NOAH AND THE FLOOD (continued)
Chapter seven is a direct continuation of chapter six.
God tells Noah to go into the ark and that he is ‘righteous before [Him] in this generation.’ [Genesis 7:1] Presumably meaning that Noah was the only decent person (in God’s eyes) on earth at this time.
In the previous chapter God tells Noah that he should ‘bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.’ [Genesis 6:19] In this chapter, He gets a bit more specific stating that Noah should bring seven pairs of ‘all clean animals’ and one pair of ‘the animals that are not clean.’ However, what constitutes a clean or unclean animal is not specified. Noah should also bring ‘seven pairs of the birds of the heavens.’ God appears to have a soft spot for the birds. Again, it isn’t specified in this chapter why Noah should bring seven pairs of some creatures and only one pair of others.
God then tells Noah that in seven days he will bring rain for forty days and forty nights. The resulting flood will ‘blot out from the face of the ground [every creature that I have made].’ [Genesis 7:4] Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. In previous chapters it is clear that God wants to wipe out humanity due to the inherent evil within humanity. God regrets having created man. I wondered why he chose to punish all the other animals for humanity’s sins. Upon reflection, the animals are just collateral damage in the flood which it seems God considers the most expedient way of wiping humanity out. That is why he commands Noah to save pairs of each creature.
The Bible is very repetitive and I believe it is like this to reinforce the most important points of what is being written. In Genesis 7:6-7:9 it states that Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives went into the ark to escape the flood waters, bringing all the creatures with them. Then Genesis 7:11-7:15 repeats the above but with some more detail: ‘In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in’.
During the forty days of flood all the creatures and birds on earth got ‘blotted out’ by God. After those initial forty days, the flood waters remained for 150 days.
This was a short post and probably could have been added to the previous one with chapter 6. In the future I may not do posts based on the chapter number but on the sub-heading section which in some cases seems to cover multiple chapters.
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I am reading the English Standard Version (ESV).
Published by Crossway in Illinois, USA.
This edition printed 2016.
Visually Interesting 
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