Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 6 | Date: May 22, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

We pray in Jesus’ name, amen. All right, Genesis chapters 6 through 9, we have the record of the Genesis flood. Genesis 6 verses 1 to 8 give us sort of a setup for it, and we will look at that next week, but chapter 6 you’ll notice verse 9 begins a new section of the book of Genesis. This is book three of Genesis now, if we want to call it that. You remember the way Moses has divided the book with this expression: “These are the generations of.”

“These are the generations of,” or in the one case, “The book of the generations of.” That expression, “the generations of,” divides the book into the various sections that Moses has for us. So in chapter 2, if you’d like to look, chapter 2 verse 4, for reminder: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth.” That is, this is what the heavens and the earth produce, and here comes the story. That’s the heading of that section.

Chapter 5 and verse 1 then, if you want to look back at that: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” And so now we see the descendants of Adam. That’s the heading for that section. Now we come to chapter 6 and verse 9: “These are the generations of Noah.” And here we have the story of Noah.

And then you want to look ahead, chapters 10 and 11. The flood story takes us from chapter 6 through 9. Chapter 10, verse 1: “These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” So we have the next section after that. After that, we have the generations of Terah, which, of course, is the story of Abraham. It’s late in chapter 11, takes us to chapter 12 and following. And then we have the “these are the generations of Isaac,” “these are the generations of Jacob”—Moses’ major divisions of the book.

We saw the interest that Moses has in genealogies. We saw it in Chapter 5. We glanced ahead at Chapter 11. And now Noah is exactly midway in the genealogy between Adam and Abraham. So we have the genealogy from Adam to Noah. It’s quick and with little comment along the way. And then we have the genealogy of Noah to Abraham. And that’s really rather quick as well as far as the genealogy is concerned. But it does have this lengthy narrative of the flood. And so this is a significant development in the story that Moses wants to elaborate on, and Noah in Moses’ view, obviously, is a pivotal figure in redemptive history. So this is a major event that Moses wants to take some time on.

What we will do is take the next two weeks after today, I think, or two or three weeks, and look at the flood story and the various things around it and the aftermath in Chapter 9. Today, what I thought we would do is just take our time to read through the narrative, make some comments along the way, get a good overview of what the passage has to say, and then we’ll look at some of the themes next week and the following weeks.

Chapter 6, Verse 9, Through the End of Chapter 9

So by way of overview, this is Chapter 6, Verse 9, through the end of Chapter 9. It’s the story of Noah and his family. So Chapter 6, Verse 9, we have the superscript, the heading: “These are the generations of Noah.” And then Chapter 6, Verse 9b, all the way through Chapter 9, we have the main story. Actually, chapter 9 verse 18 and following, we have the aftermath of the story. We have Noah’s prophecies regarding his three sons. We will look at those.

But let’s begin then with chapter 6 verse 9. Here Noah is introduced as a righteous man in contrast to the world around him. “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God, and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt, for all the flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”

So you see the repetition of the idea of violence and corruption—it’s corrupt, it’s corrupt, it’s violent. This is the background to the flood. It’s an important factor; it’s not a detail in the story. It’s the reason for God’s blessing on Noah and it’s the reason for the judgment that will come. Noah, it tells us, in contrast to this corruption and violence, is a righteous man who walks with God. And we’re led to think that that then is the reason for his blessing that God gave, and he’s the one in whom others are blessed as well. We’ll see more of that in the coming weeks.

All right, verse 13. Chapter 6, here, verses 13 to 22, God announces his intentions and he gives his commands to Noah to build the ark with detailed instructions. “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, 300 cubits, its breadth, 50 cubits, its height, 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, 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 its life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ark, you and 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, of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind. Two of every sort shall come into 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 and did all that God commanded him.”

All right, in verse 14, we have the instructions about the ark, the dimensions of it, to seal it with pitch, triple deck ark—massive, massive ship. Those who know such things tell us that the dimensions of the ark and the way it’s constructed is absolutely brilliant; it’s seaworthy entirely. We shouldn’t be surprised at that. Verse 17, he gives the reason for building the ark, because “I’ll bring a flood and I’m gonna destroy everything.” Verses 18 and following, we have the passenger list: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives, and that’s it. And then the food supply as well. And God says in verse 18, “I will establish my covenant with you.” We’ll read more of that in chapter 9. But he tells him that up front; we’ll want to keep that in mind.

All right, then we come to chapter 7. We have the command to enter the ark. “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, 40 days and 40 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.”

You might have heard of, in the ancient Near East, there were various flood accounts. The Babylonians had theirs, and the Sumerians and various cultures had their flood accounts. And the critics, of course, have liked to make some points with that. But one of the major differences—and you’ve heard me talk before about polemic theology, where Moses will bring up some things that echo surrounding nations and their myths and their religions, just to one-up them and to show the greatness of God over their gods—there’s a little bit of that here I think going on. There’s one difference between the Mesopotamian flood accounts is that in those accounts what we have is one of the gods commissioning the men to build the ark so that the gods would survive the great deluge that was coming. Here we have God calling the shots, God himself sending the floods, and God taking the initiative with man to spare him. So it’s quite a difference that’s going on here. But it is an awful scene already. God is going to wipe out everything that he’s made except for those that he has specified.

So chapter seven now, verses six and following, we have the introduction to the flood event itself. “Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth, and Noah and his sons and his wife and his son’s wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, of animals that are not clean, 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 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened, and rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. On the very same day, Noah and his sons, Shem, 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 its breath of life. Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God commanded, and the Lord shut him in.”

So here we have a careful accounting of the passengers. We have a careful accounting of the cargo, the dates, the days, the numbers of days. And notice earlier, we had an account also, and it’s not just the two and two, but also of the clean animals. There were the seven that were brought in, and that, of course, will become very important later in the story, which, of course, now is when Moses is writing, when these clean animals are specified for sacrifice. And in fact, after the flood, Noah will offer one of those for sacrifice himself.

All right, verse 17 and following, we have the flood event itself accounted for. “The flood continued 40 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, 15 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 a hundred and fifty days.”

Now here in just short shrift, Moses is highlighting the severity of the flood. And if you read this too quickly, you don’t really get a feel or a sense for just how devastating this is. So you have waters above all of the mountains, all of the mountains under heaven covered. By the way, there’s a signal there of the universality of the flood. There have been many even evangelicals who have tried to back away from that and say it was just a localized flood, but it’s pretty clear here. He’s talking about a universal flood. All the mountains under the heavens are covered and everything on the earth is destroyed. It’s just a devastating universal judgment and the only ones spared were Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. Verse 23: “He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground.” Amazing statement. Imagine what Noah and his family felt when they came out of the ark. The only living things are right there on the boat.

God Remembered Noah

Chapter 8 and verse 1, we have the central statement of the narrative. And I’ll come back to this in a little while, but I want you to notice that as Moses has constructed the account, this is the very center. It’s the center statement: “But God remembered Noah.” We’ll see the significance of that in a little bit.

All right, chapter 8 verses 1 to 14, we have the account of the floods receding. “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 17th day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the 10th month. In the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. At the end of the 40 days, Noah opened the windows 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 601st year of 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 27th day of the month, the earth had dried out.”

Marvelous account here in many ways. In terms of the narrative that we’ve been following since Genesis chapter 1, we should notice here that in chapter 8 and verse 1 here, we have certain echoes of Genesis 1. “God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided.” That’s a faint echo of Genesis 1:2, where God created the heavens and the earth and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. So here we have the waters and the chaos over the Earth at the initial creation, the Spirit of God hovering over it, and now the wind blowing over the Earth. So there’s an echo of that. So we have the Spirit of God pushing back the waters, bringing order out of the chaos that has been of the flood, and Earth is now made inhabitable by separating the land from the water again as he did at the original creation.

In verses 6 and following, we have the account of the sending of the birds. That actually—I didn’t know that until recently actually—that this was a common practice of ancient sailors, actually until the 19th century. The sailors would use birds to help with navigations and as guides. They would use birds to find the direction toward land. You release a raven and he’ll fly instinctively toward land. And so you know that’s the direction. And if they don’t come back, you realize that they must have landed somewhere there. So they’ve been used for centuries like that. And that’s what we have Noah doing as well.

We have dates and times given. Noah and his family are on the ark 370 days. Moses highlights for us here that Noah was patiently waiting. He gives the various time periods in which they waited and then waited again. So we have the rain stopping and Noah waits, and we have the floods receding and Noah waits—150 days, 40 days, seven days, seven days again. That, by the way, becomes a very familiar biblical theme: waiting for God’s deliverance, waiting for God’s deliverance in the Old Testament and the New. But here we have this careful account of Noah waiting and the various time periods and even the dates involved. A question arises: where did Moses get all of that detail? Was this just direct revelation that was given to him? It could be; I wouldn’t discount that. But it reads like a captain’s log. And it seems that some record had been kept by Noah himself that had been preserved and given to and passed along finally to Moses. That I think is the best guess, although it is something of a guess.

Chapter 8, verse 15. We have the account of their exiting the ark. “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, animals, of every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth and be fruitful and multiply in the earth. So Noah went out, and his sons and his sons’ wives with him, every beast, every creeping thing and every bird and everything that moves on the earth went out by families from the ark.”

Well again, you’ve probably noticed it already, we have some echoes of Genesis chapter one. I think “everything according to its kind,” “the creeping things,” “the animals according to their kind.” We have the idea here of a new beginning. A new creation—there’s been something of a de-creation in the flood. God is destroying what he has made, but now there’s a new beginning that’s happening. It’s Genesis 1 all over again. Even the command, “be fruitful, multiply,” that echoes chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis. So we have a new beginning.

And then verses 20 and following, and even into chapter 9 now, we have the account of Noah having exited the ark and his acts of worship after that. We have the altar, the sacrifice, and then the covenant that God makes with Noah. Verse 20: “And 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. 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. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

Again, we have an echo of the creation mandate. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require reckoning. From every beast I will require it, and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning. For the life of man, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image. And you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

“Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you. And as many came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the cloud. It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is in the earth.”

I suppose Noah, more than any human being in history, was made to recognize very keenly, one, the awfulness of God’s wrath and two, his utter dependence on God’s mercy. One, God’s wrath, that he was filled with the sin of the people, and that’s it, it’s over. And he brings judgment universally. Noah himself is spared, but only because of God’s mercy toward him. And I suppose more than anyone in history, he was brought to recognize that. And so his first act, upon leaving the ark, was to erect an altar for worship. And that was a continuation of a theme that we saw hints of in chapter 3 and then in chapter 4 with Abel. And now it’s a theme that becomes big throughout the scriptures and, of course, takes us to the sacrifice of Christ. But he erects this altar for worship, he offers this sacrifice, and in response, God says he will never again destroy the earth as he has done. And verse 21, we have that statement, “the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma.” And that becomes something we find in Leviticus as well, descriptions of the sacrifices. We find it referred to in the New Testament as well with reference to the sacrifice of Christ. And the idea is not that God enjoys the smell of meat burning. The idea is that of satisfaction. He saw the sacrifice, he saw what it symbolized, he saw what was going to come of it in the coming centuries, and God was pleased.

The Flood Narrative in Chiasm

All right now then, what is the flood account, the narrative all about? What’s the point? Well, there are a few points that are interesting and we’ll explore them in the next couple of weeks. But first of all, let me just give a mention of how the narrative itself is structured. You have it there on your handout.

All of my life, since my studies in seminary, I have heard about parallelism in the scripture. We’ve talked about that in the Psalms, but also in narrative sections of the Bible. There are ways where this narrative itself is structured in parallel ways. And one of the common ways of doing this—and I’ve been impressed with this in the last couple of years in particular, to see just how common this was in the ancient world, not just in the scriptures, but in the ancient world—it’s practically expected that a narrator will structure his passage often in a chiastic way. And what that means is you’ve got a point that’s made, and another point that’s made, and another point that’s made, and you come to the center. And then you have that corresponding point made, and another one made, and the thing corresponds all the way through.

And I have that for you here: the flood narrative in chiasm. This is not unique to me. Old Testament scholars have seen this, and in fact, they’ve worked it out in greater detail than the one that I have here for you. But notice how we have:
A: seven days of waiting for the flood.
B: seven days of waiting for flood.
C: 40 days of flood.
D: 150 days of water prevailing.

Then you have the center point: God remembered Noah.

Then you have D prime corresponding to D: 150 days of water waning.
C prime corresponding to C: 40 days of waiting.
B prime and A prime corresponding to A and B as well.

You see how the narrative is structured in a very careful way. And so when you see how it is structured, you end up seeing what’s the point that the narrator is driving at. And you see that at the X—at the center point. And the center point of the narrative, what he wants us to see, is that God remembered Noah. That’s the center statement of the entire narrative, Chapter 8 and verse 1. So what the narrator does, he states the details in order, and then he states them in reverse order so that you see in the center what the point is. The pivot then is verse 1 of chapter 8: “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and the livestock that were with him in the ark and God made the wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided.” That’s the point Moses wants to emphasize.

Well now then, how is that significant? What is significant about “God remembered Noah”? Clearly it doesn’t mean that God otherwise might have a lapse of memory. But this is the first time in the scriptures that we have this expression that “God remembered.” And it’s just loaded with salvific significance. God calling to mind, as it were, his previous commitments. In chapter 6, we saw in verse 8, Noah was remembered with favor. In chapter 6, verse 18, we saw that God promised that He would make a covenant with Noah. And now God remembers Noah. That’s the point of the narrative.

Now, judgment is a huge theme, but grace is a bigger theme. This is the point he wants to emphasize, that God remembered what he had promised to Noah. So the point of the narrative is that God kept his promise to Noah by bringing him safely through the flood. That’s the high point of the narrative. The narrative is a story; it’s a story of God’s grace. And so we have that in Chapter 9; the whole point is that of the covenant, and it’s given to us in detail, and we’ll see that in the coming weeks. God remembered Noah. He remembered the promise that he had covenanted with him with all of creation. He said he would never do this again. And that’s the point, then, of the passage according to the center statement. So the flood narrative, even though it is an awful story of divine judgment, and that is a big theme, and we’ll see that next week, still it is a story of grace. And that’s what Moses wants us to see.

All right, any questions on an overview