Genesis 6.13-22-God's Provision of the Ark and Noah's Obedience
Tuesday September 13, 2005
Genesis: Genesis 6:13-22-God’s Provision of the Ark and Noah’s Obedience
Lesson # 26
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 6:11.
This evening we will study Genesis 6:13-22, which records Noah’s obedience to the Lord’s command to build an Ark in order to deliver him and his family from the coming flood that the Lord would use to destroy the wicked inhabitants of planet earth.
Genesis 6:13, “Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.’”
The fact that God said that He would destroy all the inhabitants of the earth because of their wickedness, clearly indicates that the Flood in the days of Noah was “universal” and not “local” as the critics of the Bible contend.
Notice, that God takes Noah into his confidence demonstrating that Noah is experiencing fellowship with God and is on intimate terms with God and therefore, a friend of God.
The fact that Noah was on intimate terms and experiencing fellowship with God is expressed in Genesis 6:9 with the phrase “Noah walked with God” and other parts of the Word of God.
Ezekiel 14:13, “Son of man, if a country sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it and cut off from it both man and beast.”
Ezekiel 14:14, “even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves," declares the Lord GOD.”
Noah was a friend of God and on intimate terms with God because He was obedient to God and the Lord Jesus Christ taught this principle to His disciples.
John 15:14, “You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
Friends don’t hold things back from one another and they share secrets and joy with one another and are intimate with one another.
Friendship with the Lord is no different since He shares His secrets and joy and is intimate with the believer who obeys Him and so it was between Noah and God because Noah was obedient to him, God spoke with him concerning the Flood and did not speak to anyone else on the earth about it including Noah’s family.
Abraham and Moses were also called “friends of God” because they were on intimate terms with the Lord and they were on intimate terms with the Lord because they were obedient to Him (Ex. 33:11; 2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; Jam. 2:23)
Now, in order to preserve both human and terrestrial animal life on the earth, God instructed Noah to build a huge bargelike structure, in which the occupants would be saved from destruction in the coming Flood.
Genesis 6:14, “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch.”
“Ark” is the noun tevah (hb*T@), which means, “a chest-shaped vessel.”
The dimensions of the ark indicated it was a barge like vessel since it was designed for capacity and floating stability rather than for speed or navigability.
The Word of God does not mention a rudder or navigational aids indicating that the fate of the ark depended solely upon the will of God.
Genesis 6:15, “This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits (cubit: 17.5 inches long; 300 cubits=437.5 feet wide), its breadth fifty cubits (72.92 feet wide), and its height thirty cubits (43.75 feet high).”
“Cubit” is the noun `ammah (hM*a^) (am-maw), which is a term that is basically used to describe linear measurement at least from the time of Noah and is used throughout Scripture into the postexilic period.
In the nation of Israel, the measurement of a cubit is estimated to be approximately 17 ½ inches or the average distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.
This is somewhat confirmed by information in the Siloam Inscription stating that King Hezekiah’s tunnel (which measures 1749 feet) was 1200 cubits long.
This would make the cubit then used (in Hezekiah’s day) approximately 17 ½ inches.
Furthermore, since we know that Moses wrote the book of Genesis to the nation of Israel, the cubit mentioned in Genesis 6:15 would have been the one Israel used at the time Moses received the book of Genesis from the Lord.
Therefore, if this confirmation is correct in the Siloam Inscription, coupled with the fact that Moses was writing to Israel and would be referring to the cubit that Israel used when he wrote Genesis 6:15, then we can infer that the cubit that Noah used was 17 ½ inches long.
Further substantiating that the cubit mentioned in Genesis 6:15 was 17 ½ inches long is that Moses does not attempt to define its length as he does in Deuteronomy 3:11 with the phrase the “cubit of a man.”
Therefore, if the Hebrew cubit was 17 ½ inches long, then according to Genesis 6:15, the Ark was 437.5 feet long, 72.92 feet wide and 43.75 feet high.
Genesis 6:16, “You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.”
Now, since the Ark had three decks, it had a total deck area of approximately 95,700 square feet (equivalent to slightly more than the area of twenty standard college basketball courts), and its total volume was 1,396,000 cubic feet, which is equal to 522 standard livestock cars used on modern American railroads.
This would make the length of the ark over 5 miles long!
Since it is known that about 240 sheep can be transported in one stock car, a total of over 125,000 sheep could have been carried on the Ark.
The gross tonnage of the Ark (which is a measurement of cubic space rather than weight, one ton in this case being equivalent to 100 cubic feet of usable storage space) was about 13,960 tons, which would place it well within the category of large metal ocean-going vessels today.
The ark is a type of Christ, the Sustainer and Deliverer and Redeemer of His people from judgment (Heb. 11:7).
Genesis 6:16, “You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.”
“Window” is the noun tsohar (rh^x{) (tso-har), which literally means, “an opening for daylight” and consisted of a one-cubit (17.5 inches) opening extending all around the Ark’s circumference, near the roof, as a provision for light and ventilation.
The Ark was to have only “one” door, which means that all must enter and leave by the same door and God wanted it this way since the door is a type of Christ.
John 10:9, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
The door in the Ark teaches that there is only one way to get saved, through faith alone in Christ alone!
John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
We must remember that to Noah’s contemporaries the construction of this Ark seemed absolutely ridiculous since they had never seen any rain or any kind of flood before (Gen. 2:5), thus, Noah’s preaching about the coming flood, which is mentioned in 2 Peter 2:5, must have certainly been ridiculed.
Now, in Genesis 6:17, God tells Noah “why” he needs to build this great ship.
Genesis 6:17, “Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.”
Every living creature would be killed in the flood with the exception of course of those, which were brought into the Ark to repopulate the earth after the floodwaters receded.
Not only will every living creature and human being be destroyed in the Flood but also everything that is on the earth itself including of course, vegetation!
Genesis 6:18, “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark -- you and your sons and your wife, and your sons' wives with you.”
God is making a promise to Noah and his sons and his wife and to his son’s wives that He will not kill them in the Flood, as He will do to every living creature on the earth.
“Covenant” is the noun berith (tyr!B+ ), which is a compact or agreement between two parties binding them mutually to undertakings on each other’s behalf.
This covenant that God made with Noah denoted God’s gracious undertaking for the benefit of Noah and his family and descendants as a result of Noah operating in faith and obeying His command to build the Ark even though he had never seen rain in his life!
Notice that God not only makes this covenant with Noah and his wife but with his sons and their wives thus preserving the basic family unit!
There are two types of covenants: (1) Conditional: Dependent upon the faithfulness of the recipient for its fulfillment (2) Unconditional: Dependent upon the faithfulness of God for its fulfillment.
The covenant that God made with Noah was “unconditional” meaning it totally and completely depended upon the faithfulness of God.
Genesis 6:19, “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.”
Genesis 6:20, “Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.”
Authorities on biological taxonomy estimate that there are less than 18,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians living in the world, and which number can be doubled to allow for extinct land animals.
Therefore, allowing then for two of each species, there might have to be a total of about 72,000 animals on the Ark or even maybe 75,000 to allow for five extra animals in each “clean” species.
Now, most land animals are small and the average size of one is less than the size of a sheep, it then becomes obvious that no more than 60 percent of the Ark’s capacity would have to be used for animals.
Actually, it would have been less than this, since the Biblical “kind” is much broader than that of the arbitrary “species” category of modern biology.
Thus, the specified size of the Ark was totally and completely appropriate for the animals it had to carry.
Furthermore, there was ample room for the approximately one million species of insects as well as food for the animals, living quarters for Noah and his family and for any other purposes.
The phrase “will come to you” indicates that Noah did not have to going on hunting and trapping expedition to get all these animals, but rather the Lord in His omnipotence urged or impelled them toward the Ark, instinctively sensing the approaching disaster.
There would also be no problem assembling all these animals since they possessed genes given to them by the Lord to sense the approaching danger and migrate to the Ark.
To this day, scientists cannot explain the migratory patterns and directional instincts of animals, especially birds, which enable them to adjust to sharp latitudinal and seasonal temperature and other changes that characterize the post-Flood world.
These abilities have been inherited from their ancestors on the Ark.
Also, another biological mechanism possessed by animals as a protection against sharp temperature and other climatological changes is the ability to suspend all bodily changes in a state of hibernation.
This ability enables an animal to pass the winter in very confined quarters, with little or no food intake or bodily excretions.
As all these animals arrived at the Ark, ate a good meal, and then entered the Ark, in response to the suddenly darkened sky and the chill in the air, they settled down for a year-long “sleep” in their respective “nests” in the Ark.
Genesis 6:21, “As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them.”
Genesis 6:19-21 records the divine instructions for the preservation of land animals and bird life where two of every living creature was to be brought into the Ark and according to Genesis 7:2, seven “clean” animals were to be taken on board as sacrificial animals.
Genesis 6:22, “Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.”
Noah demonstrated his faith in the Lord by his obedience to the Lord’s command to build the ark.
Hebrews 11:7, “By means of faith, Noah, after having received a divine warning concerning the things which at the time were not yet seen, and having responding reverentially built an ark for the deliverance of his household through which (faith) he rendered the wickedness of the world more evident and censurable and as a result he became a possessor of divine righteousness because of his faith.”