Noah Get To Building

Howdy from the Panhandle! Sunny and 60º here, looks like it's going to be a pretty day. Although...there always seems to be an although. In our case we need moister really bad, in the case of Noah they were going to get more moister than they could humanly handle. But with God all things are possible.

Gen 6:5-22

5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

9 This is the account of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."

22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

As we saw last week the iniquity of the mankind was such that the Lord decided to wipe them out and start all over. God, had, by His Spirit inspired Enoch, Noah, and perhaps other prophets (1 Peter 3:9; 2 Peter 2:5; Jude 14), to preach repentance to the antediluvians. But, they would have no part of it. They continued to be disobedient, so God would withdraw the services of His prophetic messengers, who had been sent to admonish and warn them. He gave them a chance and then God gave them over to a reprobate mind, and let merited vengeance take its course. And so His spirit was withdrawn from man, and thereby put an end to their life and conduct.

Why would God decide to put an end to most of His creation? Because after the fall of Adam and Eve the world He saw was “not” good. God is not some distant being who just set things into motion and then sat back to see how it would end up. He is personable and He is a very active part of His creation. God was not an unconcerned spectator, and as such He was grieved by what He saw.

How sad, God states He wish He had not made man. The Lord regretted that He had made man upon the earth. He had made a creature of such noble powers and faculties, and had put him on this earth. God furnished them with what they needed and it grieved him at his heart to see their disobedience. Man, the apex of God's creation and they turned their backs on Him.

It grieved Him at His heart.

“Blot out” (maha); AV, (destroy). The verb indicates a movement that wipes clean or blots out completely. The operation was designed to destroy every living thing that stood in the way. Full destruction was to be executed. Nothing was to be spared. - (from The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1962 by Moody Press)

As much as it grieves Him, God is resolve to sweep away the existing race of man. Before this, individuals had died; death came with the eating of the forbidden fruit. Adam himself had long since paid the debt of sin. These solemn testimonies to the universal doom had not made any salutary or lasting impression on the survivors. But now a general and violent destruction was to overtake the whole race-a standing monument of the divine wrath against sin, to all future generations of the only family saved. Noah and his family are the only exceptions to this sweeping destruction.

Noah and his family are told to build (Gen 6:14)

Most modern scholars, consider the timber referred to was either a species of resinous tree, as Gesenius, the pine, fir, cedar; or, as Bochart and others, the cypress, a wood remarkable for its durability, and abounding on the Armenian mountains, while other kinds of wood are scarce in all that region.

Ancient historian Arrian relates that Alexander the Great built a fleet at Babylon in after-ages of this wood. While straight and easily worked, this wood is also hard, compact, and indestructible, the mummy cases of the ancient Egyptians having been composed of it, and the cypress doors of St. Peter's at Rome have now remained undecayed for upwards of a thousand years, (`British and Foreign Evangelical Review,' vol. Xlvii.) - (from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

The Ark (Gen 6:14-15)

Pitch a material for covering or overlaying. It is supposed to have been bitumen, asphalt, or it might be the chips of the cypress, whose resinous timber could easily be converted into tar with which to pitch the sides of the ark, and which, when smeared over and become hardened, would make it perfectly water-tight. He must pitch it within and without-without, to shed off the rain, and to prevent the water from soaking in-within, to take away the bad smell of the animals when kept close. 

 

And this is the fashion. According to the description, the ark was a ship built not to sail, but only to float. It was a long, flat-bottomed chest like a floating house. The dimensions, 300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high, give an area of roughly 15,000 square cubits. That is a cubic measurement of 450,000 cubits, probably to the ordinary standard, "after the elbow of a man" (Deut 3:11), i.e., measured from the elbow to the end of the middle finger.

So assuming the cubit to be 18 inches, the dimensions of the ark would be 450 feet in length by 75 feet in breadth and 45 feet in height; or, taking the cubit at 21,888 inches, the vessel would measure 547 feet long, 91 feet 2 inches wide, and 47 feet 2 inches high; that is, three times the length of a first-rate Man-of-War in the British navy. - (from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

Noah must make it three stories high within, and he more than likely divide it into cells, or chambers; literally, nests; with partitions, places fitted for the several sorts of creatures, so as to lose no room. Exact dimensions were given him, that he might make it proportionable, and might have room enough in it to answer the intention and no more. He must make a little window towards the top, to let in light, and (some think) that through that window he might behold the desolations to be made in the earth. He must make a door in the side of it, by which to go in and out.

God made Noah a savior to the animals, to keep the several kinds of them from perishing and being lost in the deluge, v. 19-21. This was a great honor put upon him, that not only in him would the race of mankind should be saved, but also that he would be instrumental to preserve the animals.

With the ark God had a twofold purpose

(1.) Noah was to provide shelter for the animals God sent to Him, so that they would not be drowned. Two of every sort, male and female, he had to take with him into the ark; and so he would not have any difficulty of gathering them together, and getting them in, God promises (v. 20) that they shall of their own accord come to him. He that makes the ox to know his owner and his crib then made him know his preserver and his ark.

(2.) Noah was to provide sustenance for them, so that they would not starved, v. 21. He must store food in his ship according to the number of his family, the animals which he now had the charge of, and according to the time appointed for his confinement.

God's Promise to Noah (Gen 6:22)

God promises Noah that he and his family would be preserved alive in the ark. He prepared the ark, and during one hundred and twenty years preached righteousness to that sinful generation. If anyone had repented they too would have been allowed in the ark.

For the sake of Noah, the animal species were also going to be preserved, "two of each, male and female." They are to come in pairs for propagation. The fowl, the cattle, the creeping thing or smaller animals, are to come. Fodder and other provisions for a year had to be laid in.

The obedience of Noah and the accomplishment of his task are recorded here . The building of so enormous a boat occupied many years. So many that people laughed at Noah instead of repenting. How about you? Will you scoff at the things of God or will you believe and be found faithful in His eyes?