The Ark

I. At the conclusion of the list of patriarchs and before the great deluge, the text gives us a review of the state of Adam's descendent's.

A. Same story new song. The "Sons of God" began to marry the “daughters of men" amounts to God's children marrying pagans and thus became corrupted. For God's people, see Gen. 4:25.

B. God's Spirit dwelling with man. A common interpretation is that it was God's Spirit that gave men such long lives (see chapter 5). God is now revoking that privilege. Man will now live no longer than 120 years. That is, 120 years to the flood. Luther, Calvin and Augustine interpret this section as God allowing man to live on earth for 120 years before the flood. A reprieve, if you will. In chapter 11: 10-26 we find people living longer than 120 after the flood. This latter interpretation is probably correct and reflected in 1st Peter 3:20. "When God waited patiently in the days of Noah which the ark was being built." That is, God gave man a 120 years reprieve before he destroyed them.

C. So, what about the "Nephilim.ⁱⁱ" This Hebrew word is used elsewhere in the Pentateuch to refer to people of great size,” who were in the land of Canaan at the time of the Exodus. (Numbers 13:32-33). [Nephilim means the fallen ones and does not have to mean a race of giants but rather of great men]

D. The "Sons of God came to bed" with the daughters of men. Literally, having sex with the daughters of men.

A. A reversal of fortunes. The land and all in it was good (chapter 1&2) but now the land and all in it are not good.

B. Mankind has the knowledge of good and evil and it will be their demise. Every thought and action of man is evil.

C. V.6 not sorry as above but "grieved." Same as reflected in "Eve's" pangs. God was in a grieving period. Now, we have a word play. The author refers to Lamech's naming of Noah (He will comfort us) and also in 5:29. Thus, the introduction of Noah in both texts is associated with "comfort from God.” Noah will be God's comfort from grief and pain caused by rebellion.

E. Verse 9-12--- The Flood account starts in verse 9 with a description of Noah's righteousness.

1. Noah found favor (grace) and his righteousness is contrasted with "all flesh" not being righteous.

2. The story is very straight forward. God saved Noah, because "he walked with God.” The same reason was given for the salvation of Enoch.

3. Back to Hebrews 11:7 and we see that Noah as was Abel walking by faith. But as noted prior, the Biblical definition of faith also means obedience.

A. The building of the Ark and the account of Creation and later the building of the Tabernacle are similar.

1. God speaks, and action is commanded and the command is carried out. Then, the narrative ends with a divine blessing (Gen. 1:28; 9:1; Ex. 39:43).

B. V.14, the size and shape of the Ark are in very general terms. The word "ark" in Hebrew is borrowed from the Egyptians and means "palace." Some older erroneous interpretations of the word defined it as a "box" or "coffin."

C. The materials the Ark was made from may have been "cypress wood” but most likely "gopher wood" and it was sealed with "pitch." (Tar).

E. Archeology has told us that the city of Byblos, a shipyard on the Syrian coast had the capacity to build giant ships by the mid-second century B.C. so, Noah building a large "Ark" would not have been all that new of an idea. Before 2200 B.C. these were known as Byblos boats.

F. Even then, the "Ark" was an enormous boat, but by modern standards, Noah's boat was about the size of a small cargo ship.

G. Verse 16---The ark had three stories or decks of rooms. It had an opening for light and a door in the side.

1)Ark, from Hebrew word for “chest)’ or “box.” Made of gopher wood (resinous trees, probably cypress, as used in ancient shipbuilding) . Rooms: literally, nests, metaphorically descriptive of the chambers of the ark.

Caulked with pitch (bitumen), typical of Mesopotamian work. Note the three stories (v. 16) : the text suggests that the chambers (cabins or cells) were arranged according to some definite plan, probably in rows on each side of the ark, with a passageway through the middle (or vice versa), and placed in tiers, one above the other. The vessel was obviously built in the form of a flatboat, designed, not for navigation, but solely for floating on the surface of the water. “While the statement in v. 16 can be taken in the traditional sense as describing three stories, it is also possible to understand it to indicate three layers of logs laid cross-wise, a view which would accord well with a construction of wood, reeds, and bitumen” (NBD, s.u.).

(2) The Dimensions of the Ark are given as 300 x 70 x 30 cubits. The common cubit was about 18 inches in length, the supposed average distance from the point of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger (Deut. 3:11).

There was another cubit known, however, which was a handbreadth longer than the common cubit. Petrie, the noted Egyptologist, expresses the view that even the common cubit measured 22 inches. (See. Fl, Rehwinkeel, 59). (See NBD, under “Weights and Measures”).

THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD 6:9-17 According to the lower standard, the ark would have measured 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and forty-five feet high. According to the higher figure (22 to 24 inches, based on the likelihood that man before the Flood was of larger stature than modern man, and that the length from his elbow to the end of his middle finger was even longer than the suggested 22 inches), the ark would have been six hundred feet in length, one hundred feet in width, and sixty feet in height. By way of comparison, the battleship Owgoii, 348 feet long and 69 feet wide, was built in the same proportions as to length and width as the ark. The famous Titanic was 825 feet long and 93 feet wide with a displacement of 46,000 tons.

“Marine experts have estimated that since the ark was built with a flat bottom and there was no waste space on the bow or stern, it being square on both ends and straight up on its side, it would have had a displacement of about 43,000 tons, a displacement nearly equal to that of the ill-fated Titanic.

(3)Windows and Doors “A light shalt thou make to the ark” (note marginal rendering) . “To a cubit you shall finish it upward.”

Rotherham: “A place for light shalt thou make for the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upwards,” etc.

The new American translation gives it: “You are to make a roof for the ark, finishing it off at the top to the width of a cubit.” The Hebrew word here indicates clearly a space for light, or a space by which the light could be admitted into the vessel, “The door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof,” etc. Rotherham: “The opening of the ark in the side thereof shalt thou put.” Laiige thinks that each flat or story had an entrance or door in the side.

(4) Note the construction: v. 17--“And I, behold, I do bring,” etc.; an emphatic declaration that the impending judgment was truly a Divine visitation, not simply a natural occurrence.

The Old College Press

A question of some import arises at this point, namely, Were the Nephilim of a pre-Adamic breed? Certainly this is not to be regarded as an impossibility.

Cf. Archer (SOTT, 188-189) : “To revert to the problem of the Pithecanthropus, the Swanscombe man, the Neanderthal and all the rest (possibly even the Cro-Magnon man, who is apparently to be classed as Homo sapiens, but whose remains seem to date back at least to 20,000 B.C.), it seems best to regard these races as all prior to Adam’s time, and not involved in the Adamic covenant.

We must leave the question open, in view of the cultural remains, whether these pre-Adamite creatures had souls (or, to use the trichotomic terminology, spirits). But the implication of Genesis 1:26 is that God was creating a qualitatively different being when He made Adam (for note that the word rendered ‘man’ in Gen. 1:26, 27 is the Hebrew ‘AcEa?n’)a, being who was uniquely fashioned in the image of God. Only Adam and his descendants were infused with the breath of God and a spiritual nature corresponding to God Himself. Romans 5:12-21 demands that all mankind subsequent to Adam’s time, at least, must have been literally descended from him, since he entered into covenant relationship with God as the representative of the entire race of man. This indicates that there could have been no true genetic relationship between Adam (the first man created in the image of God) and the pre-Adamic races. However close the skeletal structure of the Cro- Magnon man (for example) may have been to Homo sapieus, this factor is scarcely relevant to the principal.

Noah and his household ; the remaining verses simply state the arraignments with regard to orders.

This question is suggested by the Divine declaration, Gen. 6 : 3 , “My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever.” What has history to say with reference to this pronouncement? It is interesting to note that the three over-all “philosophies” of history originated with the three great Greek historians.

Herodotus (5th century B.C.) was the first to give us what may rightly be called the ethical interpretation: namely, that history is largely the record of the work of the goddess Nemesis, Retributive Justice, who inevitably interferes in human affairs to overthrow inordinate human pride, ambition and insolence. thesis is that our Western culture will survive only if it responds in a positive way to these basic needs or challenges.

Thucydides (c. 471 -400 B.C.) emphasized the strictly seczhristic interpretation of history: namely, that the events of history are brought about by purely secular (chiefly economic) causes. This view is echoed in modern times, first by Machiavelli, and later by Marx and Lenin with their theory of economic determinism and accompanying substitution of expediency for morality.

Polybius (c. 205-c. 125 B.C.) gives us the fatalistic view, namely, that all events of history are predetermined by a Sovereign Power, variously named Fate, Fortune, Destiny, etc. He gives us-accurately-the history of the Roman republic; his thesis is that Fortune foreordained that Rome should become the mistress of the world. (Of . Course, he died, long before the Roman Republic degenerated into the Empire of the Caesars). Polybius was a Stoic, and this was the Stoic philosophy. This view is represented in our day, in a somewhat different form of course, by Oswald Spengler, in his massive work, The Decline of the West. According to Spengler, every culture inevitably passes through its four seasons-spring, summer, fall, and winter-the last-named being the period of decay ending in death, the period that should be properly designated.