02 Genesis 6-11

So, during the lifetime of Noah, there was quite a large population on the earth. This is now 9 generations since Adam and Eve started the family of mankind on the earth. But the people were starting to be thought of as being wicked by the lord. 

 

Definitely confusing here is the statement “the sons of God saw the daughters of men…” So the sons came from god, and the daughters from men?

  

The daughters of men were beautiful, so the sons of god took them for wives.

Were they not commanded to be fruitful and multiply? Are they not doing god’s bidding? 

 

But god was not happy that they were wicked and only had evil in their hearts. God was getting sorry that he had made man in the first place, and thought it was time to change the plan. He said that he will destroy man from the face of the earth, and the beasts and birds as well.  Only Noah found grace in the eyes of the lord. And Noah had his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.

 

Now the earth was corrupt and filled with violence and god looked at it all and was very displeased. So he said to Noah that the end of all flesh is about to happen and that it is time for Noah to build an Arc, full instructions and dimensions given, and get ready for the flood that would wipe out everything on the earth.

 

Of all the people on the earth, seems that only Noah, his wife, three sons and the wives of the three sons, were not evil and worth saving. So they have the job of building a boat and gathering all the pairs of the animals, and keeping them to repopulate the earth.

Apparently, re-creation after the flood was not an option.

 

Then Noah gets instructions a bit more specific about the animals about numbers of clean animals and numbers of unclean animals. (not just one pair per species!). From this instruction, Noah had only 7 days to get them all into the Arc because that was when it was going to start raining and the flood would be started. Noah was then 600 years old at the time of the flood.

 

The rain kept up for 40 days and the flood was on the face of the earth, and everything was destroyed that had been created so far in the history of the earth with the exception of what was on the arc that was built by Noah. Even the mountains were covered and the flood prevailed upon the earth for 150 days. So, finally, after 7 months, the arc came to rest on the mountain of Ararat. The water kept going down for another three months until in the tenth month when the tops of the mountains were seen. (The arc rested on the top of Mt Ararat but the tops of the mountains were not seen for another three months?)

 

Noah sent out a raven, and the bird just flew around until the waters dried up. The sent out a dove, but it found nowhere to rest. (although the tops of the mountains had been seen, but not by the dove?)

 

Noah sent out the dove again, and, even though every living thing had been killed by a flood lasting nearly a year, the dove came back with an olive leaf. So this was how Noah knew that the waters had abated. He sent the dove out in another 7 days, and it did not come back, and that was considered a good sign (although there were no other birds out there at that time, except for maybe one lost raven, so guess he was a bit of a loner kind of dove.)

 

Finally, the arc is opened and god said for Noah to go forth with his wife and sons and their wives and bring forth all the living things with them. They were to go out into the world and start to multiply to regenerate all the world’s animals over again. Noah built an alter and took of every clean beast and every clean fowl, and burned them as an offering to god.

Seemed that some of the animals so carefully kept for so long in the arc were expendable after all?

 

God liked the sweet savor of the burning flesh of all these animals and then made a deal not to curse the earth again and not to destroy it again with a flood, and put up the rainbow to remind everyone that he had made this deal. He also made the promise: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (World without end?)

 

Now god again gives Noah and his family the dominion over all the animals and makes them fear him because man in the dominant animal on the earth and all the others are there to be meat for him. But there are some warnings about man killing man and this is not allowed as man is made in the image of god.

 

And so god tells Noah and his sons to go forth and multiply and it is written that the entire population of the earth would come from Noah and his sons and their wives. And that every moving that lives on earth shall be meat for them just as the green herbs that have been given. But you should not eat the life, or the blood, of them.

And then some cryptic stuff about the blood of their lives will be required by god at the hand of every beast? And at the hand of every man’s brother will god require the life of man.

 

Biblical paradox: Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.  (Figure it out – not okay for man to kill a man, but if he does, okay for a man to kill him).

 

They are all told again to multiply; bring abundantly n the earth, and multiply therein. 

 

Then Noah, having planted a vineyard, and being fond of a little wine, got drunk, and passed out in his tent and was lying there naked. His son Ham, the father of Canaan, saw him lying there naked and told his two brothers about it.  Shem and Japheth took a garment, put it across their shoulders, walked backwards into the tent so that they could not see Noah naked (although Ham had seen him naked), and dropped the covering on their father.

 

Noah woke up, discovered what they had done, and cursed Canaan. He said that Canaan would be a servant of servants. He said that Shem would be blessed and Canaan would be his servant. Also that god would favor Japheth, let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan would be his servant.

Not known why Ham’s son Canaan comes in line for all this cursing – according to the story it wasn’t his fault that his grandfather decided to get totally drunk and collapse naked and neither Ham nor Canaan weren’t there for the covering up of the old man in the attempt to salvage his dignity. But Canaan was handed the punnishment for it and so did all his decedents.

 

Finally, Noah died when he was 950 years old.

 

Chapter 10 of Genesis describes a lot of the descendents of Noah, none of whom come to figure in the story after this. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

 

Now at this time, all the people of the earth having come from the one place, that is Noah and his three sons, were all speaking the same language. Many of the people at the time wanted to build a city and a great tower that could reach up to heaven and they wanted to do this so that they could be remembered in case they were all scattered throughout the earth.

 

The lord took a look at the tower that they built, and thought that it was clear that there was nothing that they could not do once they had a mind to do it. God was not pleased that men were becoming so competent, so he said: “Let US go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 

No real justification for this other than that god just did not want men to be able to do such things together.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from there did the lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

 

Now we go on to the decedents of Shem, son of Noah, through all the generations to Terah, and Terah was the father of Abram (later known as Abraham). Terah took his son Abram and Sarai, his wife, and they went from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan, and them they came to Haran, and lived there. Terah died in Haran at the age of 205 years.

 

Continued…………