Noah - episode 1

I will establish my Covenant with you

In the present post, we start narrating the story of Noah and of the flood (Gen 6-8). As for the two stories of the creation we already read, we can find interesting comparisons between the episode and some ancient Mesopotamian myths like The epic of Gilgameš and of Atraḫasis. However, the Scripture adds important details that are missing in them: the reason for the flood is moral (the majority of men and women preferred to follow their progenitors in sin, rather than walking in the Lord’s way); God introduces a new institution to bring back to Him His wandering creatures: Covenant.
«The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. The LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground; man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. This is the history of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. Noah walked with God. Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth, and saw that it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make a ship of gopher wood. You shall make rooms in the ship, and shall seal it inside and outside with pitch. This is how you shall make it. The length of the ship will be three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a roof in the ship, and you shall finish it to a cubit upward. You shall set the door of the ship in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third levels. I, even I, do bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die. But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ship, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. Of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ship, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of the livestock after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come to you, to keep them alive. Take with you of all food that is eaten, and gather it to yourself; and it will be for food for you, and for them.” Thus Noah did. According to all that God commanded him, so he did. [...] It happened after the seven days, that the waters of the flood came on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep were burst open, and the sky’s windows were opened. The rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights. [...] All flesh died that moved on the earth, including birds, livestock, animals, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was on the dry land, died. Every living thing was destroyed that was on the surface of the ground, including man, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ship. The waters prevailed on the earth one hundred fifty days». Noah’s ship is a little world in miniature, where the creation of God remains ordered with the limits and the separation He commanded (its three «levels» recall the division sky/earth/sea); those limits are removed outside it: the sky does not keep anymore the upper waters and the deep newly floods it all like in the water chaos preceding God’s intervention in Gen 1. To every Hebrew letter corresponds a number; the dimensions of the ship are the result of the multiplication of two or more consonants which compose the Lord’s name (yod=10; he=5; waw=6; he=5): He is the one and only refuge for the righteous ones in bad times. Noah’s age (six hundred years) should not amaze us; it is customary in ancient cultures to attribute great longevity to their early ancestors (even see Gen 5), to mean the fullness of life of the origins which got lost as time passed by (see Gen 6,3).
«God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided. The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained. The waters receded from the earth continually. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters decreased. The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. It happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made, and he sent forth a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. He sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground, but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him into the ship; for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship. He stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ship. The dove came back to him at evening, and, behold, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off.



So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. He stayed yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she did not return to him any more. It happened in the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dried. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry». God brings back to order His creation, stopping «the deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows» and making His «wind» pass like in the beginning, when «God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters» (Gen 1,2: the word is the same in Hebrew). Thanks to this story, the “dove with the olive leaf” became symbol of peace, as well as the «flood» «is a symbol of baptism» in the New Testament (see 1Pet 3,20-21: in the Sacrament the holy water destroys every trace of evil and it causes a person to be reborn to a new and saintly life).
Follow in the next post.