His name signifies rest or repose, from Nuach. Some derive it from Nacham, consolation. The Holy Ghost hath given the character of this patriarch when calling him a preacher of righteousness. (2 Pet. 2: 5.) We have his history, Gen. v. 28. to the end; vi. 8. to the end; and 7: 8. and ix. throughout. We have the Holy Ghost’s own comments upon Noah’s history and character. (Heb. xi. 7.) To those Scriptures I refer.
the son of Lamech. Amidst the general corruption of the human race Noah only was found righteous, Gen 6:9. He therefore “found grace in the sight of the Lord,” and was directed for his preservation to make an ark, the shape and dimensions of which were prescribed by the Lord. In A.M. 1656, and in the six hundreth year of his age, Noah, by divine appointment, entered his ark with his family, and all the animals collected for the renewal of the world. (See Deluge.) After the ark had stranded, and the earth was in a measure dried, Noah offered a burnt- sacrifice to the Lord, of the pure animals that were in the ark; and the Lord was pleased to accept of his offering, and to give him assurance that he would no more destroy the world by water, Genesis 9. He gave Noah power over all the brute creation, and permitted him to kill and eat of them, as of the herbs and fruits of the earth, except the blood, the use of which was prohibited. After the deluge Noah lived three hundred and fifty years; and the whole time of his life having been nine hundred and fifty years, he died, A.M. 2006. According to common opinion, he divided the earth among his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. To Shem he gave Asia, to Ham Africa, and to Japheth Europe. Some will have it, that beside these three sons he had several others. St. Peter calls Noah a preacher of righteousness, because before the deluge he was incessantly preaching and declaring to men, not only by his discourses, but by the building of the ark, in which he was employed a hundred and twenty years, that the cloud of divine vengeance was about to burst upon them. But his faithful ministry produced no effect, since, when the deluge came, it found mankind practising their usual enormities, Mat 24:37. Several learned men have observed that the Heathens confounded Saturn, Deucalion, Ogyges, the god Coelus or Ouranus, Janus, Protheus, Prometheus, &c, with Noah. The fable of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha is manifestly drawn from the history of Noah. The rabbins pretend that God gave Noah and his sons certain general precepts, which contain, according to them, the natural duties which are common to all men indifferently, and the observation of which alone will be sufficient to save them. After the law of Moses was given, the Hebrews would not suffer any stranger to dwell in their country, unless he would conform to the precepts of Noah. In war, they put to death without quarter all who were ignorant of them. These precepts are seven in number: the first was against the worship of idols; the second, against blasphemy, and required to bless the name of God; the third, against murder; the fourth, against incest and all uncleanness; the fifth, against theft and rapine; the sixth required the administration of justice; the seventh was against eating flesh with life. But the antiquity of these precepts is doubted, since no mention of them is made in the Scripture, or in the writings of Josephus, or in Philo; and none of the ancient fathers knew any thing of them.
No´ah, the second father of the human race, was the son of the second Lamech, the grandson of Methuselah, and the tenth in descent from Adam.
The father of Noah must not be confounded with the Lamech who was the fourth in descent from Cain. The two Lamechs have one remarkable circumstance in common; to each of them a fragment of inartificial poetry is attached as his own composition. That of the Cainitic Lamech is in Gen 4:23-24. That of the Sethite now comes before us in Gen 5:28-29:—’Lamech lived 182 years, and then begat a son, and he called his name Noah, saying
This shall comfort us
From our labor,
And from the sorrowful toils of our hands;
From the ground,
Which Jehovah hath cursed.’
The allusion is undoubtedly to the penal consequences of the fall in earthly toils and sufferings, and to the hope of a Deliverer excited by the promise made to Eve. That this expectation was grounded upon a divine communication we infer from the importance attached to it, and the confidence of its expression.
That the conduct of Noah corresponded to the faith and hope of his father we have no reason to doubt. The brevity of the history satisfies not human curiosity. He was born six hundred years before the Deluge. We may reasonably suppose that through that period he maintained the character given of him—’Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God’ (Gen 6:8-9). These words declare his piety, sincerity, and integrity, that he maintained habitual communion with the Father of Mercies, by the exercises of devotion, and that he was an inspired instrument of conveying the will of God to mankind. The wickedness of the human race had long called upon the wisdom and justice of God for some signal display of his displeasure, as a measure of righteous government and an example to future ages. For a long time, probably many centuries, the better part of men, the descendants of Seth, had kept themselves from society with the families of the Cainite race. The former class had become designated as ’the sons of God,’ faithful and obedient: the latter were called by a term evidently designed to form an appellation of the contrary import, ’daughters of men,’ of impious and licentious men. These women possessed beauty and blandishments, by which they won the affections of unwary men, and intermarriages upon a great scale took place. As is usual in such alliances the worse part gained the ascendancy. The offspring became more depraved than the parents, and a universal corruption of minds and morals took place. Many of them became ’giants, the mighty men of old, men of renown,’ apostates (as the word implies) heroes, warriors, plunderers, ’filling the earth with violence.’ God mercifully afforded a respite of one hundred and twenty years (Gen 6:3; 1Pe 3:20; 2Pe 2:5), during which Noah sought to work salutary impressions upon their minds, and to bring them to repentance. Thus he was ’a preacher of righteousness,’ exercising faith in the testimony of God, moved with holy reverence, obeying the divine commands, and, by the contrast of his conduct, condemning the world (Heb 11:7): and probably he had during a long previous period labored in that benevolent and pious work.
At last the threatening was fulfilled. All human kind perished in the waters, except this eminently favored and righteous man, with his three sons (born about a hundred years before) and the four wives [DELUGE].
At the appointed time this terrible state of the earth ceased, and a new surface was disclosed for the occupation and industry of the delivered family. In some places that surface would be washed bare to the naked rock, in others sand would be deposited, which would be long uncultivable; but by far the larger portion would be covered with rich soil. With agriculture and its allied arts the antediluvians must have been well acquainted [ADAM]. The four men, in the vigor of their mental faculties and bodily strength, according to the then existing scale of human life, would be at no loss for the profitable application of their powers. Immediately after the desolating judgment the merciful Jehovah gave intimations of his acceptance of the sacrifice and thanksgivings of Noah and his family, and of his gracious purposes revealed in the form of a solemn covenant for the continual benefit of them and their posterity. The beautiful phenomenon of the rainbow was put to a new and significant use. As infallibly certain as is the production of a rainbow under certain conditions of the atmosphere, so certain and sure of fulfillment are the promises of Jehovah.
As the flood affected equally the common ancestry of mankind, all nations that have not sunk into the lowest barbarism would be likely to preserve the memory of the chief person connected with it; and it would be a natural fallacy that every people should attach to itself a principal interest in that catastrophe, and regard that chief person as the founder of their own nation and belonging to their own locality. Hence we can well account for the traditions of so many peoples upon this capital fact of ancient history, and the chief person in it—the Xisuthrus of the Chaldeans, with whom is associated a remarkable number of precise circumstances, corresponding to the Mosaic narrative; the Phrygian Noë of the celebrated Apamean medal, which, besides Noah and his wife with an ark, presents a raven, and a dove with an olive-branch in its mouth; the Manes of the Lydians: the Deucalion of the Syrians and the Greeks, of whose deluge the account given by Lucian is a copy almost exactly circumstantial of that in the book of Genesis; the many coincidences in the Greek mythology in respect of Saturn, Janus, and Bacchus; the traditions of the aboriginal Americans, as stated by Clavigero, in his History of Mexico; and many others.
Rest, comfort, the name of celebrated patriarch who was preserved by Jehovah with his family, by means of the ark, through the deluge, and thus became the second founder of the human race. The history of Noah and the deluge is contained in Gen 5:1-9:29. He was the son of Lamech, and grandson of Methuselah lived six hundred years before the deluge, and three hundred and fifty after it, dying two years before Abram was born. His name may have been given to him by his parents in the hope that he would be the promised "seed of the woman" that should "bruise the serpent’s head." He was in the line of the patriarchs who feared God, and was himself a just man, Eze 14:14,20, and a "preacher of righteousness," 1Pe 3:19,20 2Pe 2:5 . His efforts to reform the degenerate world, continued as some suppose for one hundred and twenty years, produced little effect, Mat 24:37 ; the flood did not "find faith upon the earth." Noah, however, was an example of real faith: he believed the warning of God, was moved by fear, and pursued the necessary course of action, Heb 11:7 .\par His first care on coming out from the ark was to worship the Lord, with sacrifices of all the fitting animals. Little more is recorded of him except his falling into intoxication, a sad instance of the shame and misfortune into which wine is apt to lead. His three sons, it is believed, peopled the whole word; the posterity of Japheth chiefly occupying Europe, those of Shem Asia, and those of Ham Africa.\par Numerous traces of traditions respecting Noah have been found all over the world. Among the most accurate is that embodied in the legend of the Greeks respecting Deucalion and Pyrrha. We may also mention the medals struck at Apamea in Phrygia, in the time of Septimus Severus, and bearing the name NO, an ark, a man and woman, a raven, and a dove with an olive branch in its mouth. See ARK.\par
No’ah. (rest). The tenth in descent from Adam, in the line of Seth, was the son of Lamech, and grandson of Methuselah. (B.C. 2948-1998). We hear nothing of Noah till he is 500 years old, when it is said he begat three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. In consequence of the grievous and hopeless wickedness of the world at this time, God resolved to destroy it. Of Noah’s life during this age of almost universal apostasy, we are told but little. It is merely said that he was a righteous man, and perfect in his generations, (that is, among his contemporaries), and that he, like Enoch, walked with God. St. Peter calls him "a preacher of righteousness." 2Pe 2:5 . Besides this, we are merely told that he had three sons, each of whom had married a wife; that he built the ark in accordance with divine direction; and that he was 600 years old when the flood came. Gen 6:7.
The ark. -- The precise meaning of the Hebrew word, (tebah), is uncertain. The word occurs only in Genesis and in Exo 2:3. In all probability, it is to the old Egyptian, that we are to look, for its original form. Bunsen, in his vocabulary gives tba, "a chest", tpt, "a boat", and in the Coptic version of Exo 2:3; Exo 2:5, thebi is the rendering of tebah.
This "chest" or "boat" was to be made of gopher, (that is, cypress), wood, a kind of timber which, both for its lightness, and its durability, was employed by the Phoenicians for building their vessels. The planks of the ark, after being put together were to be protected by a coating of pitch, or rather bitumen, both inside and outside, to make it water-tight, and perhaps also as a protection against the attacks of marine animals.
The ark was to consist of a number of "nests" or small compartments, with a view, no doubt, to the convenient distribution of the different animals and their food. These were to be arranged in three tiers, one above another; "with lower, second and third (stories) shalt thou make it." Means were also to be provided for letting light into the ark. There was to be a door, that was to be placed in the side of the ark.
Of the shape of the ark, nothing is said, but its dimensions are given. It was to be 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth and 30 in height. Taking 21 inches for the cubit, the ark would be 525 feet in length, 87 feet 6 inches in breadth, and 52 feet 6 inches in height. This is very considerably larger than the largest British man-of-war, but not as large as some modern ships.
It should be remembered that this huge structure was only intended to float on the water, and was not in the proper sense of the word, a ship. It had neither mast, sail, nor rudder; it was, in fact, nothing but an enormous floating house, or rather oblong box.
The inmates of the ark were Noah and his wife and his three sons with their wives. Noah was directed to take also animals of all kinds into the ark with him, that they might be preserved alive.
(The method of speaking of the animals that were taken into the ark "clean" and "unclean," implies that only those which were useful to man were preserved, and that no wild animals were taken into the ark; so that there is no difficulty from the great number of different species of animal life existing in the word. -- Editor).
The flood. -- The ark was finished, and all its living freight was gathered into it as a place of safety. Jehovah shut him in, says the chronicler, speaking of Noah; and then there ensued a solemn pause of seven days before the threatened destruction was let loose. At last, the threatened destruction of the flood came; the waters were upon the earth. A very simple, but very powerful and impressive description is given of the appalling catastrophe. The waters of the flood increased for a period of 190 days. (40+150, comparing Gen 7:12 and Gen 7:24, and then "God remembered Noah" and made a wind to pass over the earth, so that the waters were assuaged.
The ark rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month on the mountains of Ararat. After this, the waters gradually decreased till the first day of the tenth month, when the tops of the mountains were seen, but Noah and his family did not disembark till they had been in the ark, a year and a month and twenty days. 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 narrative obliges us to believe that the whole human race, except eight persons, perished by the flood.
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 it 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 Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed."
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 a common centre whence they were carried by the different families of man as they wandered east and west. The traditions which come nearest to the biblical account are those of the nations of western Asia. Foremost among these is the Chaldean. Other notices of a flood may be found in the Phoenician mythology.
There is a medal of Apamea in Phrygia, struck as late as the time of Septimius Severus, in which the Phrygian deluge is commemorated. This medal represents a kind of a square vessel floating in the water. Through an opening in it are seen two persons, a man and a woman. Upon the top of this chest or ark is perched a bird, whilst another flies toward it carrying a branch between its feet. Before the vessel are represented the same pair as having just, quitted it and got upon the dry land. Singularly enough, too, on some specimens of this medal, the letters NO or NOE have been found on the vessel, as in the cut on p. 45.
(Tayler Lewis deduces the partial extent of the flood from the very face of the Hebrew text." "Earth," where if speaks of "all the earth," often is, and here should be, translated "land," the home of the race, from which there appears to have been little inclination to wander. Even after the flood, God had to compel them to disperse. "Under the whole heavens," simply includes the horizon reaching around "all the land" the visible horizon.
We still use the words in the same sense and so does the Bible. Nearly all commentators now agree on the partial extent of the deluge. If is probable also that the crimes and violence of the previous age had greatly diminished the population, and that they would have utterly exterminated the race had not God in this way saved out some good seed from their destruction. So that the flood, by appearing to destroy the race, really saved the world from destruction.-- Editor).
(The scene of the deluge. -- Hugh Miller, in his "Testimony of the Rocks," argues that there is a remarkable portion of the globe, chiefly on the Asiatic continent, though it extends into Europe, and which is nearly equal to all Europe in extent, whose rivers, (some of them, the Volga, Oural, Sihon, Kour and the Amoo, of great size), do not fall into the ocean, but, on the contrary are all turned inward, losing themselves in the eastern part of the tract, in the lakes of a rainless district in the western parts into such seas as the Caspian and the Aral. In this region, there are extensive districts still under the level of the ocean. Vast plains white with salt and charged with sea-shells, show that the Caspian Sea was at no distant period greatly more extensive than it is now.
With the well-known facts, then, before us regarding this depressed Asiatic region, let us suppose that the human family, still amounting to several millions, though greatly reduced by exterminating wars and exhausting vices, were congregated in that tract of country which, extending eastward from the modern Ararat to far beyond the Sea of Aral, includes the original Caucasian centre of the race. Let us suppose that, the hour of judgment having arrived, the land began gradually to sink, (as the tract in the Run of Cutch sank in the year 1819), equably for forty days at the rate of about 400 feet per day; a rate not twice greater than that at which the tide rises in the Straits of Magellan, and which would have rendered itself apparent as but a persistent inward flowing of the sea.
The depression, which, by extending to the Euxine Sea and the Persian Gulfm on the one handm and the Gulf of Finlandm on the other, would open up by three separate channels the "fountains of the great deep," and which included an area of 2000 miles each way, would, at the end of the fortieth day, be sunk in its centre to the depth of 16,000 feet, -- sufficient to bury the loftiest mountains of the district; and yet, having a gradient of declination of, but sixteen feet per mile, the contour of its hills and plains would remain apparently what they had been before, and the doomed inhabitants would, but the water rising along the mountain sides, and one refuge after another swept away. - Editor).
After the Flood. -- Noah’s great act, after he left the ark, was to build an altar and to offer sacrifices. This is the first altar of which we read in Scripture, and the first burnt sacrifice. Then follows the blessing of God upon Noah and his sons. Noah is clearly the head of a new human family, the representative of the whole race. It is as such that God makes his covenant with him; and hence, selects a natural phenomenon, as the sign of that covenant. The bow in the cloud [the rainbow!], seen by every nation under heaven, is an unfailing witness to the truth of God.
Noah now for the rest of his life betook himself to agricultural pursuits. It is particularly noticed that he planted a vineyard. Whether in ignorance of its properties, or otherwise, we are not informed, but he drank of the juice of the grape till he became intoxicated, and shamefully exposed himself in his own tent.
One of sons, Ham, mocked openly at his father’s disgrace. The others, with dutiful care and reverence, endeavored to hide it. When he recovered from the effects of his intoxication, he declared that a curse should rest upon the sons of Ham. With the curse on his youngest son, was joined a blessing on the other two. After this prophetic blessing, we hear no more of the patriarch, but the sum of his years, 950.
(motion).
2. One of the five daughters of Zelophehad. Num 26:33; Num 27:1; Num 36:11; Jos 17:3. (B.C. 1450).
Son of Lamech, grandson of Methuselah; tenth from Adam in Seth’s line. In contrast to the Cainite Lamech’s boast of violence with impunity, the Sethite Lamech, playing on Noah’s ("rest") name, piously looks for "comfort" (
When "the salt of the earth lost its savour" universal corruption set in. Jud 1:6-7, does not confirm the monstrous notion that "the sons of God" mean angels cohabiting carnally with women. The analogy to Sodom is this, the angels’ ambition alienating their affections from God is a spiritual fornication analogous to the Sodomites’ "going after strange flesh"; so covetousness is connected with whoremongering, as spiritually related (Eph 5:5). The book of Enoch takes the carnal cohabitation view; but because Jud 1:1 accords with it in sonic particulars it does not follow he accords with it in all. The parallel 2Pe 2:4 refers to the first fall of the apostate angels, not to Gen 6:2. The Israelites were "sons of God" (Deu 32:5; Hos 1:10); still more "sons of Jehovah" the covenant God (Exo 4:22; Deu 14:1; Psa 73:15; Pro 14:26). "Wives" and "taking wives," i.e. marriage, cannot be predicated of angels, fornication and going after strange flesh; moreover Christ states expressly the "angels neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Mat 22:30; Luk 20:35-36).
"Unequal yoking" of believers with unbelievers in marriage has in other ages also broken down the separation wall between the church and the world, and brought on apostasy; as in Solomon’s case (compare Neh 13:23-26; 2Co 6:14). Marriages engrossing men just before the flood are specified in Mat 24:38; Luk 17:27. Mixed marriages were forbidden (Exo 34:16; Gen 27:46; Gen 28:1). "There were giants in the earth in those days":
So God’s long suffering at last gave place to zeal against sin, "My Spirit shall not always strive with (Keil, rule in) man," i.e. shall no longer contend with his fleshliness, I will give him up to his own corruption and its penalty (Rom 1:24; Rom 1:26-28), "for that he also (even the godly Sethite) is flesh," or as Keil, "in his erring he is fleshly," and so incapable of being ruled by the Spirit of God; even the godly seed is apostate and carnal, compare Joh 3:6. God still gave a respite of 120 years to mankind. Noah alone found grace in His sight; of him and Enoch alone it is written, "they walked with God." Noah was "just and perfect (sincere in aim, whole-hearted: Mat 5:48; Gen 17:1; Php 3:15) in his generations," among the successive generations which passed during his lifetime. God renews His covenant of grace to mankind in Noah’s person, the one beacon of hope amidst the ruin of the existing race (Gen 6:18). He was now 480 years old, because he entered the ark at 600 (Gen 7:6).
He was 500 when he begat his three sons, subsequently to God’s threat (Gen 5:32 in time is later than Gen 6:3). In the 120 years’ respite Noah was "a preacher of righteousness," "when the long suffering of God was continuing to wait on to the end (
In Eze 14:14 Noah, etc., are instanced as saved "by their righteousness," not of works, but of grace (Rom 4:3). The members of his family alone, his wife, three sons and their wives, were given to him amidst the general wreck. The ark which Noah built by God’s order was like a ship in proportions, but with greater width (Gen 6:14-15). The Hebrew
The "Great Eastern" is longer but narrower. Peter Jansen in 1609 built a vessel of the same proportions, but smaller, and it was found to contain one-third more freight than ordinary vessels of the same tonnage, though slow. Augustine (de Civ. Dei, 15) notices that the ark’s proportions are those of the human figure, the length from sole to crown six times the width across the chest, and ten times the depth of the recumbent figure measured from the ground. Tiele calculated there was room for 7,000 species; and J. Temporarius that there was room for all the animals then known, and for their food. "A window system" (Gesenius) or course of windows ran for a cubit long under the top of the ark, lighting the whole upper story like church clerestory windows. A transparent substance may have been used, for many arts discovered by the Cainites (Gen 4:21-22) and their descendants in the 2,262 years between Adam and the flood (Septuagint; Hebrew 1656 years) were probably lost at the deluge.
The root of
The ark typified the redemption of the animal as well as of the human world. The hopes of the world were linked with the one typical representative human head, Noah (Gen 5:29). Death existed in the animal world before man’s creation, for man’s fall foreseen and the world reflected the sad image of the fall that was to be; moreover, the pre-existing death and physical evil had probably a connection with Satan’s fall. The regeneration of the creature (the animal and material world) finally with man, body as well as soul, is typified by Noah and the animals in the ark and the renewed earth, on which they entered (Rom 8:18-25; Rev 21:1; 2Pe 3:13; Mat 19:28). The deluge began on the 17th day of the second month, i.e. the middle of November, the beginning of the rainy season, Tisri the first month beginning at the autumnal equinox. It lasted 150 days, i.e. five months of 30 days each; and the ark rested on Ararat the 17th of the seventh month (Gen 7:11-12; Gen 7:24; Gen 8:4). The year thus was then 360 days, the old Egyptian year, which was corrected by the solar year, which also the Egyptians knew.
"The fountains of the deep breaking up and the windows of heaven being opened" is phenomenal language. "The Lord shut Noah in," as it shall be in the last days (Isa 26:20); so Israel on the night of the slaying of the firstborn (Exo 12:22-23; Psa 31:20; Psa 83:3; Psa 27:5). The simplicity of the history, the death of all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, and the six times mention of the rescue of the favored few, impress one with the feeling of the completeness of the desolation and the special grace which saved the eight. The "40 days and 40 nights of rain" were part of the 150; forty is the number significant of judgment and affliction; as Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness; Moses’, Elijah’s, and our Lord’s 40 days of foodlessness.
The Speaker’s Commentary considers the Ararat meant to be southern Armenia (as in 2Ki 19:37; Isa 37:38; the only other passages having the word), not the mountain 17,000 ft. above the sea, for 15 cubits water above it would submerge the whole earth. Noah successively sent, to ascertain the state of the earth, at intervals of seven days, a raven which rested on the ark but never entered it, wandering up and down and feeding on the floating caresses (emblem of the restless worldly spirit), and a dove, which finding no rest for the sole of her foot returned and Noah put forth his hand and took her and pulled her in unto him into the ark (emblem of the soul first drawn by Jesus to Himself: Joh 6:44; Joh 10:28-29); next she brought a fresh olive leaf (emblem of peace and the Holy Spirit, the earnest of our inheritance: Eph 1:13-14), which can live under a flood more than most trees; Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. 4:8) and Pliny (H.N. 50) mention olives in the Red Sea. At the third sending she returned no more (the emblem of the new heavens and earth which shall be after the fiery deluge, 2Pe 3:1-13; Rom 8:21, when the ark of the church to separate us from the world shall be needed no more, Rev 21:1-22); contrast Isa 57:20 with Mat 3:16; Mat 11:29.
Noah did not leave the ark until God gave the word; as Jesus waited in the tomb until with the third messenger of day the Father raised Him (Eph 1:20). Noah’s first act was a sacrifice of thanksgiving; "and Jehovah smelled a savour of rest," in consonance with Noah’s name meaning "rest", and promised, in consideration of man’s evil infirmity, not to curse the ground any more nor to smite every living thing as He had done, but to cause seedtime and harvest, day and night, not to cease. In the three great ethnological divisions, Semitics, Aryans (Indo-Europeans), and Turanians, the tradition of the flood exists. The Aryan has the Greek accounts of Ogyges’ and Deucalion’s floods, on account of men’s deterioration in the brazen age (Pindar, Ol. 9:37). As Deucalion threw the bones Of mother earth behind his back, and they became men, so the Tamanaki on the Orinoco represent the surviving man to have thrown the palm fruit. (Ovid, Metam. 1:240; Apollodorus, i.) Lucian (de Syra Des, 12-13) says it destroyed all mankind.
Hindu tradition says Manu was ordered by a great fish to build a ship secured to the horn of Brahma in a fish form to escape the deluge, and was at last landed on a northern mountain. The Phrygian Annakos who lived more than 300 years in Iconium (Enoch, whose years were 365) foretold the deluge. A medal of Apamea, a pagan monument, in Septimius Severus’ reign represented the current tradition namely, a floating ark, two persons within, two going out of it; a bird is on the ark, another flying to it with a branch; No is on some coins: evidently borrowed from the Hebrew record. The Chinese Fahe, the founder of their civilization, escapes from the flood, and is the first man with his wife, three sons and three daughters, in the renovated world (Hardwick, "Christ and other Masters," 3:16). The Fiji islanders (Wilkes’ Expl. Exped.) believe in a deluge from which eight were saved in a canoe (Hardwick, 3:185).
The aborigines of America were of one stock, the Turanian; the Mexicans (the Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Plascaltecs, and Mechoacans) represent a man (Coxcox) and woman in a barque, a mountain, the dove, and the vulture. The Cherokee Indians believe a dog incited one family to build a boat wherein they were saved from the flood which destroyed all people. In the royal library of the old palace of Nineveh were found about 20,000 inscribed clay tablets, now in the British Museum. Mr. G. Smith has deciphered the account of the flood in three distinct copies, containing duplicate texts of an ancient original. The copies are of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal’s time, i.e. 660 B.C. The original, according to the tablets, belonged to the city of Erech, and was in Semitic Babylonian. The variant readings in the three copies have crept into the text in the lapse of ages. The Assyrian copyists did not always know the modern representatives of the ancient forms of the characters in the original, so have left some in their obsolete hieratic form.
The scribe has recorded the divisions of lines in the original. What were originally explanatory glosses have been incorporated in the text. The Assyrians used commonly to copy Babylonian classics. Assurbanipal was closely connected with Erech, it alone remaining loyal when the rest of Babylonia revolted; to it therefore he restored the idol Nana, which the Elamites carried away 1635 years before (2295 B.C.). Mr. Smith thinks the original text was about 1700 B.C. Izdubar (Nimrod according to Smith) the hero, a sage, asks Sisit or Hasisadra (Greek Xisuthrus), an immortal, son of Ubaratutu, how he became so; in reply he narrates the story of the flood, and assigns his own piety as the cause of his translation. The gods revealed to him their decree: "make a great ship ... for I will destroy the sinners and life ... cause to go in the seed of life, all of it to preserve them.
The ship ... cubits shall be the measure of its length, and ... cubits the amount of its breadth and height. Into the deep launch it. ... I said, this that thou commandest me I will perform. I brought on the fifth day ... in its circuit 14 measures ... its sides 14 measures ... over it a roof ... I poured over the outside three measures of bitumen ... I poured over the inside three measures of bitumen ... I caused to go up into the ship all my male and female servants, the beasts, the animals of the field .... Shamas spoke, I will cause it to rain from heaven heavily, enter ... the ship, shut thy door ... I entered ... shut my door ... to guide the ship to Buzursadiribi the pilot I gave. The bright earth to a waste was turned. The flood destroyed all life from the face of the earth ... Ishtar ... the great goddess said, the world to sin has turned. Six days and nights the storm overwhelmed, on the seventh the storm was calmed. I opened the window, I sent forth a dove .... it searched a rest which it did not find, and returned. I sent forth a swallow and it returned. I sent forth a raven and it did not return.
I poured out a libation, I built an altar on the peak of the "mountain" (
The "ark" becomes a "ship," it is launched into the sea in charge of a pilot. Berosus’ fragment preserves a similar Chaldean story: "Xisuthrus, warned by Kronos of a coming flood, wrote a history of the beginning, course, and end of all things, and buried it in the city of the sun, Sippara; built a vessel five stadia long and two broad, and put on board food, birds, and quadrupeds, wife, children and friends. After the flood abated Xisuthrus sent out birds which not finding food or rest returned. Again he sent, and they returned with mud on their feet. The third time they returned no more. The vessel being stranded on a mountain, Nizir, E. of the Tigris, he quitted it, built an altar, and sacrificed to the gods and disappeared. The rest went to Babylon from Armenia, where part of the vessel remains in the Corcyrean (Kurdistan) mountains; they dug up the writings at Sippara, and built temples and cities, and Babylon became inhabited again" (Cory’s Anc. Fragm. 26-29).
No record of the flood appears in the Egyptian monuments, but Plato (Timaeus, 21) testifies that the Egyptians believed that catastrophes from time to time by God’s anger had visited all lands but Egypt; the last was a deluge submerging all lands but Egypt, 8,000 years before Solon’s visit to Amosis, no rain falling in Egypt. The various yet mainly agreeing accounts imply the original unity of mankind diverging from one common center after the flood, and carrying to their various lands the story which has by corruption assumed various shapes. The Bible narrative unites details scattered up and down in various traditions but nowhere else combined:
(1) The divine warning in the Babylonian, Hindu, and Cherokee accounts.
(2) The care for animals in the Babylonian, Indian, and Polynesian versions.
(3) The eight saved in the Fiji and Chinese stories (the latter specifying a man, his wife, three sons and their wives).
(4) The birds sent forth before leaving the ark, in the Babylonian.
(5) The dove, in the Greek and the Mexican.
(6) The olive branch, in the Phrygian legend.
(7) The building of the altar afterward, in the Babylonian and the Greek account.
(8) The bitumen, in the Erech version; also shutting the door; the cause, sin; the seven days, the dove returning, the raven not so; the mountain; the Deity bringing out from the ark and establishing a covenant; the retribution for taking life.
The Bible account cannot be derived from anyone of these traditions, while they all can flow from it. Probably Shem related the event as it would strike an eye witness, "all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered ... 15 cubits upward," as doubtless they ascertained by a plumbline. If Babylonia were the region of Noah few hills were in view and those low, possibly the Zagros range. Deu 2:25; Gen 41:57; 1Ki 18:10, show the limited sense of "all the high hills under the whole heaven." A flood destroying all the existing race of man, and those animals alone in the limited region, as yet occupied by man, and covering the visible horizon, satisfies the requirements of Scripture. Thus geological, physical, and zoological (namely, the distribution of animals, each continent having for ages before the flood its own peculiar species, and the numbers being vast) objections are solved. Not that there is insufficiency of water to submerge the earth, nay the water is to the land as three-fifths to two-fifths; a universal flood might have been for 150 days, and yet leave no trace discernible now.
But the other difficulties make a partial one probable. The geological diluvium is distinct from the historical. The diluvium or drift in many places, consisting of sand, pebbles, organic remains, and rock fragments, was produced by violent eruptions of water at various times, not the comparatively tranquil flood of Scripture. Traces of man are supposed to be found during the formation of the drift, but that formation was apparently the work of ages, and these before Noah, not of a temporary submersion. Moses implies the ark did not drift far from where it was first lifted up, and grounded about the same place. The flood rose by degrees, not displacing the soil, nor its vegetable tribes as the olive, nor rendering the ground unfit for cultivating the vine. Hence the nonappearance of traces of the flood accords with the narrative. But the elevation of mountains followed by floods submerging whole regions is traceable, and further confirms the account of Noah’s flood. Depression of the large tracts occupied by the existing race of men would open the fountains of the deep, so that the land would be submerged.
Psa 29:10 translated "Jehovah sat (so sit, Psa 9:4; Psa 9:7-8; Joe 3:12) at the flood";
Yet the earth was deluged by that water out of which it had originally risen; (2Pe 3:6) "by which (plural Greek) heavens and earth, in respect to the waters which flowed together from both, the then world perished, in respect to its occupants, men and animals, and its existing order" (
Vegetable diet had heretofore been the sole one sanctioned (Gen 1:29), as it is still in some Eastern countries. Whether men restricted themselves from flesh or not, previous to the flood, is unknown. Now first its use was explicitly conceded, man’s needs often finding insufficient food from the ground under the curse; thus Lamech’s prophecy was fulfilled (Gen 5:29), Noah his son becoming head of the regenerated world under more favorable circumstances. But flesh with the life or blood in it was not to be eaten, both for humanity’s sake, and also as typifying His blood shedding in whom is our life (Lev 17:10-11; Act 15:29). Moreover, henceforth (though formerly having let Cain live) God requires man’s blood of the shedder, whether man or beast (Exo 21:28; Psa 9:12). As the priesthood belonged to all Israel, before it was delegated to Aaron’s family as Israel’s representative, so the judicial and magisterial authority belonged to mankind, and was subsequently delegated to particular magistrates as mankind’s representatives.
The security of the natural world from destruction by flood is guaranteed by God’s promise, and that of the social world by God’s making human life inviolable on the ground of man’s bearing God’s image. These three precepts, abstinence from blood, murder punishable by death (Rom 13:1-4, etc.), the civil authority, have four more added by inference, constituting the "seven precepts of Noah": abstinence from blasphemy, incest and unchastity, theft, and idolatry. As Noah the head of the new family of man represents all peoples, God takes the rainbow, a natural phenomenon, seen by all everywhere, as pledge of His covenant with mankind; so when covenanting with one nation in Abraham’s person, He made circumcision, an arbitrary sign, His seal.
Canaan shared Ham’s guilt, and by undutifulness should wound his father as the latter had wounded Noah. God overruled, as always, this fall of Noah to His glory, His righteousness becoming known by Noah’s prophecy, reaching to the last ages. Ham, who despised his duty as a son, hears his son’s doom to be a slave. The curse fell on Ham at the sorest point, namely, in his son’s person. Canaan became "slave of Shem’s" descendant, Israel. Tyre fell before Greece, Carthage before Rome, and Africa for ages has been the land of slaves.
"Blessed be Jehovah (the covenant fulfilling) God of Shem" marks that to Israel, Shem’s representative, Jehovah should especially reveal Himself as their God, and through Israel ultimately to "the whole earth" (Psa 72:18-19; Isa 2:2-5; Rom 11:12-32). Noah lived after the flood 350 years. Noah was the second father and federal representative head of man-kind; alone after the flood, as Adam was alone in Eden. The flood brought back man to his original unity. The new world emerging from the water was to Noah what Eden had been to Adam. Noah’s vine was the counterpart to the two trees of Eden: a tree of life in the moderate use of its fruit, a tree of knowledge of evil, shame, and death in excess, which, lust persuaded him as in Eve’s case, would raise him to expanded knowledge and bliss.
Noah (nô’ah), rest. Gen 6:8. The son of Lamech and grandson of Methuselah. Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In consequence of the hopeless wickedness of the world at this time, God resolved to destroy it. During this age of almost universal apostasy we are told that Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generations—i.e., among his contemporaries—and that he, like Enoch, walked with God. Gen 6:9. Peter calls him "a preacher of righteousness." 2Pe 2:5. He had three sons, each of whom married a wife; he built the ark in accordance with divine direction; and was 600 years old when the flood came. Gen 6:7. On coming from the ark he built an altar, made an offering, and received a promise that the world should never again be destroyed by a flood. Gen 8:20. The closing history in his eventful life of 950 years is given in Gen 9:1-29. Noah was to be the father of a new race. From his small family the earth was to be repeopled. And 350 years did he live among his posterity, a monument of God’s justice and God’s faithfulness. One more incident is related of him. Gen 9:20-27. He planted a vine and drank, knowingly or not we cannot say, too freely of the fruit of it. A shameful scene ensued. But the patriarch recovered, and in the spirit of prophecy predicted happiness to his faithful sons, judgment to the ungodly. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." The days of Noah were 950 years when he died.
His Genealogy. His blood was pure back to Seth (Gen 5:3-32), and he was a son of God (Gen 6:9). His Sons. Noah had three sons--Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Gen 5:32). The order of their births is somewhat difficult to determine. Ham was the youngest (Gen 9:22-24) and the proof goes to show that Shem was the first born (Gen 5:32). What is the obvious meaning of this statement? Simply that Noah was five hundred years old At the birth of Shem and that the others were born afterwards. Is there Anything in the subsequent history of Noah and his sons that is against This interpretation? Let us see. The phrase "Japheth the elder" (Gen 10:21) does not express seniority according to the testimony of the best scholars. Noah was six hundred years old at the flood (Gen 7:6), and Shem was one hundred at this time (600 - 500 = 100). Noah and his family entered the ark on the tenth day (Gen 7:1-10) of the second month of the six hundredth year of Noah’s life (Gen 7:11), and came out on the twenty-seventh day of the second month of the six hundred and first year of his life (Gen 8:12-14). They were in the ark one year and seventeen days. Shem was at least one Hundred one years and seventeen days old when he came out of the ark (Gen 5:32; Gen 7:7-11; Gen 8:12-19). Arphaxad was born two years after the flood, that is, after the flood began (Gen 11:10,11). Shem was, therefore, one hundred two years old at the birth of Arphaxad. Gods Revelation to Him’. God revealed to Noah His purpose to Destroy the human race. The limit already placed upon the existence of The wicked people was one hundred twenty years. (Gen 6:3,11-13). The Ark. Noah was commanded to make an ark of gopher wood. The Dimensions, allowing eighteen inches to the cubit, were four hundred Fifty long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high (Gen 6:15). During the building of the Ark Noah preached righteousness to his contemporaries (2Pe 2:5). Inmates of the Ark. The ark contained eight persons--Noah, his Wife, three sons and their wives, and two of every kind of unclean Animals, and seven pair of animals that were clean, and seven pair of All kinds of fowls (Gen 6:17-22; Gen 7:1-16). The Flood. The water fell in ceaseless torrents for forty days And forty nights until the highest mountains were covered fully Twenty-two and a half feet (Gen 7:12,20), and ended in the destruction of everything upon the dry land (Gen 7:21-24). Noahs Salvation’. Noah’s salvation is ascribed to faith, fear, the ark, obedience, water (Gen 6:22; Gen 7:5; Heb 11:7; 1Pe 3:19-21). Gods Covenant with Noah’. After the flood God established a Covenant with Noah that He would never again destroy all living flesh By water (Gen 8:18-22; Gen 9:1-17).
[No’ah]
Son of Lamech, the descendant of Seth, and father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah is introduced as a just man, perfect in his generations, and as one who walked with God. To him God revealed that because the earth was full of violence, He would destroy all flesh with the earth. God bade Noah make the ark, and He would establish His covenant with him, and would preserve alive in the ark Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. The N.T. reveals the fact that Noah had faith, and that in godly fear he prepared the ark, in obedience to God’s warning, for the saving of his house, thereby condemning the world and becoming heir of the righteousness which is by faith. God’s salvation was seen by faith in the midst of coming judgement. Heb 11:7.
In Gen 6: God said, "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [or ’indeed’] is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Men lived to a much greater age than this till long after the flood, so that this seems to refer to the period from the warning to the deluge. We know from other scriptures that God gave the people time for repentance "the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing." 1Pe 3:20.
Noah is called a "preacher of righteousness," 2Pe 2:5, but another scripture shows that his preparing the ark and his preaching had no effect: "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away." Mat 24:38-39.
When Noah and all the creatures were safely shut up in the refuge God had devised for them, it is said, God ’remembered’ them. In due time He abated the flood, and eventually bade Noah go out of the ark, for though Noah saw that the earth was dry, yet he waited like a dependent one for God’s word. His first act on the cleansed earth was to build an altar to the Lord, and offer burnt offerings of all the clean animals and fowls. The Lord smelled a sweet savour, and said in His heart that He would not again curse the ground for man’s sake, nor would He again smite every living thing as He had done. We are thus taught that the providential government of God is carried on upon the ground of the sweet savour of Christ’s sacrifice. God blessed Noah and his sons, and established His covenant with them and with every living thing, and gave the bow in the cloud as a token of it. He gave Noah and his sons authority over all living things, with permission to eat flesh, but not with the blood.
Thus God, after smelling a sweet savour in the burnt offering (type of the sacrifice of Christ, and so the earth not being again cursed for man’s sake) began the new earth by establishing His covenant with Noah and his sons, blessing the earth and putting its government into their hands. It was a new beginning in a new earth: the "heavens and the earth which are now " are in 2Pe 2:5; 2Pe 3:6-7, put in contrast to the "world that then was ," the ’old world.’ Alas! in this new world failure at once characterised the man to whom government had been entrusted. Noah planted a. vineyard, drank of the wine, became intoxicated, and dishonoured God and himself, and was dishonoured by his son.
Noah pronounced a blessing on Shem and Japheth: Jehovah’s name is connected with Shem, while Japheth, head of the Gentiles, is enlarged providentially by God ; a curse is pronounced on Canaan. Gen 6 - Gen 9. Noah is twice spoken of as a righteous man, along with Daniel and Job, though able to secure only their own safety when God’s sore judgements were on the land. Eze 14:14; Eze 14:16; Eze 14:20. See ARK and FLOOD.
[No’ah]
A daughter of Zelophehad, grandson of Gilead. Num 26:33; Num 27:1; Num 36:11; Jos 17:3.
NOAH.—The hero of the Hebrew version of the Semitic tradition of the Flood; mentioned twice in the Gospels. In the genealogy of Jesus (Luk 3:36) he appears in the ninth generation after Adam, as in the OT narrative. The second mention is in Luk 17:26-27 || Mat 24:37-38, where Jesus uses the Flood in the days of Noah to illustrate the sudden and unexpected coming of the Son of Man; the indifference of the people in the time of Noah is paralleled by the indifference of men to this approaching event.
The use of the illustration shows the familiarity of the Jews with the story of Noah. In the OT there is but the slightest mention of him outside of the immediate Flood-story in Genesis. The writer of Isa 54:9 describes the present distresses of Israel ‘as the waters of Noah,’ to be followed by peace, according to the unchangeable covenant of peace, as surely as the promise and the covenant followed the Flood. Ezekiel (Eze 14:14; Eze 14:20) knows of three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, efficient mediators to deliver the people by their righteousness; but in the present case, even the three shall be able to deliver only themselves (see also Heb 11:7).
O. H. Gates.
By: Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., J. Frederic McCurdy, Wilhelm Bacher, M. Seligsohn, Emil G. Hirsch, Mary W. Montgomery
—Biblical Data:
Son of Lamech and the ninth in descent from Adam. In the midst ofabounding corruption he alone was "righteous and blameless in his generations" and "walked with God" (Gen. vi. 9). Hence, when all his contemporaries were doomed to perish by the divine judgment in punishment for their sins, he "found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (ib. vi. 8). When he was about five hundred years old his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, were born (ib. v. 32). One hundred years after this the command came to him from God to make a great vessel or ark, three hundred cubits in length, in which he and his family were to find safety from the waters of a great flood. This deluge was to destroy all living things except such as should be brought into the ark before the coming of the waters. Hence, besides his wife, and his sons and their wives, eight persons in all, a pair of every species of living thing was taken into the ark (ib. vi. 13-21). Another account (ib. vii. 1-3) states that of the clean animals seven of each kind were thus preserved.
Noah fulfilled the command, and on the tenth day of the second month of the six hundredth year of his life he and his family and the living creatures entered into the vessel. Seven days thereafter "all the fountains of the abyss were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened" (ib. vii. 6-11, 13-16). For forty days the rain fell; the ark floated and drifted in fifteen cubits of water; the high mountains were covered; and every living thing not sheltered in the vessel perished from the earth. For one hundred and fifty days the waters prevailed (ib. vii. 17-24). At the end of that period the vessel rested upon the "mountains of Ararat" (ib. viii. 3, 4).
Noah Sends Forth the Dove.
Noah waited during the slow ebbing of the waters till the tenth day of the eleventh month. Then he sent forth a raven which flew from hilltop to hilltop and did not return. Next he sent forth a dove which found no resting-place and returned to the ark. After seven days more he sent forth the dove again, and at evening she returned with an olive-leaf in her beak. Soon the waters disappeared entirely, and in the six hundred and first year, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that is, three hundred and sixty-five days after the oncoming of the deluge, the earth was seen to be entirely dry (ib. viii. 5-14).
Noah's first duty, after the general disembarkation, was to erect an altar to Yhwh, whereon he offered one of every species of clean animal as a sacrifice. Yhwh, accepting the offering, promised never again to curse the ground "for man's sake," or to interfere with the regular succession of the seasons. As a pledge of this gracious covenant with man and beast the rainbow was set in the clouds (ib. viii. 15-22, ix. 8-17). Two injunctions were laid upon Noah: While the eating of animal food was permitted, abstinence from blood was strictly enjoined; and the shedding of the blood of man by man was made a crime punishable by death at the hands of man (ib. ix. 3-6).
After the Flood Noah engaged in vine-growing. He became drunk with the wine, and, uncovering himself in his tent, he was seen in his shame by his eldest son, Ham, who informed his two brothers of the exposure. They modestly covered their father with a garment, and received from him a blessing, while Ham, through his son Canaan, received a curse. Noah died at the age of nine hundred and fifty years. He was the second father of the race, since only his descendants survived the Flood. His traditional renown is attested by his being named with Job and Daniel, in the days of the Exile (Ezek. xiv. 14, 20), as a type of a righteous man.
E. C. J. F. McC.—In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature:
Apocryphal legend represents Noah at his birth as having a body white like snow, hair white as wool, and eyes like sunbeams. As soon as he opened his eyes, with the light of which the whole house was illumined, he stood upright between the midwife's hands and addressed a prayer to God. His father, Lamech, frightened at this sight, went to consult Methuselah, telling him that his grandchild resembled an angel more than a child. Lamech further informed his father that he foresaw some accident would befall the earth during the lifetime of his son; he therefore asked Methuselah to consult Enoch, who was then among the angels, and who consequently would know what was to happen. Methuselah, accordingly, went to the ends of the earth to confer with Enoch, who announced to him that a flood would destroy the world, that only the new-born son and his future sons, three in number, would survive. Enoch also told him to name the child "Noah," inasmuch as he would console the earth for its destruction (Enoch, cvi.-cvii.).
His Name.
According to Midr. Agadah on Gen. v. 29, Noah obtained his name, which means "rest," only after he had invented implements for tilling the ground, which, owing to the lack of such implements, had yielded only thorns and thistles (comp. Gen. iii. 18). In this manner Noah really brought rest to mankind and to the earth itself. Other reasons for this name are given by the Rabbis; e.g., Noah restored man's rule over everything, just as it had been before Adam sinned, thus setting mankind at rest. Formerly the water used to inundate the graves so that the corpses floated out; but when Noah was born the water subsided (Gen. R. xxv. 2). The apparent discrepancy in Gen. v. 29, where it is said that Lamech "called his name Noah, saying, This shall comfort us," is explained by the "Sefer ha-Yashar" (section "Bereshit," p. 5b, Leghorn, 1870), which says that while he was called in general "Noah," his father named him "Menahem" (= "the comforter"). Noah was born circumcised (Midr. Agadah on Gen. vi. 9; Tan., Noaḥ, 6).
His Marriage.
Although Noah is styled "a just man and perfect in his generations" (Gen. vi. 9), the degree of his righteousness is, nevertheless, much discussed by the Rabbis. Some of the latter think that Noah was a just man only in comparison with his generation, which was very wicked, but that he could not be compared with any of the other righteous men mentioned in the Bible. These same rabbis go still further and assert that Noah himself was included in the divine decree of destruction, but that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord (comp. ib. vi. 8) for the sake of his descendants. Other rabbis, on the contrary, extol Noah's righteousness, sayingthat his generation had no influence on him, and that had he lived in another generation, his righteousness would have been still more strongly marked (Sanh. 108a; Gen. R. xxx. 10). In like manner, the terms "wise" ("ḥakam") and "stupid" ("ba'ar") are applied to Noah by different rabbis (Ex. R. l. 2; Num. R. x. 9). Still, it is generally acknowledged that before the Flood, Noah was, by comparison with his contemporaries, a really up-rigḥt man and a prophet. He was considered as God's shepherd (Lev. R. i. 9; "Yalḳ. Ḥadash," "Mosheh," No. 128). Two different reasons are given why Noah begat no children until he had reached the advanced age of 500 years, while his ancestors had families at a much younger age (comp. Gen. v.). One explanation is that Noah, foreseeing that a flood would destroy the world on account of its corruption, refused to marry on the ground that his offspring would perish. God, however, ordered him to take a wife, so that after the Flood he might repeople the earth (Tan., Bereshit, 39; "Sefer ha-Yashar," section "Noaḥ"). The other explanation is that God rendered him impotent till he reached the age of 500, saying: "If his children be wicked, he will be afflicted by their destruction; and if they be upright like their father, they will be troubled with making so many arks" (Gen. R. xxvi. 2). The "Sefer ha-Yashar" (l.c.) and Gen. R. (xxii. 4) both agree that Noah's wife was called Naamah. According to the latter, she was the sister of Tubal-cain (Gen. iv. 21); according to the former, she was a daughter of Enoch, and Noah married her when he was 498 years old. In the Book of Jubilees (Hebr. transl. by Rubin, iv. 46-47) Noah's wife is referred to as "Emẓara, daughter of Raḳi'el." Emẓara was his niece, and two years after their marriage bore him Shem.
Making of the Ark.
Noah once had a vision in which he saw the earth sinking and its destruction drawing near. Like his grandfather, Methuselah, Noah, too, went to the ends of the earth to consult Enoch. Noah cried out sadly three times: "Hear me!" Then he said: "What has happened to the earth that it is so shaken? May I not go down with it?" An earthquake took place; a voice descended from heaven; and Noah fell with his face toward the ground. Enoch appeared before him, foretelling that the end of the dwellers upon the earth was near because they had learned the secrets of the angels, the misdeeds of Satan, and all the mysteries of the world which should have been hidden from them. But as Noah was innocent of any attempt to learn these secrets, Enoch foretold his deliverance from the Flood, and the descent from him of a righteous race of men (Enoch, lxv. 1-12). On being informed of the end of the world, Noah exhorted his contemporaries to repentance, foretelling them that a flood would destroy the earth on account of the wickedness of its people. According to a tradition, Noah planted cedar-trees and felled them, continuing to do so for the space of one hundred and twenty years. When the people asked him for what purpose he prepared so many trees, he told them that he was going to make an ark to save himself from the Flood which was about to come upon the earth. But the people heeded not his words, they mocked at him, and used vile language; and Noah suffered violent persecution at their hands (Sanh. 108a, b; Pirḳe R. El. xxii.; Gen. R. xxx. 7; Lev. R. xxvii. 5; "Sefer ha-Yashar," l.c.; see also Flood in Rabbinical Literature). According to one legend, God showed Noah with His finger how to make the ark (Pirḳe R. El. xxiii.); but according to the "Sefer Noaḥ" (Jellinek, "B. H." iii. 155-160), Noah learned how to build it, and mastered as well the various sciences, from the "Sefer Razi'el" (the book from which the angel Raziel taught Adam all the sciences), which had been brought to him by the angel Raphael. The construction of the ark lasted fifty-two years; Noah purposely working slowly, in the hope that the people would take warning therefrom and would repent (Pirḳe R. El. l.c.). The "Sefer ha-Yashar" (l.c.), however, assigns only five years for the construction of the ark. Noah could distinguish between clean and unclean animals inasmuch as the ark of itself gave admittance to seven of the clean animals, while of the unclean ones it admitted two only (Sanh. 108b). The "Sefer haYashar" describes another method for distinguishing them: the clean animals and fowls crouched before Noah, while the unclean ones remained standing.
An account of a vision which Noah had in the five-hundredth year of his life, on the fourteenth day of the seventh month, is given in the Book of Enoch (lx. i. 25), which probably refers to the beginning of the Flood. Noah witnessed the heaven of heavens quake so violently that all the heavenly hosts were disquieted. Noah was prostrated with fear, and Michael sent an angel to raise him and to tell him of the impending judgment. Then the angel that accompanied Noah told him of the spirits which control the thunder, lightning, snow, rain, and hail.
A difference of opinion concerning Noah prevails also with regard to his entering into the ark. According to some rabbis, Noah's faith was so small that he did not enter the ark until he stood ankledeep in water (Gen. R. xxxii. 9); others declare, on the contrary, that Noah waited for God's directions to enter the ark, just as he awaited His permission to leave it (ib. xxxiv. 4; Midr. Agadat Bereshit, in Jellinek, "B. H." iv. 11).
Within the Ark.
When Noah and his family and everything that he had taken with him were inside the ark, the people left outside asked him to admit them too, promising repentance. Noah refused to admit them, objecting that he had exhorted them to repent many years before the Flood. The people then assembled in great numbers around the ark in order to break into it; but they were destroyed by the lions and other wild animals which also surrounded it (Tan., Noaḥ, 10; Gen. R. xxxii. 14; "Sefer ha-Yashar," l.c.). Noah was constantly occupied in the ark; for he had to attend to all the living things which were with him and which fed at different times. One of the lions, having become enraged at Noah, attacked and injured him, so that he remained lame for the rest of his life. Noah, during the twelve months that he was in the ark, did not sleepone moment (Tan., Noaḥ, 14; Gen. R. xxx. 6). Noah had also to feed Og, who, being unable to enter the ark, sat upon it, taking hold of one of its timbers. Noah made a hole in the side of the ark through which he passed food to Og; the latter thereupon swore to be Noah's servant eternally (Pirḳe R. El. l.c.).
Being in great distress, Noah prayed to God to shorten the time of his suffering. God answered him that He had decreed that the Flood should last twelve months and that such decree might not be changed (Tan., Noaḥ, 17; Midr. Agadat Bereshit l.c. iv. 12). The mountain on which the ark rested, and on which Noah afterward settled, is called in the Book of Jubilees (v. 38) and "Sefer Noaḥ" (l.c.) "Lubar," which Delitzsch supposes to be the Elbruz. When Noah sent the raven to see whether the waters were abated, it refused to go, saying: "Thy Lord hateth me; for, while seven of other species were received into the ark, only two of mine were admitted. And thou also hatest me; for, instead of sending one from the sevens, thou sendest me! If I am met by the angel of heat or by the angel of cold, my species will be lost." Noah answered the raven: "The world hath no need of thee; for thou art good neither for food nor for sacrifice." God, however, ordered Noah to receive the raven into the ark, as it was destined to feed Elijah (Sanh. 108b; Gen. R. xxxiii. 6). When Noah, on leaving the ark, saw the destruction wrought on the world, he began to weep, saying: "Lord of the world, Thou art merciful; why hast Thou not pitied Thy children?" God answered him: "Foolish shepherd! Now thou implorest My clemency. Hadst thou done so when I announced to thee the Flood it would not have come to pass. Thou knewest that thou wouldest be rescued, and therefore didst not care for others; now thou prayest." Noah acknowledged his fault, and offered sacrifices in expiation of it ("Zohar Ḥadash," p. 42a, b). It was because Noah neglected to pray for his contemporaries that he was punished with lameness and that his son Ham abused him (ib. p. 43a).
His Lapse.
The planting of a vineyard by Noah and his drunkenness (Gen. ix. 20 et seq.) caused him to be regarded by the Rabbis in a new light, much to his disparagement. He lost much if not all of his former merit. He was one of the three worthless men that were eager for agricultural pursuits (Gen. R. xxxvi. 5); he was the first to plant, to become drunken, to curse, and to introduce slavery (Tan., Noaḥ, 20; comp. Gen. l.c.). God blamed Noah for his intemperance, saying that he ought to have been warned by Adam, upon whom so much evil came through wine (Sanh. 70a). According to Pirḳe R. El. (l.c.), Noah took into the ark a vine-branch which had been cast out with Adam from paradise. He had previously eaten its grapes, and their savor induced him to plant their seed, the results of which proved lamentable. When Noah was about to plant the vineyard, Satan offered him his help, for which he was to have a share in the produce. Noah consented. Satan then successively slaughtered a sheep, a lion, an ape, and a hog, fertilizing the ground with their blood. Satan thereby indicated to Noah that after drinking the first cup of wine, one is mild like a sheep; after the second, courageous like a lion; after the third, like an ape; and after the fourth, like a hog who wallows in mud (Midr. Agadah on Gen. ix. 21; Midr. Abkir, in Yalḳ., Gen. 61; comp. Gen. R. xxxvi. 7). This legend is narrated by Ibn Yaḥya ("Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah," p. 75a, Amsterdam, 1697) thus: "Noah, seeing a he-goat eat sour grapes and become intoxicated so that it began to frisk, took the root of that vinebranch and, after having washed it with the blood of a lion, a hog, a sheep, and an ape, planted it and it bore sweet grapes."
The vineyard bore fruit the same day that it was planted, and the same day, too, Noah gathered grapes, pressed them, drank their juice, became intoxicated, and was abused by Ham (Gen. R. l.c.; Midr. Agadah l.c.; Tan., Noaḥ, 20). In Jubilees (vii. 1 et seq.), however, it is stated that Noah planted the vineyard in the first year of the seventh Sabbath of the twenty-sixth jubilee (see Lev. xxv. 8 et seq.), that is, the year 1268 of Creation, seven years after he had come out of the ark. It bore fruit in the fourth year. Noah gathered the grapes in the seventh month of that year, but conserved the wine till the new moon of the first month of the fifth year, on which day he made a festival and offered sacrifices on the altar. Being filled with joy, Noah drank of the wine so freely that he became intoxicated.
His Testament.
According to verses 20-39 of the same chapter, Noah began in the twenty-eighth jubilee to compose his testament, in which he prescribed that future generations should observe all natural laws as well as some of those which Moses later prescribed for the children of Israel, among others the prohibition against eating the fruit of the first three years and the laws concerning the Sabbatical year. When Noah's grandchildren increased in number, they were led astray by evil spirits, and consequently were afflicted with various diseases. According to Jubilees (x. 1), this happened on the third Sabbath of the twenty-ninth jubilee, that is to say, about seventy-five years after the Flood. Noah, having been informed of the punishment visited on his grandchildren, was greatly terrified; for he knew that his descendants were stricken on account of their sins. He consequently assembled his children and grandchildren, whom he sanctified, and they together offered sacrifices on the altar and prayed to God for deliverance from the evil. God then sent the angel Raphael, who confined the demons, leaving loose, however, the tenth part of them, under their chief Masṭemah, in order that they might punish those who committed crimes.
His Book of Medicinal Plants.
Noah was taught by Raphael how to cure the above-mentioned diseases, and was shown the medicinal plants and herbs. He recorded in a book all the medicaments and drugs the use of which he had been taught by Raphael; and this book was transmitted from one generation to another. Later it was translated into many languages, copies of it coming into the hands of the most famous physicians of India and Greece, who derivedtherefrom their medical knowledge ("Sefer Noaḥ," l.c.; Jubilees, x. 1-14).
Noah should have lived 1,000 years; but he gave Moses fifty years, which, together with the seventy taken from Adam's life, constituted Moses' hundred and twenty years ("Yalḳuṭ Ḥadash," "Noaḥ," No. 42). There is a tradition that Noah lived to see 14,400 of his descendants (Ibn Yaḥya, l.c.). According to Jubilees (x. 21), Noah was buried on Mount Lubar, where he had settled after the Flood. But Ibn Yaḥya (l.c.) records a tradition that Noah after the Deluge emigrated to Italy, where he learned various sciences. Ibn Yaḥya further says that Noah has been identified by some with Janus, deriving the latter name from the Hebrew "yayin" (wine); Noah, it is said, was so called because he was the first to drink wine. His wife is identified with Aricia, which name is derived from the Hebrew "ereẓ" (earth), she being so called on account of her being the mother of every living thing. After her death she was called "Vesta" (= "Eshta," from "esh," which means "fire"), on account of her ascension to heaven. Others identify Noah with Melchizedek, and declare that he founded Jerusalem.
W. B. M. Sel.—Critical View:
The Book of Genesis contains two accounts of Noah. The first account (vi. 9-ix. 19) makes Noah the hero of the Flood and the second father of mankind, with whom God made a covenant; the second account represents Noah as a husbandman who planted a vineyard. The disparity of character between these two narratives has caused some critics to insist that the subject of the latter account was not the same as the subject of the former. As it appears from Gen. v. 29 that the name "Noah" refers to the fact that the bearer of the name was a husbandman, these critics must assume either that there were two Noahs or that the hero of the Flood was named differently. Cheyne (in "Encyc. Bibl.") suggests that the original name of the Noah of the Flood was "Enoch" (
), and that afterward, the final
In the Ethiopic text of the Book of Enoch the vision referring to the Flood (lx. 1) is stated to have taken place in the five-hundredth year of Enoch. The expression used in Gen. vi. 9 is the same as that in Gen. v. 22, 24, and in fact, in the Babylonian account of the Flood, which may have been the source of the Biblical narrative, the translation of Ẓitnapishti or Pirnapishtim (the Babylonian Noah) to heaven follows immediately after the account of the Flood. Further, the Flood lasted a solar year, 365 days, which is the number of the years of Enoch's life (comp. Gen. v. 23). Still, Gen. v. 29 ("And he called his name Noah [
], saying, This same shall comfort us [
]") remains unexplained (comp. Noah in Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature).
The Septuagint rendering, 
into 
("he will put us at rest"). Wellhausen ("De Gentibus," p. 38, note 3), on the other hand, retains the Masoretic text, but changes the name "Noah" into "Noḥam." The two narratives, however, may well be applied to the same person and without much change in the text. Joseph Halévy remarks ("Recherches Bibliques," p. 91) that 
is not to be derived from 
("rest"), but from 
, a root used in connection with sacrifices and meaning "agreeable." Noah was so called, perhaps, in allusion to the sacrifices which he offered after the Flood (comp. 
in Gen. viii. 21). It is worth while mentioning the opinion of Hommel, who, reading the name of the Babylonian Noah as "Nuḥnapishti" instead of "Ẓitnapishti," thinks that "Noah" is the first part of the Babylonian name. It is very likely that the redactor pointed out purposely that the man who preserved the world from destruction was also the man who introduced agriculture and made possible the abandonment of the nomadic mode of living in favor of a more settled and domestic state. The redactor emphasized also the consequences of inebriety. See Flood, Critical View.
—In Arabic Literature:
Noah is regarded by the Arabs as one of the six principal prophets sent to reclaim mankind from its wickedness; hence his cognomen "al-nabi" (prophet). He is mentioned in the Koran, often with Ad and Thammud, in connection with foreshadowings of the fate of those who would not listen to Mohammed. The fullest account is found in sura xi. 27-51, entitled "Hud."
Building the Ark.
The main points of the Arabic tradition are based on the Biblical narrative. Thus, Noah is the son of Lamech and lives to be nine hundred and fifty years old. According to some, however, he lives to be a thousand and receives the gift of prophecy in his fiftieth year (Ṭabari, "Chronique," i. 106). It is said that the people used to jeer at him for always prophesying evil, and pointed him out to their children as a madman. Finally the people become so wicked that Noah prays to God to destroy them. God directs him to plant a plane-tree which will require forty years to grow and warns him that at the end of that time a flood will destroy all living things on the earth. The sign presaging this event will be water boiling up out of his oven. This oven, mentioned in the Koran narrative, is placed by the commentators in various places. According to one tradition it was Eve's oven, which had been handed down from patriarch to patriarch. (D'Herbelot, "Bibliothèque Orientale"). Others say that the tree took only twenty years to grow and that during this time no children were born, so that only adults were destroyed by the Flood (ib.). After the tree has grown God sends Gabriel to show Noah how to build the ark. Most of the commentators on the Koran assign the same dimensions to it as those found in the Bible, although some writers greatly exaggerate them. It took Noah two years to build the ark (Ṭabari says only forty days), during which time the unbelievers around him mocked at him for building a boat so far away from the water and for suddenly becoming a carpenter after having been a prophet (Baiḍawi, on sura xi. 40).
When the ark was completed God told Noah toput into it one pair (or, according to some renderings of the words in the Koran, two pairs) of every species of living thing and to take with him his family and those who believed. According to the Arabic story Noah had a fourth son named Canaan (or, according to some, a grandson, as in the Bible), who was an idolater and would not enter the ark when Noah called to him, declaring his intention to climb a mountain out of reach of the water. But even as he was speaking a wave came and destroyed him. Noah had also another wife, named Waila, who was likewise an infidel and who perished with her son; she and Lot's wife are symbols of unfaithfulness (sura lxvi. 10).
Noah's Companions in the Ark.
Besides Noah's family the Arabs suppose that seventy-two other persons were saved in the ark. These were persons who had been converted by Noah's preaching. However, they did not beget children after leaving the ark, and hence all mankind descended from Noah's three sons. Gabriel brought Adam's body in a coffin to be placed in the ark; it served to separate the men from the women in the middle story of the ark; the beasts were placed in the lowest story and the birds in the top (Baiḍawi). Pigs and cats were created in the ark to consume the filth and the rats (Ṭabari, l.c. p. 112). Noah was five or six months in the ark. He embarked at Kufa, after which the ark proceeded to Mecca and circled around the Kaaba, and finally settled on Mount Judi in Armenia, in the district of Mosul (Mas'udi, "Les Prairies d'Or," i. 74). Noah first sent out a raven to explore, and cursed it because the bird stopped to feast on a carcass; he then sent out a dove, and blessed it because it returned to him. Hence doves have always been liked by mankind. God commanded the earth to absorb the water, and certain portions which were slow in obeying received salt water in punishment and became dry and arid; the water which was not absorbed penetrated into the depths of the earth and formed the seas, so that the waters of the Flood still exist (Mas'udi, l.c. p. 75).
Noah left the ark on the tenth day of Muḥarram. He and his companions built at the foot of Mount Judi a town which received its name, Thamanim ("eighty"), from their number. Noah is said to have written ten books of prophetic teachings, which have been lost.
Bibliography:
Baidawi, Commentary on the Koran;
D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale;
Hughes, Dict. of Islam;
Koran, xi. 27-51 et al.;
Mas'udi, Les Prairies d'Or, Paris, 1861;
Ṭabari, Chronique, Paris, 1867;
Z. D. M. G. xxiv. 207.
NOAH.—1. Nôach, ‘rest.’ The name is explained in Gen 5:29 by a play on nicham, ‘to comfort’; but perhaps the reading supported by the LXX
A. H. M‘Neile.
(Hebrew: rest)
Son of Lamech, and ninth patriarch of the Sethite line, who, with his family, was saved in the Ark, from the Deluge, dying 350 years later at the age of 950. Many non-Catholics maintain that the Bible narrative is derived from a Babylonian epic, but numerous and important discrepancies render this untenable. The scriptural story is a parallel independent form of a common tradition.
[Hebrew Nôah, "rest"; Greek Noe; Latin Noe].The ninth patriarch of the Sethite line, grandson of Mathusala and son of Lamech, who with his family was saved from the Deluge and thus became the second father of the human race (Genesis 5:25-9:29).The name Noah was give to him because of his father’s expectation regarding him. "This same", said Lamech on naming him, "shall comfort us from the works and labours of our hands on [or more correctly "from", i.e. "which come from"] the earth, which the Lord hath cursed." Most commentators consider Lamech’s words as an expression of a hope, or as a prophecy, that the child would in some way be instrumental in removing the curse pronounced against Adam (Genesis 3:17 sqq.). Others rather fancifully see in them a reference to Noah’s future discovery of wine, which cheers the heart of man; whilst others again, with greater probability, take them as expressing merely a natural hope on the part of Lamech that his son would become the support and comfort of his parents, and enable them to enjoy rest and peace in their later years.Amid the general corruption which resulted from the marriages of "the sons of God" with "the daughters of men" (Genesis 6:2 sqq.), that is of the Sethites with the Cainite women, "Noah was a just and perfect man in his generations" and "walked with God" (6:9). Hence, when God decreed to destroy men from the face of the earth, he "found grace before the Lord". According to the common interpretation of Genesis 6:3, Noah first received divine warning of the impending destruction one hundred and twenty years before it occurred, and therefore when he was four hundred and eighty years old (cf. 7:11); he does not seem, however, to have received at this time any details as to the nature of the catastrophe.After he reached the age of five hundred years three sons, Sem, Cham, and Japheth, were born to him (6:10). These had grown to manhood and had taken wives, when Noah was informed of God’s intention to destroy men by a flood, and received directions to build an ark in which he and his wife, his sons and their wives, and representatives, male and female, of the various kinds of animals and birds, were to be saved (6:13-21). How long before the Deluge this revelation was imparted to him, it is impossible to say; it can hardly have been more than seventy-five years (cf. 7:11), and probably was considerably less.Noah had announced the impending judgement and had exhorted to repentance (2 Peter 2:5), but no heed was given to his words (Matthew 24:37 sqq.; Luke 17:26, 27; 1 Peter 3:20), and, when the fatal time arrived, no one except Noah’s immediate family found refuge in the ark. Seven days before the waters began to cover the earth, Noah was commanded to enter the ark with his wife, his three sons and their wives, and to take with him seven pairs of all clean, and two pairs of all unclean animals and birds (7:1-4). It has been objected that, even though the most liberal value is allowed for the cubit, the ark would have been too small to lodge at least two pairs of every species of animal and bird. But there can be no difficulty if, as is now generally admitted, the Deluge was not geographically universal (see DELUGE; ARK).After leaving the ark Noah built an altar, and taking of all clean animals and birds, offered holocausts upon it. God accepted the sacrifice, and made a covenant with Noah, and through him with all mankind, that He would not waste the earth or destroy man by another deluge. The rainbow would for all times be a sign and a reminder of this covenant. He further renewed the blessing which He had pronounced on Adam (Genesis 1:28), and confirmed the dominion over animals which He had granted to man. In virtue of this dominion man may use animals for food, but the flesh may not be eaten with the blood (8:20-9:17).Noah now gave himself to agriculture, and planted a vineyard. Being unacquainted with the effects of fermented grape-juice, he drank of it too freely and was made drunk. Cham found his father lying naked in his tent, and made a jest of his condition before his brothers; these reverently covered him with a mantle. On hearing of the occurrence Noah cursed Chanaan, as Cham’s heir, and blessed Sem and Japheth.He lived three hundred and fifty years after the Deluge, and died at the age of nine hundred and fifty years (9:20-29). In the later books of Scripture Noah is represented as the model of the just man (Sirach 44:17; Ezekiel 14:14, 20), and as an exemplar of faith (Hebrews 11:7). In the Fathers and tradition he is considered as the type and figure of the Saviour, because through him the human race was saved from destruction and reconciled with God (Ecclus., 44:17,18). Moreover, as he built the ark, the only means of salvation from the Deluge, so Christ established the Church, the only means of salvation in the spiritual order.The Babylonian account of the Deluge in many points closely resembles that of the Bible. Four cuneiform recensions of it have been discovered, of which, however, three are only short fragments. The complete story is found in the Gilgamesh epic (Tablet 11) discovered by G. Smith among the ruins of the library of Assurbanipal in 1872. Another version is given by Berosus. In the Gilgamesh poem the hero of the story is Ut-napishtim (or Sit-napishti, as some read it, surnamed Atra-hasis "the very clever"; in two of the fragments he is simply styled Atra-hasis, which name is also found in Berosus under the Greek form Xisuthros. The story in brief is as follows: A council of the gods having decreed to destroy men by a flood, the god Ea warns Ut-napishtim, and bids him build a ship in which to save himself and the seed of all kinds of life. Ut-napishtim builds the ship (of which, according to one version, Ea traces the plan on the ground), and places in it his family, his dependents, artisans, and domestic as well as wild animals, after which he shuts the door. The storm lasts six days; on the seventh the flood begins to subside. The ship steered by the helmsman Puzur-Bel lands on Mt. Nisir. After seven days Ut-napishtim sends forth a dove and a swallow, which, finding no resting-place for their feet return to the ark, and then a raven, which feeds on dead bodies and does not return. On leaving the ship, Ut-napishtim offers a sacrifice to the gods, who smell the godly odour and gather like flies over the sacrificer. He and his wife are then admitted among the gods. The story as given by Berosus comes somewhat nearer to the Biblical narrative. Because of the striking resemblances between the two many maintain that the Biblical account is derived from the Babylonian. But the differences are so many and so important that this view must be pronounced untenable. The Scriptural story is a parallel and independent form of a common tradition.----------------------------------- HUMMELAUER, Comm. in Gen. (Paris, 1895), 257 sqq.; HOBERG, Die Genesis (Freiburg, 1908), 74 sqq.; SELBST, Handbuch zur bibl. Gesch. (Freiburg, 1910), 200 sqq.; SKINNER, Critic. and Exeg. Comm. on Gen. (New York, 1910), 133 sqq.; DILLMANN, Genesis, tr., I (Edinburgh, 1897), 228 sqq.; DHORME, Textes religieux assyro-babyl. (Paris, 1907), 100 sqq.; VIGOUROUX, La bible et les decouv. mod., I (6th ed., Paris, 1896), 309 sqq.; SCHRADER, Die Keilinschrift. u. das A. T. (2nd ed., Giessen, 1882), 55 sqq.; JENSEN in SCHRADER, Keilinschriftl. Bibliothek, VI, i, (Berlin 1889-), 228 sqq.; VIGOUROUX, Dict. de la Bible, s. vv. Ararat, Arche, and Noe; HILPRECHT, The earliest version of the Babylonian deluge story (Philadelphia, 1910). F. BECHTEL Transcribed by Sean Hyland The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
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A number of didactic references to Noah are found in the Epistles. (1) He appears in the roll of ‘the elders,’ or men of OT times, who had witness borne to them on account of their faith (Heb_11:2). ‘By faith Noah, being divinely instructed (÷ñçìáôéóèåßò) concerning things not yet seen, with reverential care (åὐëáâçèåßò) prepared an ark to save his household’ (Heb_11:7). By his faith (äéʼ ἧò, which cannot refer to ‘ark’) he virtually condemned (êáôÝêñéíåí) the careless world, for his belief in the Divine warning threw other men’s lack of faith into strong relief, and his godly life demonstrated what theirs ought to have been and failed to be. He thus became ‘heir of the righteousness which is according to, or in consequence of, faith’ (ôῆò êáôὰ ðßóôéí äéêáéïóýíçò, a phrase which is thoroughly Pauline in significance though not quite in diction). Philo (cited by H. Alford, The Greek Testament5, iv. [1875] 213) notes that Noah is ‘the first in the holy scriptures who is expressly called righteous’ (äßêáéïò); but, while the patriarch is so designated at the very beginning of his history (Gen_6:9; cf. Wis_10:4), the idea of the writer of Hebrews is rather that he became (ἐãÝíåôï) righteous by giving due heed to the Divine warning and building the ark in faith.
(2) 1 Peter (1Pe_3:20) allegorizes, in the Alexandrian manner, the story of ‘the days of Noah, in which the ark was being prepared, wherein eight souls were saved through water’ (äéåóþèçóáí äéʼ ὕäáôïò). Here ‘through’ may conceivably be instrumental, suggesting merely that the water bore up the ark and so saved its inmates; but this exegesis gives the imagination no striking symbol, or type, of that deliverance by baptism (immersion) to which allusion is made in the following verse. ‘Through’ is therefore rather to be taken as local, Noah and his family being conceived as escaping, when the flood has already begun, through the water into the safety of the ark. Though this conception is not based upon the narrative in Genesis, it is attested in the Rabbinical literature (F. Spitta, Christi Predigt an die Geister, 1890, p. 51).
(3) 2 Peter (2Pe_2:5) says that God spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness (äéêáéïóýíçò êÞñõêá). This designation suggests another addition to the sacred narrative, a haggâdâ to which there are many Rabbinical allusions, e.g. Bereshith Rabba, xxx. 6. Josephus (Ant. I. iii. 1) refers to this tradition: ‘But Noah was very uneasy at what they [his contemporaries] did; and, being displeased at their conduct, persuaded them to change their disposition and their actions for the better’; and Clement (ad Cor. vii. 6, ix. 4), ‘Noah preached repentance, and as many as hearkened unto him were saved’; ‘Noah, having been found faithful, preached, by his ministry, regeneration unto the world.’ Cf. Theoph. Antioch. ad Autolycum, iii. 19, 129; Visio Pauli, l. 1, and other passages collected in Spitta’s Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief des Judas, 1885, p. 146. The Christian Sibyllines give a complete Sermon of Noah’s (Sib. Orac. i. 128 ff.).
James Strahan.
Gen 6:9 (c) He may be taken as the type of a good man, upright, moral, clean, honest and dependable. However, he learned that he would be under the judgment of GOD if he did not find a way of salvation. He therefore entered and stayed in the ark which he built, and was saved from the great flood of GOD’s wrath. Every good man must be saved by the Saviour. Everyone outside of CHRIST will be lost. (See also Heb 11:7).
The early history of the human race is one of rebellion against God and rejection of the revelation that God had given (Gen 6:5-6; cf. Rom 1:20-25). Conditions became so morally corrupt that God decided to destroy the rebellious people and to make a new beginning. The new ‘father’ for the human race would be the one man who had remained faithful to God, Noah. When all the people around him were ungodly, Noah remained blameless. He was a righteous man who lived in unbroken fellowship with God (Gen 6:8-11).
Saved through the flood
Noah preached righteousness to those around him, but they would not listen to him (2Pe 2:5). God’s way of dealing with the corrupt and unrepentant people was to send a great flood to destroy them (Gen 6:17; see FLOOD).
God told Noah to build a huge ark in which he, his family, and at least one pair of all the animals of the region could find safety and so be preserved through the disaster (Gen 6:12-14; Gen 6:19; Gen 7:1-2; see ARK). Noah demonstrated his faith in God by doing all that God commanded him (Gen 7:5; Heb 11:7). As a result, all in his household were saved (Gen 7:7; Gen 8:16-19; 1Pe 3:20), so that they, with the preserved animals, could begin life on earth afresh (Gen 8:17).
After Noah offered sacrifices of dedication and thanksgiving, God warned him not to expect a golden age, because people would always be sinful. Yet God in his grace would allow the sinful human race to continue to live on his earth, and would not punish it with such a flood again (Gen 8:20-22). God confirmed this promise by making a covenant with Noah and with the human race through him (Gen 9:8-13).
Repopulating the region
With this new beginning, God gave Noah similar responsibilities to those he had originally given to Adam – responsibilities to populate the earth and look after it (Gen 9:1-3; cf. Gen 1:28-30). The following chapters of Genesis record how the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Japheth, Ham and Shem, spread throughout the region, and as a result different ethnic groups, languages and cultures developed (Gen 9:18-19; Gen 10:5; Gen 10:20; Gen 10:31).
Of the peoples who developed from Japheth, Ham and Shem, those descended from Ham’s son Canaan were doomed to have their land taken from them by the descendants of Shem. This was partly because Canaan had particularly disgraced Noah when he and Ham found him lying drunk and naked in his tent (Gen 9:20-27).
Noah lived to a great age. During the centuries after the flood, he had the satisfaction of seeing the growth of his descendants and the re-establishment of a healthy human society (Gen 9:28-29; Gen 10:32).