Genesis 6:13

3. The Ark

13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 16 A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. 17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall die.

(1) Ark, from Hebrew word for chest or box. Made of gopher wood (resinous trees, probably cypress, as used in ancient shipbuilding). Rooms: literally, nests, metaphorically descriptive of the chambers of the ark. Caulked with pitch (bitumen), typical of Mesopotamian work. Note the three stories (Genesis 6:16): the text suggests that the chambers (cabins or cells) were arranged according to some definite plan, probably in rows on each side of the ark, with a passageway through the middle (or vice versa), and placed in tiers, one above the other. The vessel was obviously built in the form of a flatboat, designed, not for navigation, but solely for floating on the surface of the water. While the statement in Genesis 6:16 can be taken in the traditional sense as describing three stories, it is also possible to understand it to indicate three layers of logs laid cross-wise, a view which would accord well with a construction of wood, reeds, and bitumen (NBD, s.v.)

(2) The Dimensions of the Ark are given as 300 x 50 x 30 cubits. The common cubit was about 18 inches in length, the supposed average distance from the point of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger (Deuteronomy 3:11). There was another cubit known, however, which was a handbreadth longer than the common cubit. Petrie, the noted Egyptologist, expresses the view that even the common cubit measured 22½ inches. (See. Fl,Rehwinkel, 59). (See NBD, under Weights and Measures). According to the lower standard, the ark would have measured 450 feet in length, 75 feet in width, and forty-five feet in height. According to the higher figure (22 to 24 inches, based on the likelihood that man before the Flood was of larger stature than modern man, and that the length from his elbow to the end of his middle finger was even longer than the suggested 22½inches), the ark would have been six hundred feet in length, one hundred feet in width, and sixty feet in height. By way of comparison, the battleship Oregon, 348 feet long and 69feet wide, was built in the same proportions as to length and width as the ark. The famous Titanic was 825 feet long and 93 feet wide with a displacement of 46,000 tons. Marine experts have estimated that since the ark was built with a flat bottom and there was no waste space on the bow or stern, it being square on both ends and straight up on its side, it would have had a displacement of about 43,000 tons, a displacement nearly equal to that of the ill-fated Titanic (Fl., 60).

(3) Window and Door, Genesis 6:16. A light shalt thou make to the ark (note marginal rendering, roof). To a cubit shalt thou finish it upward (marginal, from above). Rotherham: A place for light shalt thou make for the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upwards, etc. The new American translation gives it: You are to make a roof for the ark, finishing it off at the top to the width of a cubit. The Hebrew word here indicates clearly a space for light, or a space by which the light could be admitted into the vessel. The door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof, etc. Rotherham: The opening of the ark in the side thereof shalt thou put. Lange thinks that each flat or story had an entrance or door in the side.

(4) Note the construction: Genesis 6:17And I, behold, I do bring, etc.; an emphatic declaration that the impending judgment was truly a Divine visitation, not simply a natural occurrence.

4. The Noahic Covenant

18 But I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou, shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons-' wives with thee. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. 22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

(1) My covenant, that is, the already well known covenant which I have made with man. The word my points to its original establishment with Adam; my primeval covenant, which I am resolved not to abandon (Murphy). Will I establish, that is, despite the fact that Adam failed me, I will maintain and execute my covenant of life with the generic seed of the woman, and in a special sense with the Eternal Seed, the Logos, who from the foundation of the world voluntarily purposes to effect the Plan of Redemption for all who accept the Covering for sin which He shall provide. A covenant in Scripture, in the fullest sense of the term, is a solemn compact (contract), between two parties in which each is bound to perform his part. Hence, a covenant implies the moral faculty; and wherever the moral faculty exists, there must be a covenant. Consequently, between God and man there was of necessity a covenant from the very beginning, though the name do not appear. At first it was a covenant of works, in regard to man; but now that works have failed, it can only be a covenant of grace to the penitent sinner (Murphy, MG, 188). The substance of the Noahic covenant was the agreement with respect to Noah and his household; the remaining verses simply state the arrangements with regard to the subhuman orders.

The directions with reference to the ark, as given by God to Noah, embraced four particulars: (1) the Divine intention to destroy the human species, (2) the plans and specifications for the ark, (3) the announcement of the impending doom in the form of a catastrophic flood, and (4) the arrangements for the preservation of Noah and the members of his family, and certain specified kinds of animals. Other problems that arise in connection with the Genesis account of the Deluge will be treated here in subsequent sections. It will be noted that the title of this Part is The World Before the Flood. We have dealt primarily, in this section, with the moral world, the world of man, his duties and privileges; in the following sections we shall deal with the problems also of the physical or geographical world.

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FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

Does History Make Sense?

This question is suggested by the Divine declaration, Genesis 6:3, My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever. What has history to say with reference to this pronouncement?

It is interesting to note that the three over-all philosophies of history originated with the three great Greek historians.
Herodotus (5th century B.C.) was the first to give us what may rightly be called the ethical interpretation: namely, that history is largely the record of the work of the goddess Nemesis, Retributive Justice, who inevitably interferes in human affairs to overthrow inordinate human pride, ambition and insolence. This view is represented today, in broad outline, by the thought of such men as Berdyaev, Sorokin, Schweitzer, and Toynbee. Toynbee's elaborately-worked-out theory is that of challenge-and-response. According to his view, modern man faces three primary challenges: that of setting up a constitutional system of co-operative world government (politically); that of formulating a workable compromise between free enterprise and socialistic endeavor, including peace in labor-industry relations; and that of putting the secular superstructure back on a religious foundation, that in which the dignity and worth of the person is made the supreme ethical norm. (This last-named, says Toynbee, is the most important of all). His over-all thesis is that our Western culture will survive only if it responds in a positive way to these basic needs or challenges.

Thucydides (c. 471-400 B.C.) emphasized the strictly secularistic interpretation of history: namely, that the events of history are brought about by purely secular (chiefly economic) causes. This view is echoed in modern times, first by Machiavelli, and later by Marx and Lenin with their theory of economic determinism and accompanying substitution of expediency for morality.

Polybius (c. 205-c. 125 B.C.) gives us the fatalistic view, namely, that all events of history are predetermined by a Sovereign Power, variously named Fate, Fortune, Destiny, etc. He gives usaccuratelythe history of the Roman republic; his thesis is that Fortune foreordained that Rome should become the mistress of the world. (Of course, he died, long before the Roman Republic degenerated into the Empire of the Caesars.) Polybius was a Stoic, and this was the Stoic philosophy. This view is represented in our day, in a somewhat different form of course, by Oswald Spengler, in his massive work, The Decline of the West. According to Spengler, every culture inevitably passes through its four seasonsspring, summer, fall, and winterthe last-named being the period of decay ending in death, the period that should be properly designated that of civilization. Spengler was a pessimist: there is no escape from this remorseless cycle, according to his view.

What does the Bible have to say on this subject? It gives us clearly the providential interpretation (rather, revelation), specifically in Jeremiah 18:5-10. This may be stated in brief as follows: (1) God rules His world, both physical and moral, including the march of human events; (b) within the framework of His Providence, however, both individuals and nations are left relatively free to work out their own history and destiny (that is, God rules the world, but He does not rule it by force); (c) nations fall when they ignore and violate the moral law on such a scale that they make themselves vessels fit only for destruction; that is to say, the stability and premanence of the nation (or state) is dependent on the ethical quality of the national life. Nations are seldom destroyed from the outside: rather, they go down from rot on the inside. (d) God will never permit any human tryant to seize sovereignty over the whole earth, for the simple reason that universal sovereignty is Divinely reserved for the King of kings and Lord of lords. (Cf. Philippians 2:7-11, Ephesians 1:19-23, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Revelation 19:11-16). We must never forget that just as sin was not inevitable in the beginning, so moral progress of any people or state is not inevitable. Individuals and nations grow in righteousness only as they will to do so. In the very nature of the case neither righteousness nor holiness can be forced upon an individual or a people. However, a nation is not destroyed until its destruction has become a moral necessity. This is all stated explicitly in Jeremiah 18:5-10. (Note the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 18:20-33; Genesis 19:23-28. Note also the case of Abraham, who himself never owned a foot of the Land which God had promised to him and his seed, except the small plot which he purchased for a burial ground. The fulfilment of the promise was delayed several generationsto the time of the Conquest under Joshuasimply because in the interim the iniquity of the Canaanites had not reached fullness: cf. Genesis 15:12-16, Leviticus 18:24-28).

May we cry out, then, as Americans, in the words of Kipling's Recessional

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart;

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart

Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forgetlest we forget!

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REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART TWENTY

1.

Explain the theory of the origin of the so-called heroes and demigods of prehistoric times.

2.

Show why the theory that the sons of God originated in the intermarriage of angels and mortal women is unscriptural.

3.

List the poetic references, in Scripture, to angels as sons of God.

4.

What does the phrase, sons of God, generally signify in Scripture?

5.

Are angels Scripturally represented as having sex distinctions? Cite Scripture for your answer.

6.

Explain the sentence, My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever.

7.

Explain the clause, for that he also is flesh.

8.

Show why the 120-year period ordained by God could not have indicated the term of individual human life.

9.

Explain what this time-period of 120 years obviously meant. How was it a manifestation of Divine grace?

10.

Explain how this passage takes on the character of a prediction.

11.

What was Aristotle's estimate of man? How does it agree with the clause, for that he also is flesh?

12.

Is there any necessary connection between the Nephilim of Numbers 13:33 and those of Genesis 6:4? Explain.

13.

Could the Nephilim have been of a pre-Adamic stock? Explain.

14.

State Lange's explanation of the Nephilim, and that of Cornfeld also.

15.

How has the Spirit of God uniformly striven with men?

16.

How, and through whom, did the Spirit of God strive with the ungodly antediluvian people?

17.

Explain Hebrews 11:7, 2 Peter 2:5, 1 Peter 3:18-22.

18.

Explain the terms anthropomorphic and anthropopathic.

19.

Explain what is meant by Yahweh's repentance in Genesis 6:6-7.

20.

Explain how this is to be reconciled with His immutability.

21.

In what sense are we to understand that Noah was righteous, and that he was perfect in his generations?

22.

What would have been the consequence if Noah had not complied fully with God's ordinations regarding the ark? What would have been the testimonial consequence?

23.

Explain the following terms in reference to the ark: rooms, gopher wood, pitch, three stories, window, and door.

24.

State the probable dimensions of the ark as determined by the different meanings of the word cubit.

25.

What was the ark as to its general appearance and design?

26.

What is a covenant? Explain what is meant by the Noahic Covenant.

27.

List the four particulars included in God's directions with reference to the ark.

28.

Distinguish between what is meant by the moral world and the geographical world in the study of the Deluge.

29.

State the three over-all philosophies of history, and name the early and modern proponents of each.

30.

Outline clearly the Biblical revelation of the meaning of history.