Genesis 7

CHAPTER 7

The Flood (7:1–24)

1–5 The Lord commanded Noah to take into the ark seven of every kind of clean animal, but only two of every kind of unclean animal (verse 2). Clean animals were suitable for eating and for offering sacrifices; unclean animals were not.³³ Therefore, once the flood was over, a larger number of clean animals would be needed in order to offer suitable sacrifices to God (Genesis 8:20), and still have pairs left over to reproduce.

6–24 In these verses, we are given an account of the Flood. In verse 7, we are shown Noah and his family entering the ark, leaving all other human beings behind to perish. Imagine the ridicule and scorn Noah must have endured while he was building the ark. No one else knew what was going to happen; no one believed it would happen; everyone kept on with their usual lives right up to the day Noah entered the ark (Matthew 24:38–39).

Let us remember Noah’s courage and faithfulness when we, too, are ridiculed and scorned for obeying God. For if we stand firm to the end, we will be saved (Mark 13:13). Let us also remember Jesus warning in Matthew 24:37: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” We too are living in the “days of Noah” (2 Peter 3:3–7).

In verse 11, we are told the exact day the Flood began—based on Noah’s age. But this doesn’t help us date the Flood in terms of history; it doesn’t tell us how many years before Christ (B.C.) the Flood took place. The Bible doesn’t give a clear answer to this question.³⁴

Not only did it rain for forty days and nights, but water also burst forth from the great deep (verse 11)—that is, from under the ground and perhaps from under the ocean. Thus the Flood was a truly cataclysmic event in the earth’s history; it could almost be called a “de-creation.” At the height of the Flood, the earth must have looked as it had in the earliest days of its creation.