Genesis Chapter 7
1 Yahweh said to Noah, 'Go aboard the ark, you and all your household, for you alone of your contemporaries do I see before me as an upright man.
2 Of every clean animal you must take seven pairs, a male and its female; of the unclean animals you must take one pair, a male and its female
3 (and of the birds of heaven, seven pairs, a male and its female), to preserve their species throughout the earth.
4 For in seven days' time I shall make it rain on earth for forty days and forty nights, and I shall wipe every creature I have made off the face of the earth.'
5 Noah did exactly as Yahweh commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came, the waters over the earth.
7 Noah with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives boarded the ark to escape the waters of the flood.
8 (Of the clean animals and the animals that are not clean, of the birds and all that creeps along the ground,
9 one pair boarded the ark with Noah, one male and one female, as God had commanded Noah.)
10 Seven days later the waters of the flood appeared on earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, and on the seventeenth day of the month, that very day all the springs of the great deep burst through, and the sluices of heaven opened.
12 And heavy rain fell on earth for forty days and forty nights.
13 That very day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth boarded the ark, with Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons,
14 and with them every species of wild animal, every species of cattle, every species of creeping things that creep along the ground, every species of bird, everything that flies, everything with wings.
15 One pair of all that was alive and had the breath of life boarded the ark with Noah,
16 and those that went aboard were a male and female of all that was alive, as God had commanded him. Then Yahweh shut him in.
17 The flood lasted forty days on earth. The waters swelled, lifting the ark until it floated off the ground.
18 The waters rose, swelling higher above the ground, and the ark drifted away over the waters.
19 The waters rose higher and higher above the ground until all the highest mountains under the whole of heaven were submerged.
20 The waters reached their peak fifteen cubits above the submerged mountains.
21 And all living things that stirred on earth perished; birds, cattle, wild animals, all the creatures swarming over the earth, and all human beings.
22 Everything with the least breath of life in its nostrils, everything on dry land, died.
23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out, people, animals, creeping things and birds; they were wiped off the earth and only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24 The waters maintained their level on earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Genesis Chapter 8
1 But God had Noah in mind, and all the wild animals and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. God sent a wind across the earth and the waters began to subside.
2 The springs of the deep and the sluices of heaven were stopped up and the heavy rain from heaven was held back.
3 Little by little, the waters ebbed from the earth. After a hundred and fifty days the waters fell,
4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
5 The waters gradually fell until the tenth month when, on the first day of the tenth month, the mountain tops appeared.
6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark
7 and released a raven, which flew back and forth as it waited for the waters to dry up on earth.
8 He then released a dove, to see whether the waters were receding from the surface of the earth.
9 But the dove, finding nowhere to perch, returned to him in the ark, for there was water over the whole surface of the earth; putting out his hand he took hold of it and brought it back into the ark with him.
10 After waiting seven more days, he again released the dove from the ark.
11 In the evening, the dove came back to him and there in its beak was a freshly-picked olive leaf! So Noah realised that the waters were receding from the earth.
12 After waiting seven more days, he released the dove, and now it returned to him no more.
13 It was in the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, in the first month and on the first of the month, that the waters began drying out on earth. Noah lifted back the hatch of the ark and looked out. The surface of the ground was dry!
14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15 Then God said to Noah,
16 'Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you.
17 Bring out all the animals with you, all living things, the birds, the cattle and all the creeping things that creep along the ground, for them to swarm on earth, for them to breed and multiply on earth.'
18 So Noah came out with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives.
19 And all the wild animals, all the cattle, all the birds and all the creeping things that creep along the ground, came out of the ark, one species after another.
20 Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh and, choosing from all the clean animals and all the clean birds he presented burnt offerings on the altar.
21 Yahweh smelt the pleasing smell and said to himself, 'Never again will I curse the earth because of human beings, because their heart contrives evil from their infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done.
22 As long as earth endures: seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.
Genesis Chapter 9
1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Breed, multiply and fill the earth.
2 Be the terror and the dread of all the animals on land and all the birds of heaven, of everything that moves on land and all the fish of the sea; they are placed in your hands.
3 Every living thing that moves will be yours to eat, no less than the foliage of the plants. I give you everything,
4 with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it.
5 And I shall demand account of your life-blood, too. I shall demand it of every animal, and of man. Of man as regards his fellow-man, I shall demand account for human life.
6 He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man created.
7 Be fruitful then and multiply, teem over the earth and subdue it!'
8 God spoke as follows to Noah and his sons,
9 'I am now establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants to come,
10 and with every living creature that was with you: birds, cattle and every wild animal with you; everything that came out of the ark, every living thing on earth.
11 And I shall maintain my covenant with you: that never again shall all living things be destroyed by the waters of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to devastate the earth.'
12 'And this', God said, 'is the sign of the covenant which I now make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come:
13 I now set my bow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
14 When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds,
15 I shall recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature, in a word all living things, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all living things.
16 When the bow is in the clouds I shall see it and call to mind the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth, that is, all living things.'
17 'That', God told Noah, 'is the sign of the covenant I have established between myself and all living things on earth.'
18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth-Ham being the father of Canaan.
19 These three were Noah's sons, and from these the whole earth was peopled.
20 Noah, a tiller of the soil, was the first to plant the vine.
21 He drank some of the wine, and while he was drunk, he lay uncovered in his tent.
22 Ham, father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.
23 Shem and Japheth took a cloak and they both put it over their shoulders, and walking backwards, covered their father's nakedness; they kept their faces turned away, and they did not look at their father naked.
24 When Noah awoke from his stupor he learned what his youngest son had done to him,
25 and said: Accursed be Canaan, he shall be his brothers' meanest slave.
26 He added: Blessed be Yahweh, God of Shem, let Canaan be his slave!
27 May God make space for Japheth, may he live in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his slave!
28 After the flood Noah lived three hundred and fifty years.
29 In all, Noah's life lasted nine hundred and fifty years; then he died.
Psalm 1
1 How blessed is anyone who rejects the advice of the wicked and does not take a stand in the path that sinners tread, nor a seat in company with cynics,
2 but who delights in the law of Yahweh and murmurs his law day and night.
3 Such a one is like a tree planted near streams; it bears fruit in season and its leaves never wither, and every project succeeds.
4 How different the wicked, how different! Just like chaff blown around by the wind
5 the wicked will not stand firm at the Judgement nor sinners in the gathering of the upright.
6 For Yahweh watches over the path of the upright, but the path of the wicked is doomed.
Thoughts and Reflection
Here we see the first covenant makes with humans, specifically Noah and his family. The everlasting sign of this covenant is a rainbow that reminds us of it. Part of the covenant, God outlawed murder and allowed us to eat animals. In my view this shows the value of human life and the respect we should show it.
So how big was the Ark? We surmise it was 300 cubits by 50 cubits with a 30 cubit height. A cubit is roughly 17.5″ in modern measure. Could it been big enough to hold two of every animal? Not sure, but the intent was there. If Noah did pull this off, that alone is a huge accomplishment. Recently, the final resting place of Noah’s Ark may have been found on Mt. Ararat in Turkey.
About This Project
For the year 2022, I decided that my New Year’s Resolution was to read the whole Bible following the Bible in the Year plan presented by Fr. Mike Schmitz. It is a big and bold undertaking. You can follow along by subscribing. Feel free to look at previous day’s post and comment. It’s something we can all learn from together!
