness. So God determined to withdraw His spirit from the face of the earth.

Fallen angels?

In pagan accounts and mythologies the gods, motivated by physical human lust, have intercourse with human women, and beget demigods. Concepts of competing divinities, of rebellion, and of sexual intercourse between gods and humans, arise from inventive human minds, which devise gods and angels who think and behave like men. Such humanistic deities permeate pagan theology.

However, the text of the Genesis account, inspired by God, lays the blame for the corruption of mankind wholly and singularly at the feet of men (Genesis 6:5). It is men alone, and not angelic beings, who are condemned by God for the prevalence of wickedness in the earth.

As the attitude and wilfulness of Cain led to his judgment, so the attitudes and choices of the descendants of Seth judge them. God’s grief is with man alone; and His determination of an end to mankind is predicated on the choices and actions of men themselves.

In past centuries corrupt men, seeking to affirm pagan concepts of fallen angels and demons as the source of evil (a propensity to shift blame being intrinsic to human nature), have sought to portray the “sons of God” in Genesis as angels, by concocting pseudepigraphic writings purporting to be Scripture. Of this ilk are the Book of Enoch, and the Book of Jubilees, which actively cultivate the concept of disobedience in heaven as the cause of disobedience on earth.

Peter, in his second Letter (2 Peter 2:4) and Jude in his Letter (6, 14-15) refer to these books. Peter alludes to Enoch 10 and Enoch 20:2 regarding the imprisonment of fallen angels in Tartarus (a Greek mythological concept foreign to Hebrew theology). Jude quotes directly from Enoch 1:9. However in citing these passages as examples of the supremacy of God in judgment, they do not validate them as Divinely inspired texts. They simply approve specific statements within those texts which concur with truth, when they affirm the very real condemnation that awaits all those who disobey God.

The danger of postulating angelic rebellion is this. If God’s will is done in heaven; if the purpose of Christ’s work of salvation among men is that God’s will “be done on earth as it is in Heaven”, and if the angels in heaven ‘neither marry nor are given in marriage’ but enjoy a spiritual state of being that transcends physical needs and lusts: then how can there be temptation, evil or rebellion, or any thought of sin, among the immortal angels of God?

If angels can sin and rebel, or harbour treasonous thoughts, then Heaven is already a kingdom divided against itself, which cannot stand: and the abolition of evil in a divine Kingdom on earth is an empty gospel. The principle of Divine unity becomes a sham, our spiritual inheritance is morally no better than our present earthly state; and the primacy of the Divine Will is proven to be a delusional myth.

Genesis does not teach angelic rebellion, nor does the rest of Scripture. God’s Word teaches that sin is the result of human disobedience; that each individual is entirely responsible for his own sins; and that death is the reward for sin. Conversely, immortality is a state of eternal and willing obedience, a perfect unity of mind with the Creator, into which we enter through Christ, the perfect example (John 17:21-23).

The identity of the Nephilim and of the sons of God in this passage is almost deliberately obtuse. On one hand the context conclusively affirms human agency and human liability. On the other hand, if by the wisdom of God the Genesis text was capable of being read by pagans as a polemical, implied deference to the myths of demigods, in terms of an intercourse between gods/angels and human women prevalent among pagans, it was also capable of only one conclusive outcome; that any such beings and their offspring were not immortal, but were utterly destroyed in the judgment of God. Either way, God is omnipotent, and wholly victorious over evil.

Local contexts

The Flood story is unique in Genesis in that it contains inherent elements of oral narrative, such as multiple repetitions, throughout, and exhibits a unique literary style compared to the creation chapters and the post-flood accounts. The key themes of the narrative are stressed by emphatic repeats: the corruption of the earth, repeated threefold (7v10-13); the repeated account of sequestration in the ark (7v6-16); the threefold overwhelming of the land (7v18-20); the repeated emphasis on total extinction of life (7v21-23). At the end of the narrative, the occupants of the Ark finally emerge on to dry land.

Before we proceed further, we need to remind ourselves of the fundamental principle we established in discussing the Creation. That is, that we must approach the narrative in the context of the culture and cosmology in which it was given; and most importantly, that we must consciously divest ourselves of our modern scientific worldview before approaching the text.

Our concept of the word erets (land) is a planetary concept, which was completely foreign to the ancient Hebrews. As we saw in discussing Creation, their comprehension of earth and heavens was that of a land mass of limited and unknown extent, sitting in and surrounded by sea, covered over by a celestial vault; above which were the heavenly waters. The known land area beneath this bowl-like vault, centred on Babylonia, broadly extended from the Mediterranean eastward to India, and from Egypt northward to Armenia.

See also →
	The Primal Sea

In the process of Creation, we saw that on the second day, the waters were parted, becoming the upper and lower waters, while the heavens were created in the intervening space. On the third day, the lower sea was made to retreat from the land, which became dry and emergent, and a habitation for all breathing animals, including man. The lower waters were comprehended as the unfathomable deeps (tehom), passing under the land as well as surrounding it (Psalm 24:1, 2; 136:6; Deuteronomy 4:18, 5:8) and extending out beyond the circle of the earth (horizon); while the land “stood in, and out of, the water” (2 Peter 3v5).

See also →
	The waters above and below

The concept of the Flood is set forth within this socio-geographical and cosmological context. It involves the upwelling and return of the deeps to cover all of the dry land, compounded with a partial return of the upper waters to the lower, in the form of rain, through floodgates in heaven.

See also →
	The Foundations of the Earth

The Flood story is a narrative of functional reversal, relative to the formative account in Genesis 1. At the commencement of the first creation, the spirit of God (breathable space) was separated by universal waters from dry land — that is, the land was fully submerged. On the second day of Creation, the waters above were separated from the waters below to create the breathing-space of heaven, and on the third day, the land was separated laterally from the deeps to create dry land in contact with breathable space, which living beings could inhabit. These steps would now be partially reversed, so that the land was again completely submerged, and the heavens reduced to a space between the two waters, as it had been on the second day of Creation.

With the opening of floodgates in the raqia above, and upwelling of the tehom below, waters of inundation would cover the earth. Transgressing laterally on to the land and also falling upon it, these waters would ultimately divide the land from the breathing-space, leaving only a landless space between them. With separation of dust of the earth from the breath of life, all breathing life would perish. The only ones preserved would be those borne up upon an ark, and thereby able to maintain contact with the spirit, or breathable space, above the lower waters.

Once the process of cleansing was complete, God’s spirit, moving again on the face of the waters as at the beginning of Creation, would compel the waters to retreat into the deeps and out beyond the raqia until the land, cleansed of evil, was again dry (Gen 8v1).

The habitable creation was effectively perceived as a large hemispherical “bubble”, overarched, underlain, and fully enclosed by waters. Therefore the question of where the water came from, and where it went, creates no issues when comprehended in terms of the ancient cosmology.

This submergence and retreat, and withdrawal of breath from life, is the theme of Psalm 104 (q.v.).

⁶ You covered [the earth] with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
⁷ [But] at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
⁸ they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
. . . 
²⁹ When you hide your face, they are terrified;
when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.
³⁰ When you send your Spirit, they are created,

and you renew the face of the ground.

Imminent destruction

The narrative begins in 9v1 with another of those signatory toledot passages, signifying a transition, or segue, from the prophetic 120-year period of grace to the active commencement of judgment. The royal line of the sons of God on earth had become altogether corrupt. At the moment of action, there is only one man, whose just character redeems his immediate family: his wife, three sons and their wives. Of these no comment is passed regarding their character; their salvation is under the umbrella of the unique righteousness of Noah.

As such, Noah is a second type of Christ; a singular righteous person through whom God provides salvation by a similitude of baptism (1 Peter 3: 20, 21).

The difference between Noah and his peers was obedience. Gen 6v9: Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. And Noah walked with God.

In contrast with this is the corruption of the land, emphasised in a pattern of repeats:

the land was corrupt (shachath) before God; filled with violence (hamas).

And God looked on the land and it was corrupt (shachath),

for all flesh had corrupted (shachath) his way upon the land.

And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me,

for the land is filled with violence (hamas) through them;

I will destroy (shachath) them with the land.

The elimination of man and his corruption from the face of the earth is the purpose of the divine judgment; a figurative wiping clean of the terrestrial slate. The intent is to expunge mankind from dry land, not to geologically reconfigure a planet. The purpose of the Flood is not to lay down strata, but to eliminate sinful men.

In order to preserve Noah and his immediate family from the cataclysm, God commanded him to build an ark, and provided the requisite specifications. “Make an ark of goper wood. Nests you will make in the ark, and you will cover it inside and outside with pitch. The length will be three hundred cubits, the breadth fifty cubits, and the height thirty cubits. With lower, second and third storeys you will make it”. The dimensions of the ark give a footprint of about 3220sq.m. (4/5 acre), or with three decks, a total floor area of just under a hectare (2.5 acres).

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came on the earth. So Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him: and God shut him in.

The geology and geography of the Flood.

As we observed above, when extra-biblical teachings are cited in Scripture, they are converted to teach the message of God. The Flood account bears striking parallels with similar, Babylonian mythological accounts, indicating that the story is taken from pagan sources but used as a parable or polemic to Divine ends.

As indicated in the first chapters of Genesis, the events of the flood are centred in the region of Babylonia. The rivers of Tigris and Euphrates are part of the pre-Flood geography of Eden (Genesis 2), and are extant today. The descendants of Noah are generally accepted to be the progenitors of the nations of those same Middle Eastern regions (Genesis 10). In chapter 11 v2, we are told that after the Flood, the people moved eastward (forward) to the Babylonian Plains (Shinar); and in 11:31 that Abram’s forebears emigrated out of Ur in Babylonia. These observations are consistent with the contemporary cosmology. Close parallels between the Babylonian legends and the Genesis account would therefore not be unexpected; differentiated of course by an attribution to different gods.

The Babylonian account, in the legends of Atrahasis and of Gilgamesh, takes place along the following lines (note the 1200 year periods, reminiscent of God’s 120 year grace period):

The chief of the gods was fed up and sleepless with the constant noise and chaos of the humans, who had been created to do the work of the menial and lesser gods. So he sent a plague to annihilate them. This failed. After 1200 years he sent a famine. That too failed. After another 1200 years, he decided to send a flood.

One man, Utnapishtim, was warned by one of the lesser gods of the impending cataclysm, and urged to build a boat to save himself and his family. Specifications for the boat were provided: 120X120X120 cubits, six decks, built of timber and sealed with pitch.

Utnapishtim boarded the vessel with his family, a crew, his animals, and all of the beasts and animals of the field. There was a furious storm lasting seven days and seven nights. Water flooded the land. After one day, land was seen, and the boat lodged on Mount Nimish.

Seven days later he released a raven, a swallow, and a dove. The dove returned to him, the raven did not.

Upon disembarking, he released the animals, and offered a sacrifice. The gods smelled the savour and gathered round. The chief god made an oath and swore by the symbol of his lapis lazuli necklace, that he would not forget those days.

Utnapishtim was blessed, and became immortal as one of the gods.

The plains of Babylon are broad and level, watered by the meanderings of two of the Edenic rivers: Tigris and Euphrates. Essentially, the land is flat. To the north lies the great mountain range of Urartu (Ararat), known today as the Zagros Range, rising to an average elevation of 4000 metres.

Geologically, the area comprises what is known as a collision margin, where one continental mass, on one tectonic plate, has been inexorably forced into another continental mass, on the adjoining plate. The Zagros Mountains comprise a belt of raised, ancient geological strata. Atop them lies a stratovolcano (modern Mount Ararat), rising to a height of 5100m above sea level.

The geologically depressed lowland to the south, the Mesopotamian Basin, contains up to 10km (vertically) of less deformed, often fossiliferous, oil-bearing strata, representing multiple geological epochs, and extensively mapped and described in numerous oil exploration boreholes. From these strata arise seeps of natural bitumen (pitch).

These details were of course irrelevant and unknown to the author of the story, whose principal focus was the annihilation of all life from the surface of the land. However, as part of the integral framework of the region, they become of significance to our modern interpretations and understandings, and hence they are mentioned here.

The lowlands are largely covered by fertile alluvial plains, across which the Euphrates and Tigris rivers make their way to the sea. These plains and their upland surroundings are the geographic cradle of the land of Noah, and form the pre-diluvian stage for the enactment of the Great Flood.

The Flood begins

“Seven days later the flood came. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the floodgates of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. And the Flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased, and lifted up the ark. And the waters prevailed, and were increased more upon the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed more and more upon the earth. And all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail, and the mountains were covered.”

The Hebrew word for flood, mabbul, almost unique to Genesis, is completely different to the usual words used in Scripture to define riverine flooding. The account given in the text is one of an inexorable, unstoppable and total inundation, which covered all of the high land under the whole heaven. The statement that the flood rose to cover the mountains indicates that the land, and its pre-existing topography, were inert and passive, relative to the actively rising waters.

The ancient cosmology was overturned. Through the windows (flood gates) of heaven poured the waters of the celestial ocean. Up from cleft open springs welled the waters of the tehom, the fathomless deep, advancing upon the land in the manner of an incessant tsunami. To confirm that no land remained emergent, and no escape for any breathing creature was possible, we are told that the water prevailed fifteen cubits upward (half the height of, and probably more than the draft of, the ark) covering even the highest mountains. The devastation was total:

“And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing, and of man; All in whose nostrils was the breath of life;
All that was in the dry land, died.
And every living thing was destroyed that was on 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 only Noah remained alive, and those that were with him in the ark.”

The record is emphatic and repetitive in assuring us of the totality of the annihilation of terrestrial life. All land was covered. All living things that breathed air, died. Only those in the ark remained alive. And to ensure totality of annihilation, the waters prevailed a hundred and fifty days.

The time frame of the flood is set out by reference to calendar months (of a standard Hebrew duration of thirty days), within which framework periods of days are set. There is an interesting preponderance of the final integers 0, 1, 2 and 7.

After a seven day warning, the flood came on the earth.

On the seventeenth day of the second month, the flood commenced. It rained for forty days and forty nights. Then God remembered Noah, stopped the rain, and turned the tide.

The waters prevailed on the earth (covered it) for a total of 150 days (40 + 110 days, or five months).

On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.

The waters decreased steadily until the first day of the tenth month. Hilltops became visible.

After forty days Noah sent out birds- a raven, and a dove.

In the first day of the first month, the waters were dried up.

On the twenty seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.

The total duration of the flood was 1 year and 10 days.

The extent of the flood, considered within the framework and spatial constraints of ancient contemporary cosmology, is impressive. If the account is literal, the height of the waters must have reached at least 4000m above sea level to cover the Zagros Range, or over 5100m to cover the summit of Mount Ararat.

Even taken literally, a passive inundation is implied. God’s specific purpose was to cleanse the face of the land, not to remodel the landscape. Unlike the sediment-rich waters of a Flood derived wholly from erosive rainfall, inundations such as tsunami bring clear, oceanic waters on to the land, and leave little sediment. Unconfined water, with little or no downhill gradient and little or no sediment load, rapidly loses any erosive power as it deepens. Thus the Flood, as described, after some initial pluvial erosion, would have cleansed the land passively as it deepened, without any significant geographic alteration.

Euphrates and Tigris were rivers in Eden before the Flood. The alluvial plains of these ancient rivers are superimposed upon over 10km of fossiliferous strata representing multiple geological epochs. These two same rivers were present after the Flood, as part of the same recognisable landscape, as they remain there to this day. As the strata underlying the alluvial plains also underlie the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, they must also pre-date the Flood.

In contrast to the Babylonian account, there is no mention of a turbulent storm, or of any wind, driving or heaping up the waters on the land. The implication is that the waters of the Flood, with their fragile living flotsam, were relatively quiescent in their rising. Only when the rain and the inundation ceased, did God provide a wind to steadily drive them back. “And God made a wind to pass over the waters, and the waters assuaged. The fountains of the deep were stopped, and the rain restrained. And the waters receded continually from off the earth.”

After 150 days the Ark rested on the mountain-range of Ararat. The waters continued to recede, and after 74 days other mountain tops were seen. Thereafter there was a continuous, slow abatement, until the waters were completely gone.

Seeing emergent land, after 40 days Noah opened the window of the Ark and released two birds. The raven (a bird of carrion before the flood?) never returned. The dove came back. Seven days later he released the dove again, and it returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf. The presence of a fresh leaf, rather than withered flotsam, indicated that vegetation was again beginning to grow as the waters departed. Again seven days, and he released the dove, which never returned.

Discussion

The story of the Flood is one that stands out in memory, probably because of the impression it generates of sheer magnitude and of utter totality. But are we intended to take it literally? Any interpretation of the Flood in terms of modern global, planetary cosmology lies completely outside of the context of the Flood narrative, and is inherently faced with serious logical challenges. A literal reading in terms of modern cosmology generates some very interesting difficulties. We understand today that the land of the Flood narrative is not a geographical open system linked to unfathomable reservoirs of upper waters and chaotic and limitless deeps, but part of a global closed system in which harmonious physical laws operate. These observations present some significant challenges to a literalist reading.

What was the lateral extent of the Flood? Is the universal flood of Noah’s world to be seen, in terms of our modern geographical knowledge, as a global flood of planetary extent? If all terrestrial life was explicitly destroyed, how did this affect life, animal and human, on antipodean continents? If the Flood was local only, yet sufficient to cover the Zagros Range, how did a 4 to 5 km deep bulge of water affect the stability and rotation of the planet? After the ark was opened, how did the animals disperse to their various ecosystems, across great oceans, resulting not in a global faunal universality, but in marked ecological diversity, with unique flora and fauna restricted to specific islands and continents?

Even in the context of a local flood, there are significant difficulties with a literal reading. Outside of the Ark, what happened to fresh water and marine life, in the universal harmonisation of salinity? Or to vegetation and its seeds, steeped in brackish water for months? Inside the Ark, how were communal insects such as bees and ants preserved, if they only came in by twos or by sevens? What food did Noah provide for them? Calculations of the food required to sustain each animal for a year, multiplied to satisfy all of the animals in the ark, present a challenge when weighed against the size and capacity of the ark. Then there are the water requirements for each animal, particularly after the first forty days, when the rains had ceased, leaving “water, water everywhere and nary a drop to drink.”

If we attempt to extend the scope of the flood to include terrestrial remodelling, and the generation of all the fossiliferous strata of the planet, we encounter a set of problems of even greater magnitude. Not the least of these is maintaining the integrity of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, while neatly inserting 10km of fossiliferous strata beneath them in correct geological order. The fact that pitch is used to seal the ark, and that natural springs of pitch in the Mesopotamian lowlands derive from the same fossiliferous, oil-bearing strata, cause an additional complication of which-came-first.

If the Flood is literal, the investment of miraculous effort requisite to achieve the specific goal, of the extinction of all breathing life outside the Ark, is far in excess of that needed: an outcome which a global visit from the Angel of Death (Ex 12:29) would have easily achieved. One has either to invoke miraculous intervention of profligate extent to support a literal interpretation; or to regard the narrative as a hyperbolic parable of salvation based upon an ancient cosmology.

How did God intend the flood account to be read? Many today insist that it is to be taken as absolute and literal truth, and that it was universal in extent. However when we examine the literary style of the Flood story, it bears hallmarks of primitive oral narrative: a simple tale emphatically told, with reprises, and emphatic repetition of key words and phrases. Its striking parallelism to Babylonian myth, yet its completely different causative purpose, suggests the annexation and adaptation of a local myth to polemically teach spiritual certainty (that God hates evil, and that God is in control). Whether this is so, or not, each reader must decide for themselves, on the merits of evidence.

The conclusion of the account is strikingly similar to the conclusion of the Babylonian version. “And Noah built an altar to God, and offered burnt offerings, of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl. And the Lord smelled a soothing savour, and he made an oath. “Never again shall I curse the ground for man’s sake, though the imagination of his heart is evil from his youth; never again shall I smite every living thing, as I have done.” In lieu of the sky-blue necklace of the Babylonian deity, God’s rainbow becomes the covenant symbol.

The calming effect of obedience and of propitiation has a very deep effect on God; so deep that He will vow to be merciful, even though the root cause of his anger remains. This is the effect that our obedience, our willing offering, and our prayers, can have with the God whom we serve.

The account ends with a poetic asseveration declaring the sustained preservation of agricultural conditions from that day forward, in four couplets bracketed by statements of continuity:

While the days of the land continue

Seedtime and harvest

Cold and heat

Summer and winter

Day and night

Shall not cease.

A new covenant

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the land. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moves on the land, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every living thing shall be meat for you, even as the green herb I have given you all things.”

In Genesis 8:20, the purpose of the clean/unclean distinction appears to be relevant to sacrifice only. Under the Law of Moses, the distinction was extended to include culinary usage, as the people were separated to God; so that what was unclean to Him was also unclean to them. Outside of the Law of Moses, according to God’s blessing upon Noah, all flesh is clean in terms of human consumption.

Yet there is one prohibition, as in Eden; one “thou shalt not.” Just as Adam was given the right to eat of all green plants, except one tree, so all flesh is given for food, except one part. Bound together with this is a law of accountability explicitly acknowledging and forbidding the sin of Cain, applied to man, and extended also to the animals:

“But flesh with the life in it, which is the blood of it, you shall not eat.
And surely the blood of your lives I will require:
At the hand of every beast will I require it:
And at the hand of man:

At the hand of every man’s brother will I require it.”

In these multiple blessings and commands are combined the blessings of the first creation (fruitfulness, rulership, food), and the responsibilities of the second (a Divine command of prohibition). In Noah the priestly and secular are combined in one; and a continuing relationship with God is affirmed under one covenant with all of mankind.

Adam left the Garden under disgrace; but Noah leaves the sequestration of the Ark in grace, to till the soil as his forebear had done (9v20). One wonders where Noah’s grandchildren found partners, short of marrying their first cousins; but this is only of concern to a literal interpretation of the text.

Flood and Fire

See also →
	2 Peter 3:2,5-13

In a very interesting analogy, the apostle Peter compares the flood of Noah to a future conflagration, with both events having the same purpose. 2 Peter 3:

“Firstly, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say “where is the coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.
But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the land was formed by water and out of water (the Creation)
By the same waters the world of that time was deluged and destroyed (the Flood)
By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will pass away with a roar; the elements (Greek: ordered arrangements) will be consumed with fire, and the earth and everything in it will be burnt up. But we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth, filled with righteousness.”

The purpose of the future fire is the same as that of the past flood: a cleansing of evil. As the world of that time was deluged and destroyed, the present heavens are reserved likewise for judgment and destruction by fire; whereafter a new, cleansed heaven and earth take their place.

Is Peter speaking of a literal destruction of heaven and earth by fire? Not at all. His allusion is to Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22, echoed in Revelation 20 and also in Hebrews 12:26. He is speaking of a change in the order of things, a judgment; a cleansing by fire of the old corruption of evil, in order to make way for a renewal in righteousness.

If the prophetic cleansing of the future is spiritual rather than literal, and if types are shadows of things to come (not vice versa), should not the same principle apply to the cleansing of the past?

The import and impact of the Flood narrative for us is neither in literality nor in allegory, but in the message that it teaches. As Jude’s citation of the Book of Enoch, a pseudepigraphical fiction, by no means diminishes the truth of his lesson regarding God’s judgment of evil men, and as Paul’s citation of a Greek epic poem to declare God’s supremacy by no means promotes worship of Zeus, so the spiritual lesson of the Flood is no less valid if the narrative is shown to be an inspired, Spiritual parable drawn from Babylonian epic myth. As God Himself says to His people Isaiah 54:7-10:

“For a small moment I have forsaken thee, but with great mercies I will gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee”.

It is the everlasting mercy of God that is paramount.

Next: New Beginnings →

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