Noah- Hebrew/Jewish FigureMortal"The Righteous One"

The Righteous Man

Genesis describes the world before the flood in six words: every intention of man's heart was only evil continually. God regretted making humanity and grieved in his heart. Against that darkness, one sentence: "Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God" (Genesis 6:9).

God told Noah what was coming. He would destroy the earth with water. But he would save Noah, and through him every living kind.

The Ark

God gave precise specifications: three hundred cubits long, fifty wide, thirty high. Three decks, a roof, a door in the side. The Hebrew word for it is tevah, used nowhere else in the Bible except for the basket that would one day carry the infant Moses on the Nile.

Noah was to bring his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, their wives, and representatives of every animal species: two of every kind, male and female, plus additional clean animals for sacrifice. Genesis says it plainly: "Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him" (Genesis 6:22).

The Deluge

In Noah's six hundredth year, "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened" (Genesis 7:11). Water came from below and above. The ordered separation of Genesis 1 reversed: creation undone by its Creator. For forty days and forty nights rain fell. The waters rose until they covered the highest mountains. Every creature with the breath of life in its nostrils died.

The ark floated. Inside its wooden walls, Noah, his family, and the animals survived. The world outside was chaos and death.

After 150 days, God remembered Noah. The fountains and windows were closed. The waters began to subside. The ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah opened a window and sent out a raven, which flew back and forth until the waters dried. He sent a dove; it returned, finding no place to land. Seven days later he sent it again. It returned with an olive leaf in its beak. Seven days more he sent it a third time. It did not return.

The Covenant

Noah's first act on dry land was worship. He built an altar and offered burnt offerings from every clean animal and bird. "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'" (Genesis 8:21). The same evil that had provoked the flood now became the reason God would never send another.

God blessed Noah and his sons: be fruitful and multiply. He permitted them to eat meat but forbade them from consuming blood. He established the rule that whoever sheds human blood shall have their blood shed in return, for humanity is made in God's image.

The sign of this covenant was the rainbow. The Hebrew word for rainbow, qeshet, is also the word for a battle bow. God hung up his weapon in the sky.

Noah's Failure

Noah planted a vineyard. He made wine, drank, and lay naked in his tent. His son Ham saw his father's nakedness and told his brothers outside. Shem and Japheth walked backward with a garment, covered their father without looking, and left. When Noah awoke and learned what Ham had done, he cursed not Ham but Ham's son Canaan to be a slave to his brothers. He blessed Shem and Japheth.

The man who had saved creation was also capable of excess. The root problem had survived the flood.

Inside the Ark

The Midrash fills in what Genesis left spare. Genesis Rabbah imagines Noah spending 120 years building the ark while warning his neighbors of the coming judgment. They mocked him. Only when the rains began did they believe, and by then the door was shut.

Inside, Noah and his family labored without sleep, feeding each animal at its accustomed hour. The lion struck Noah when he was late with its meal, leaving him with a limp for the rest of his life. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 108b) records that Noah groaned and coughed blood from the exhaustion of caring for every creature aboard. The chameleon ate at the sixth hour, the elephant at the second watch of the night. A precious stone hung inside the ark, providing light during the deluge: the sun and moon were hidden, and a single gem marked the passage of days.