Previous Lesson -- Next Lesson
DISCOVER GENESIS
An exploratory Bible course for disciples of Christ
PART 3 -- The Torah of NOAH (Genesis 6:1 to 11:9)
GENESIS 7
Only the earth, which man had ruined through himself, was extinguished. -- (DATE: Around 1657 after Adam)
OUTLINE of Genesis 7:
06. The LORD regarded Noah as just before him. (7:1)
07. The animals, which came to Noah in the ark. (7:2-16)
08. The family of Noah, which entered the ark with him. (7:13)
09. The Great Flood: After rain for forty days, the waters flooded even mountains and exterminated all life on earth. (7:10-24)
DISCOVER Genesis 7: Then, when the time was ripe, the LORD told Noah that he was to take his close family, his wife, his sons and their wives and enter the ark. -- He was to take seven pairs of all clean animals, males and their mates, and seven pairs of the birds of heaven, as well as a pair of all other animals with him, to keep them alive on the face of the earth. For in seven days’ time he would make it rain upon the earth for forty days and nights, and thus blot out all living things from the face of the ground. -- Noah was 600 years old when this command came to him, and he did as the LORD had asked him to do. He took his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, with their wives as well as pairs, male and female, of all animals, livestock, birds and creeping things as God had commanded him, and brought them into the ark. -- And seven days later, in his 600th year of Noah, on the seventeenth day of the second month, God opened all the fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven and let it rain as he had said, for forty days and forty nights. So the waters rose and carried the ark with it, in which the LORD had shut in Noah with his family. The waters rose high, until even the highest mountain was covered 15 cubits deep. And all men, animals, birds and creeping things that had inhabited the earth, everything that had lived on dry land and had the breath of life in its nostrils, died in these floods. Only Noah and those who were in his ark with him survived. And the waters reigned over the face of the earth for 150 days.
PRAYER: Almighty God, we tremble in awe at the extent and severity of your just judgment on the sins of the world at the time of Noah. At the same time we give thanks to you that you did not wipe out all life, but saved representatives of each kind of animal you had created together with Noah and his family in the ark. Help us to always remember that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Help us not to follow the sins of our forefathers, from the time of Noah, who ignored you and brought their own laws into their world by ignoring your rules, which you had revealed to just men like Noah. Amen.
QUESTION 7: How did the LORD save life in spite of the flood, which exterminated all life on the face of the earth?
QUOTES: There are no direct quotes from Genesis 7 in the New Testament. -- However there are 9 allusions in the New Testament to verses from this terrifying chapter:
Genesis 7:7 (describing that Noah and his family entered the ark to escape the flood) is ALLUDED to in
Matthew 24:38 (Jesus said that people were living normally until ‘the day when Noah entered the ark’ and all were destroyed in the flood. He said this pointing out that this will also be the case, when He will come back at the end of time to judge all mankind.) and in
Luke 17:27 (similar to what Jesus said in Matthew 24:38) --
Genesis 7:13 (listing the number of persons entering the ark: Noah, his three sons, his wife and the three wives of his sons who all entered the ark) is ALLUDED to in
1 Peter 3:20 (the Apostle Peter alluded to this event by saying, that in the ark ‘a few, that is, eight persons’ were saved in the flood) and in
2 Peter 2:5 (Peter further alluded to this Genesis verse by saying, that God ‘preserved Noah ... with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly’) --
Genesis 7:17 (the waters increased and bore up the ark for it to be spared from destruction) is ALLUDED to in
Luke 17:27 (Jesus confirmed that ‘the flood came’, alluding to the rise of waters at the time of Noah to destroy all life on earth) and in
1 Peter 3:20 (Peter refers to this when saying that Noah and his family ‘were brought safely through water’) --
Genesis 7:21 (describing how ‘all flesh died ... and all mankind’, because of the great flood) is ALLUDED to in
2 Peter 3:6 (this was confirmed by Peter, when he wrote: ‘the world that then existed was flooded with water and perished’) --
Genesis 7:21+22 (adding that ‘everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died’) is ALLUDED to in
Luke 17:27 (this is confirmed by Jesus, who said about the people living at the time of Noah that the flood ‘destroyed them all’) --
Genesis 7:23 is ALLUDED to in
1 Peter 3:20 (see below).
From these allusions we quote the following: “He (the LORD) blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the earth, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.” (Genesis 7:23) -- This verse is ALLUDED TO by Peter, an apostle of Christ, who wrote in a letter: 1 Peter 3:18-22 -- “18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” Here Peter alludes to how Noah was saved with his family from the waters of the flood in his ark, and compares it with the salvation which is proclaimed when a person is baptized in water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and then emerges spiritually alive, having been resurrected by faith in Christ from spiritual death.