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Bible History of the Old Testament |
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No. 6 The Flood
There is a grandeur and wonderful simplicity about the scriptural account of The Flood. Twice only throughout the Old Testament is the event again referred to, with each time being in grave, brief language that befits its solemnity. The two passages are Psalms 29:10 and Isaiah 54: 9-10. The first point in the narrative of The Flood is the emphatic point mentioned twice of Noah's absolute obedience of "all that Jehovah had commanded him" to do to get ready for the flood. Next there is "a pause of seven days" before the flood actually commenced, when "all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened". This event happened "in the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month". If we calculate the season according to the beginning of the Hebrew civil year, The Flood could have happened about the middle or end of our month of November. Then Noah, his wife, and three sons - Shem, Ham, and Japheth - their wives, and all the animals, came into the ark. Jehovah God shut the door and for forty days and forty nights the rain was upon the earth. At the same time it was raining, the fountains of the deep were breaking up. The terrible catastrophe is thus described: " And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved 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: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." The Bible does not give a vivid description of everything that happened as the rain was covering the earth. We see nothing of the death-struggle, or hear anything about the people's cries for help. We can only imagine how they must have felt as they frantically ran around trying to find a place to flee the rising waters. Nothing is said about any of this in the Bible, but any person reading the narrative gets a clear picture of the utter desolation and destruction that happened. We get an impression in our minds that the desolation and destruction was so bad that maybe if God himself had not shut the door, then Noah would probably have been tempted to open it and save who he could save. I'm sure it must have been terrible hearing the cries for help. Noah could not open the door, though, and he was saved from having to make that decision. After all God had been very liberal in giving them 120 years to repent. He didn't want to have to bring judgment upon them, and waited as long as possible for them to change their minds. After 150 days, a drying wind was made to pass over the earth, and the flood "was restrained", and "the waters returned from the earth continually." On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, exactly five months after Noah had entered it, the ark came to rest "upon the mountains of Ararat". The waters still decreased, and 73 days later the mountain tops all around became visible. After 40 more days, Noah sent out the raven, which found shelter on the mountain tops and did not return. In 7 more days he sent out a dove, but it was still too early to leave because she could not find a nesting place and she came back to the ark. He sent her back 7 days later and she came back with an olive leaf in her mouth. He waited 7 more days and this time when he sent her out, she didn't come back again. One year and 10 days after he had first entered the ark, Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked out and saw that the ground was dry. There are many different opinions as to whether the flood covered the entire earth, or just the area populated by peoples at that time. Different archaeology finds over the years, though, tend to prove that the flood was probably universal and covered the whole earth. One thing that is very significant about The Flood is that it has been preserved in the traditions of so many nations in different parts of the world. These nations are separated and independent of each other, so it is not thought that they could have gotten the information just by passing it on. These narrations of the flood have some different details, such as where it happened, but the fact that the flood is mentioned so much in history is very significant, even to someone who doesn't believe in the Bible. There are stories about it from all nations. These are some that have ancient writings and traditions of it: Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Phrygians, Syrians, Armenians, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Cherokees of the American Nations, and the Mexican Indians of the Fiji Islands. The most interesting of all these traditions is the Chaldean, or Babylonian description of The Flood. It very closely matches the description the Bible gives. The text below is taken from the book Assyrian Discoveries by George Smith, London, 1875. In general we may say that we have two Chaldean accounts of the flood. The one comes to us through Greek sources, from Berosus, a Chaldean priest in the third century before Christ, who translated into Greek the records of Babylon. This, as the less clear, we need not here notice more particularly. But a great interest attaches to the far earlier cuneiform inscriptions, first discovered and deciphered in 1872 by Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, and since further investigated by the same scholar. These inscriptions cover twelve tablets, of which as yet only part has been made available. They may broadly be described as embodying the Babylonian account of the flood, which, as the event took place in that locality, has a special value. The narrative is supposed to date from two thousand to two thousand five hundred years before Christ. The history of the flood is related by a hero, preserved through it, to a monarch whom Mr. Smith calls Izdubar, but whom he supposes to have been the Nimrod of Scripture. There are, as one might have expected, frequent differences between the Babylonian and the Biblical account of the flood. On the other hand, there are striking point of agreement between them, which all the more confirm the scriptural account, as showing that the event had become a distinct part of the history of the district in which it had taken place. There are frequent references to Erech, the city mentioned in Gen. 10:10; allusions to a race of giants, who are described in fabulous terms; a mention of Lamech, the father of Noah, thought under a different name, and of the patriarch himself as a sage, reverent and devout, who, when the Deity resolved to destroy by a flood the world for its sin, built the ark. Sometimes the language comes so close to that of the Bible that one almost seems to read disjointed or distorted quotations from Scripture. We mention, as instances, the scorn which the building of the ark is said to have called forth on the part of contemporaries; the pitching of the ark without and within with pitch; the shutting of the door behind the saved ones, the opening of the window, when the waters had abated; the going and returning of the dove since "a resting place it did not find," the sending of the raven, which, feeding on corpses in the water, " did not return," and finally, the building of an altar by Noah. We sum up the results of this discovery in the words of Mr. Smith: "Not to pursue this parallel further, it will be perceived that when the Chaldean account is compared with the Biblical narrative, in their main features the two stories fairly agree; as to the wickedness of the antediluvian world, the Divine anger and command to build the ark, its stocking with birds and beasts, the coming of the deluge, the rain and storm, the ark resting on a mountain, trial being made by birds sent out to see if the waters had subsided, and the building of an altar after the flood. All these main facts occur in the same order in both narratives, but when we come to examine the details of these stages in the two accounts, there appear numerous points of difference; as to the number of people who were saved, the duration of the deluge, the place where the ark rested, the order of sending out the birds, and other similar matters. We conclude with another quotation from the same work, which will show how much of the primitive knowledge of Divine things, though mixed with terrible corruptions, was preserved among men at this early period: "It appears that at that remote age the Babylonians had a tradition of a flood which was a Divine punishment for the wickedness of the world; and of a holy man, who built an ark, and escaped the destruction; who was afterwards translated and dwelt with the gods. They believed in hell, a place of torment under the earth, and heaven, a place of glory in the sky; and their description of the two has, in several points, a striking likeness to those in the Bible. They believed in a spirit or soul distinct from the body, which was not destroyed on the death of the mortal frame; and they represent this ghost as rising from the earth at the bidding of one of the gods, and winging its way to heaven. For more information from this book, go to the archives page at www.cathydeaton.com There are also more articles of interest there. This text is taken from the book Bible History of the Old Testament written by Alfred Edersheim and is used by permission.
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