They took to continue the race, and one male for sacrifice. seven days to enter the ark," and then "Jehovah shut Noah in, "20 9921 § 6. On the same day, namely, the seventeenth day of the second month of the 600th year of Noah's life, the Flood began. Its physical causes are described simply as phenomena, in figurative language: "The fountains of the great deep were broken and the windows of heaven were opened." up, The narrative is vivid and forcible, though entirely wanting in that sort of description which in a modern historian or poet would have occupied the largest space. We see nothing of the death-struggle; we hear not the cry of despair; we are not called upon to witness the frantic agony of husband and wife, and parent and child, as they fled in terror before the rising waters. Nor is a word said of the sadness of the one righteous man who, safe himself, looked upon the destruction which he could not avert. But one impression is left upon the mind with peculiar vividness, from the very simplicity of the narrative, and it is that of utter desolation. "All flesh died that moveth upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. They were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark."22 The vast expanse of water appeared unbroken, save by that floating home of all that were left alive, for 150 days, or five months. 24 Meanwhile God had not forgotten Noah and those that were with him in the ark.23. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the 600th year of Noah's life, the subsiding waters left the ark aground upon the mountains of Ararat.” More than two months were still required to uncover the tops of the mountains, which appeared on the 1st day of the tenth month. Noah waited still forty days (to the eleventh day of the eleventh month) before he opened the window of the ark. He sent out a raven, which flew to and fro, probably on the mountain-tops, but did not return into the ark. After seven days more (the eighteenth day) he sent forth a dove, which found no resting-place, and returned to the ark. In another seven days (the twenty-fifth) she was sent out again, and returned with an olive-leaf in her bill, the sign that even the low trees were uncovered, and the type for after ages of peace and rest. After seven days more (the second 19 Respecting the ark, see Notes and Illustrations (A). 20 Gen. vii. 16. 22 Gen. vii. 21-23. 23 Gen. viii. 1. 24 See Notes and Illustrations (C) 21 Gen. vii. 11, 12. | ARARAT. of the twelfth month), the dove was sent out again, and proved by not returning that the waters had finally subsided. These periods of seven days clearly point to the division of time into weeks. 26 § 7. Whether the Flood was universal or partial has given rise to much controversy; but there can be no doubt that it was universal, so far as man was concerned: we mean that it extended to all the then known world. The literal truth of the narration obliges us to believe that the whole human race, except eight persons, perished by the waters of the Flood. In the New Testament our Lord gives the sanction of His own authority to the historical truth of the narrative,25 declaring that the state of the world at His second coming shall be such as it was in the days of Noah. St. Peter speaks of the "long suffering of God," which "waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water," and sees in the waters of the Flood by which the ark was borne up a type of baptism, by which the Church is separated from the world. And again, in his Second Epistle," he cites it as an instance of the righteous judgment of God who spared not the old world. But the language of the Book of Genesis does not compel us to suppose that the whole surface of the globe was actually covered with water, if the evidence of geology requires us to adopt the hypothesis of a partial deluge. It is natural to suppose that the writer, when he speaks of "all flesh," ""all in whose nostrils was the breath of life," refers only to his own locality. This sort of language is common enough in the Bible when only a small part of the globe is intended. Thus, for instance, it is said that "all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn;" and that "a decree went out from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." In these and many similar passages the expressions of the writer are obviously not to be taken in an exactly literal sense. Even the apparently very distinct phrase "all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered," may be matched by another precisely similar, where it is said that God would put the fear and the dread of Israel upon every nation under heaven. The truth of the biblical narrative is confirmed by the numerous traditions of other nations, which have preserved the memory of a great and destructive flood, from which but a small part of mankind escaped. They seem to point back to 26 Matt. xxiv. 37; Luke xvii. 26. 26 2 Pet. ii. 5. 28 32 24 a common centre, whence they were carried by the different families of man, as they wandered east and west." § 8. But to return to the biblical narrative. Noah at length removed the covering of the ark, and beheld the newly-uncovered earth, on the first day of the 601st year of his age. On the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry, and Noah went out of the ark by the command of God, with all the creatures. 29 His first act was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice of every clean beast and bird. This act of piety called forth the promise from God that He would not again curse the earth on account of man, nor destroy it as He had done; but that He would forbear with man's innate tendency to evil, and continue the existing course of nature until the appointed end of the world." He repeated to Noah and his sons the blessing pronounced on Adam and Eve, that they should "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth," and that the inferior creatures should be subject to them." To this He added the use of animals for food. But the eating their blood was forbidden, because the blood is the life; and, lest the needful shedding of their blood should lead to deeds of blood, a new law was enacted against murder. The horror of the crime was clearly stated on the two grounds of the common brotherhood of man, which makes every murder a fratricide, and of the creation of man in God's image. The first murderer had been driven out as a vagabond and fugitive; but his life was sacred: Now, however, the penalty was changed, and the law laid down"He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." This law amounts to giving the civil magistrate the " power of the sword;" ;" and hence we may consider three new precepts to have been given to Noah, in addition to the laws of the Sabbath and of marriage, which were revealed to Adam-namely, the abstinence from blood, the prohi bition of murder, and the recognition of the civil authority The Jews reckoned seven "Noachic precepts" as antecedent to the Jewish Law, and therefore binding upon proselytes. The remaining four are the laws against idolatry and blasphemy, incest and theft. These have all survived the Jewish dispensation, except the law of abstinence from blood, and even this was imposed by the Apostles upon Gentile converts to Christianity. The Greek Church kept to the precept against eating blood after the Latin Church had abandoned 9933 35 27 On the traditions of the Deluge, Bee Notes and Illustrations (B). 28 Gen. viii 13. 29 Gen. viii. 14-19. 30 Gen. viii. 20-22. 31 Gen. ix. 1, 2. 33 Gen. ix. 5, 6 35 Acts xv. 20. it; and the question of its temporary nature can hardly be considered as settled. § 9. In addition to these promises and precepts, God made with Noah a COVENANT36 that is, one of these agreements by which He had condescended again and again to bind Himself toward man; not more sacred with Him than a simple promise, but more satisfying to the weakness of our faith." Of these covenants, that made with Noah on behalf of his descendants is the first; and it may be called the Covenant of God's forbearance, under which man lives to the end of time. It repeated the promise that the world should not be again destroyed by a flood; and it was ratified by the beau tiful sign of the rainbow in the cloud, a natural phenomenon suited to the natural laws of whose permanence it was the token.38 It is important for us not to suffer our relations to Adam as our first father, or to Abraham as the father of the faithful, to overshadow our part in God's covenant with Noah as the ancestor of the existing human race. 39 § 10. Noah soon, gave proof that his new race was still a fallen one, by yielding to a degrading vice. Intoxication was doubtless practiced by the profligate race who “ate and drank" before the Flood; but it would seem to have been a new thing with Noah. He began his new life as a husbandman; and living in a land (Armenia) which is still most favorable for the vine, he planted a vineyard, made himself drunk in his tent, and suffered the degrading consequences which always, in some shape or other, attend the quenching of reason in wine, by a shameful exposure of himself in the presence of his sons. And now they began to show those differences of character, which have severed even the families chosen by God in every age. Ham told his father's shame to Shem and Japheth, who hastened to conceal it even from their own eyes.* On coming to himself, Noah vented his feelings in words which are unquestionably prophetic of the destinies of the three races that descended from his sons. For in the primitive state of society, the government was strictly patriarchal. The patriarchthat is, the head of the race for the time being—had over his children and theirs the full power of the later king; he was their priest; and thus we have seen Noah offering sacrifices; and, among those who preserved the true religion, he was a prophet also.11 With such authority, then, did Noah pro 41 36 Gen. ix. 8-11. 87 See Heb vi. 13, 16-18. 40 40 Gen. ix. 22, 23. 41 On the patriarchal government, see *Gen. ix. 12 17. 39 Gen. ix. 20,21. the conclusion of Book II. C nounce on his undutiful son the curse that, in the person of one of his own children, he should be a slave to his brother. "Cursed be Canaan [the youngest son of Ham]: A slave of slaves shall he be to his brethren ;' while to Shem and Japheth he gave the respective blessings already symbolized by their names, Shem (the name, chosen above all others) and Japheth (enlargement)-to the former that Jehovah should be his God in some special sense; tc the latter, that he should be "enlarged" with worldly pow¬ er, and should ultimately share the blessings of the family of Shem: "Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem, Thus early in the world's history was the lesson taught practically, which the law afterward expressly enunciated, that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children. The subsequent history of Canaan shows, in the clearest manner possible, the fulfillment of the curse. When Israel took possession of his land, he became the slave of Shem: when Tyre fell before the arms of Alexander, and Carthage succumbed to her Roman conquerors, he became the slave of Japheth and we also hear the echo of Noah's curse in Hannibal's Agnosco fortunam Carthaginis, when the head of Hasdrubal his brother was thrown contemptuously into the Punic lines. The blessing on Shem was fulfilled in that history of the chosen race which forms the especial subject of the Old Testament. The blessing on Japheth, the ancestor of the great European nations, is illustrated by every age of their annals, and especially by religious history. All this will be more clearly seen when the divisions of the three races are anderstood. 42 § 11. Noah lived for 350 years after the Flood, and died at the age of 950, just half-way, according to the common chronology, between the Creation and the Christian era. He survived the fifth and eighth of his descendants, Peleg and Reu; he was for 128 years contemporary with Terah, the father of Abraham; and died only two years before the birth of Abraham himself (A.M. 2006, B.C. 1998). Looking back 42 Gen. ix. 28, 29. |