Bible History of the Old Testament
No. 5
Before the Flood
Just as the Bible tells about the extraordinary years of length of lives in the early Bible days, just about all nations have preserved in their archives and traditions the very same thing. Because people lived so long in the beginning, there were many stories handed down from son to son for many generations while the first father was still alive.
Before the "flood" the climate, soil, nourishment, and even bodily health were different from those on which our present duration of life depends. The body had to age differently for the people to live for hundreds of years. Such a long life for everyone was necessary, though, in the early years if the earth was to be populated rapidly. Each generation could hand down knowledge that could advance the next generation.
Adam was alive to tell the story of Paradise and the fall, but he could also repeat the word of 'promise' that came from God himself, when Lamech was born. Though none of the earlier fathers would have lived to see the commencement of building the ark, Lamech died only five years before the flood, and his father Methuselah, who was the longest-living man ever, died the year of the flood. If just Methuselah himself lived almost 1,000 years, imagine how many generations back he could have talked to in his family and how much of true history he could have shared. Imagine if we could talk to the founders of our nation and get a "real" picture of how things were back then and obstacles they faced in their lives. It's hard to imagine that if we could do that, those people wouldn't even be that old compared to the ages the early Bible people lived.
Even though the actual texts that formed the Bible may not have been actually written until much later, they had told the stories so many times that they didn't have a problem remembering everything exactly as it happened. There were many good things that came out of the people living so long. Imagine how much a young son could learn from his great, great, great grandfather or even farther back down the line.
But on the other hand, it was possible to pervert this long duration of life to equally evil purposes. As we found out in previous texts ( you can read these by going to the archives), the Cainite race was an evil race that completely turned away from God, so He claimed the Sethite race for his own. After years of the Cainite race living evil, sinful lives, one's conscience just got blunted to the truth. Gradually this even carried over to the good Sethite race. When nothing is done about evil, it just seems to gradually take over.
The corruption of mankind had reached its highest point so far when the two races had become corrupted by intermarrying with each other. At this time the earth must have been peopled in great measure. It was at this time that God said, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." This means more than just the corruption of our nature. It refers to the universal prevalence of open, daring sin, and rebellion against God, brought about when the separation between the Sethites and the Cainites ceased. At this time Noah was the only one that called upon the name of Jehovah.
At this time there was much violence, tyranny, rape, lust, and universal unbelief in the promise of God. With the seeming extinction of the Sethite faith and worship, no further hope remained, and that generation was required to be wholly swept away in judgment. God must have been so extremely sorrowful for what he had to do, as he only wants to be a God of Judgment as a very last resort. At this time, God told man that he would give him 120 years of reprieve from judgment while the ark was being built.
Even from this we should be able to see how much mercy God has for us. He is not a God that is waiting to ZAP! us the first time we mess up or disobey him. Even as degraded and ravaged as the people had become, he still gave them 120 years to repent. If that's not mercy, nothing is. God built his whole plan around one man whom he said was just and perfect. He also found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The whole time Noah must have preached the goodness of God, but had no converts.
The building of the ark commenced when Noah was 480 years old. This was before any of his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, had been born. In fact it was 20 years before the birth of Shem. His great faith was not only in building the ark in the midst of a scoffing and unbelieving world, but in providing room for his sons and their wives when they were not even born yet. The more we look at the circumstances, the more faith we see that it took to even start building the ark in a world such as this, especially when it took so long to build.
Noah was to construct his ark of "gopher wood", which may have been what we would call cypress, and to "pitch it within and without". The ark was to be, in our approximate measurements of round figures, 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. (The map below gives the exact figures.) There was all around the top, just below the roof, an opening for light and for air. There was also a regular window. The door was to be in the side of the ark, which was arranged in three stories of rooms, or cells for the animals' accommodations and storage for food. God told him which animals to bring aboard and gave exact directions, then the 8 people came aboard and God himself shut the door. The ark was quite literally sufficient in every way for the purposes it was intended. It probably looked more like a barge than a ship. It was not designed for navigation, but for storage. It didn't have masts, rudder, nor sails, and was probably flat at the bottom. It must have resembled a huge floating chest.
There is one great fact that would stand out from that period: Noah preached righteousness and warned of the judgment to come, but he still exhibited his faith by continuing to build the ark, in spite of what man thought about things.
For more information from this book, go to the archives page at my site www.cathydeaton.com There are also other articles of interest there. This text is taken from the book Bible History Old Testament written by Alfred Edersheim and is used by permission.