Genesis 7:17-8:12

Bible Study Lesson for May 20

Usually on Wednesday nights, some in our community get together to share prayer requests, we pray together, and I bring a Bible lesson for them. Last week, we covered Genesis 7:1-16, so I will pick up today where we left off. First I’d like to talk about prayer requests. Online communication being what it is, I would rather not get into specific requests in this space, and will leave that for the more private communications that the church has with each other. But I do want to remember a few general prayer requests: -our government, those making decisions on our behalf -those in the medical community

-those in food service, grocery stores, and other essential businesses

-teachers and students still figuring out what the closures of schools means for them -prisoners and prison guards

-first responders

-those whose life and income has been disrupted by the current crisis.

I also want to remember all of those suffering from Covid-19 and the communities that it is affecting, including our own. Take a moment to pray for these folks now before we begin.

Now I hope you will take a moment to read and reflect on Genesis 7:17-8:12 before I offer my thoughts. When last we left Noah, he had climbed into the ark with his family, just as the rain began to fall. Up to this point, Noah’s obedience has been the focus of the narrative, but now all Noah can do is wait. During the verses that follow, God and Noah remarkably fade into the background. The focus is on the Flood and what it does to the world with a little interpretation here and there for emphasis.

7:17-24 The Flood

Once it begins to rain, it rains for forty days. The story describes the water level in vivid detail. It rises, rises, rises, carrying the ark as it does. Verse 19 indicates that everything is covered by the flood, even the “high mountains.” Again I will point out that this reflects the biblical understanding of how God works: usually God does not intervene suddenly, but uses natural processes to accomplish divine goals. So while God could just say “destroy the earth,” and it be destroyed, God usually prefers to act through a process. Here, that process is the flood, which takes a lot of time: forty days of rain. 

Once the water reaches its high point, the judgment is carried out.  Anything that doesn’t live in water dies. The lists in verses 21 and 23 run in opposite directions, forming what biblical scholars call a chiastic structure (for the Greek letter X) with humans at the center. Verse 22 provides a summary of both lists: “everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.” The portrait is one of total destruction, apart from the occupants of the ark.

The final verse in the chapter again points us to the passage of time. One hundred and fifty days pass while the flood waters continue to grow. This follows naturally from the Hebrew understanding reflected back in verse 11. There, we are told, the flood was caused by “the fountains of the deep” bursting forth, as well as “the windows of the heavens” opening. This is also similar to how floods happen in the natural world: after a rain, flood waters continue to rise for a time as the water gathers. But here I want us to keep in mind that Noah’s salvation was not a forty day process. It is unclear if the 150 days here includes the forty days of rain, but either way it takes almost half a year for the water to reach its highest point. All this time, Noah is on a boat tossing and turning upon the waters.

8:1-5 Waiting

It is at this point that God stops the flood. God closes the fountains and the windows of chapter 7, verse 11, and gradually, very slowly, the waters begin to drain from the earth. In perfect narrative symmetry, the waters decline for 150 days. 

We shouldn’t miss the obvious echoes of Creation in this story. In 8:1, God’s wind/spirit once again moves over the waters (as in Genesis 1:2). With the closing of the fountains and the windows, the waters are once again separated (see Genesis 1:6-7).  The point is that God is beginning again, this time not from nothing, but rather with a remnant of the old creation.  The idea of a remnant, a small group of rescued people, is an important Old Testament concept. God is always looking to include the faithful from the old order in new eras. After the Exile, God restores Judah from the exiles who come back from Babylon. The first people of the Christian Church were Jewish disciples of Jesus. There are always elements of the old order in the new order; God’s people should honor this heritage of the promise.

8:6-12 The Home Stretch

It is at this point that the narrative slows down. Three hundred and forty days have passed since Noah entered the ark in 7:16. After 40 more days, Noah opens a window and releases a raven. When the raven doesn’t return, he sends out a dove. The dove quickly returns, so Noah waits another week and then sends the dove out again. This time it returns with a fresh olive branch. Not only is the olive branch a symbol of peace, but it also represents the recovery of the earth, as things are beginning to grow again. We are at day 387. On day 394, Noah once again sends out the dove and this time it doesn’t return. But Noah and his family and the rest of the animals will wait a bit longer.

Conclusion

The implications of the flood story for our lives today ought to be obvious. We are, right now, dealing with a period of waiting. Even as things begin to open back up, to say that we are going back to normal right now is an overstatement. We have new restrictions and guidelines for whatever we do, and that will probably be the case for some time. Like Noah, we find ourselves uncertain about the outside world, and trying to find ways to accurately gauge when it is safe to get back out there. We send out our ravens and our doves, we experiment and we try new approaches. But like Noah, we wait for the Lord. The decision to go into the ark was a lot easier than the decision to come out. The immediate danger of the flood was clear. It was clear to us and most churches back in March that we needed to refrain from meeting for a while. Reopening will be a slower process. Like Noah, we must take our time and test to see what the wisest course is. There will be mistakes and uncertainty, but we will also continue to learn to wait on the Lord.