Genesis 7.6-16-The Beginning of the Flood
Tuesday September 20, 2005
Genesis: Genesis 7:6-16-The Beginning of the Flood
Lesson # 30
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 7:6.
This evening we will study Genesis 7:6-16, which records the beginning of the Flood.
Genesis 7:6, “Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth.”
Genesis 7:6 records the fact that when the flood came, Noah was six hundred years old and Genesis 5:32 records that he was five hundred years old when he became the father of Shem who was followed by Ham and Japheth.
Genesis 5:32, “Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem (“name”), Ham (“dark”), and Japheth (“fair”).”
Genesis 6:10-13 records that at the time Noah became the father of three sons that God told him that He was going to destroy the earth with a flood and the Lord commanded Noah to build an ark to preserve him and his family and two of every kind of animal and bird as well seven pairs of clean animals.
Genesis 6:10, “Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
Genesis 6:11, “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.”
Genesis 6:12, “God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the 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.’”
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.”
Therefore, a comparison of Genesis 5:32, 6:10-14 and 7:6 indicates that it took one hundred years to build the ark.
During this time, Noah proclaimed the gospel according to 2 Peter 2:5.
2 Peter 2:4, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment.”
2 Peter 2:5, “and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.”
Genesis 7:7, “Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood.”
Genesis 7:7 is a repetition of Genesis 6:18.
Eight human beings entered the ark and they were all saved since the judgment of the flood was upon unregenerate humanity and the half-men and half-angels.
Principle: God never pours His wrath out on His children nor does He judge His children but only the unbeliever since John 3:18 teaches that if you have believed in Christ you are not under judgment and if you have rejected Christ you are already under judgment.
John 3:18, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
This is why the church will never go through the Tribulation period, which is a time where God pours out His wrath upon the unbelievers who have rejected His Son as Savior.
1 Thessalonians 5:9, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Thessalonians 1:10, “and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.”
Genesis 7:8, “Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground.”
Genesis 7:9, “there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.”
Genesis 7:8-9 are a repetition of Genesis 6:18-19 and the reference to the “clean” animals in Genesis 7:8 is a repetition of Genesis 7:2-3.
Genesis 7:10, “It came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth.”
Genesis 7:7-10 indicates that it took one week for Noah and his family and all the animals to enter the ark since the water of the flood did not arrive until after seven days.
Genesis 7:11, “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 burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.”
The dating of the arrival of the Flood raises the question as to what calendar was in use when Moses wrote Genesis.
Was it the “civil” calendar, which began the year in late fall or was it the “religious” calendar, which began the year in the spring?
The first month of the “civil” calendar was “Tishri,” which corresponds to SeptemberOctober and the second month was “Marheshvan,” which corresponds with OctoberNovember and the autumn equinox.
So if Moses was using the “civil” calendar when he wrote Genesis 7:11, then the Flood began in September/October in the Jewish month of “Marheshvan.”
The Jewish historian “Josephus” wrote that the Flood began in the Fall.
Those who support the position that the Flood came in the fall state that the flood would have taken place right after the fall harvest, which would supply food for Noah, his family and the animals on the ark.
This is rather weak support since there would not have been enough time to store the food if the Flood began right after the harvest.
Furthermore, food could have been stored from the previous harvests.
The first month of the “religious” calendar was “Nisan,” which corresponds to MarchApril and the second month was “Iyyar,” which corresponds with AprilMay.
So if Moses was using the “religious” calendar when he wrote Genesis 7:11, then the Flood began in April/May in the Jewish month of “Iyyar.”
So what calendar did Moses use? The answer is easy if we consider who Moses was writing to when he wrote Genesis 7:11.
Moses wrote Genesis 7:11 and the entire Pentateuch for the benefit of the nation of Israel who would be familiar with the “religious” calendar.
Therefore, the “second month” referred to in Genesis 7:11 refers to the Jewish month of “Iyyar,” which corresponds with April/May.
According to Genesis 7:1-8:18, Noah and his family were in the ark a total of 377 days, which we will demonstrate next week.
Genesis 7:11, “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 burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.”
Genesis 7:11 identify two sources of the Flood waters: (1) “All the fountains of the great deep burst open” (2) “The floodgates of the sky were opened.”
“The fountains of the great deep” refers to the vast springs or reservoirs of water that resided in pockets deep in the earth’s crust, which were put there by the Lord when on the third day of restoration He restored the dry land by gathering into one place the waters that completely flooded the earth (see Gen. 1:9-13).
These subterranean waters bursting open indicates violent earthquake action and had enormous geophysical implications resulting in tremendous upheavals on the earth such as the sinking of land areas and the raising of sea bottoms and was responsible for the present geography and topography in the world today.
In the Antediluvian period, there was a single super continent, but the Flood broke this continent up into seven continents and was responsible for the earth now being tilted on its access, which resulted sudden freezing in the extreme north and south regions of planet earth.
“The floodgates of the sky were opened” refers to the vast transparent water vapor canopy that resided above the earth’s atmosphere, which was placed there by the Lord on the second day of restoration (see Gen. 1:6-8).
Genesis 1:6, “Then God said, ‘Let there be an expanse (Hebrew: raqia, “atmosphere”) in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’”
Genesis 1:7, “God made the expanse (Hebrew: raqia, “atmosphere”), and separated the waters which were below the expanse (Hebrew: raqia, “atmosphere”) from the waters which were above the expanse (Hebrew: raqia, “atmosphere”); and it was so.” NASU
The vast transparent water vapor canopy that resided above the earth’s atmosphere during the antediluvian period and precipitated in the days of Noah gave the antediluvian earth a warm climate and produced a greenhouse effect with no storms in the earth’s atmosphere.
This environment during the antediluvian period was changed radically and dramatically with the flood that took place in the days of Noah.
During the antediluvian period the entire earth was warm all year round, having no storms because of this vast transparent water vapor canopy but when it precipitated during the flood of Noah, there became “cold and heat, and summer and winter” according to Genesis 8:22 and the earth emergence of the North and South Poles.
Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
Genesis 7:12, “The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.”
The Lord repeats what He said to Noah in Genesis 7:4.
Genesis 7:4 and 12 refers to the vast transparent water vapor canopy.
In the Bible, forty is the number of trial and perseverance in both the Old Testament (Num. 14:33-34; Deut. 25:3) and New Testament (Matt. 4:2; Acts 1:3).
Therefore, in Genesis 7:4 and 12, “forty days and forty nights” speaks of the perseverance and faith of Noah throughout the great period of trial when this great flood destroyed earth.
Genesis 7:13, “On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark.”
Eight people entered the ark: (1) Noah (2) Noah’s wife (3) Shem (4) Shem’s wife (5) Ham (6) Ham’s wife (7) Japheth (8) Japheth’s wife.
After Noah left the ark, the Lord would issue a command to these eight people to repopulate the earth, which is recorded in Genesis 9:1.
All eight were saved as we noted earlier.
Genesis 7:14, “they and every beast (Hebrew: chayyah, “wild animals”) after its kind, and all the cattle (Hebrew: behemah, “domestic animals”) after their kind, and every creeping thing (Hebrew: remes, “creepers-crawlers”-insects, small reptiles, most amphibians and small mammals) that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds.”
Genesis 7:15, “So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life.”
Genesis 7:16, “Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the LORD closed it behind him.”
The fact that the Lord closed the door of the ark behind Noah is a picture of grace, which is all that God is free to do in imparting unmerited blessings to mankind based upon the merits of the Person and Finished Work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Grace means that God does the work and we reap the benefits by placing our faith in His Son Jesus Christ.
The fact that the Lord closed the door of the ark behind Noah and that Noah did not do it for himself is a reminder to Noah and his family that the Lord “alone” delivered him and his family from the Flood and that Noah did “not” deliver himself.
Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Ephesians 2:9, “not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Chronology of the Flood up to this point:
1. Noah entered the ark on tenth day of the second month (Iyyar) and waited in the ark seven days (Gen. 7:7-10).
2. The vast transparent water vapor canopy precipitated and the subterranean waters burst open on the seventeenth day of the second month (Gen. 7:10-11).
3. The vast transparent water vapor canopy precipitated or fell upon the earth for forty days and nights (Gen. 7:12).