Scripture Daily

Context No. 1712 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 8:1-5: in context

1God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided. 2The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained. 3The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded. 4The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains. 5The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

The flood has covered the earth for many long days, and Noah and his family and all the animals have been shut in the ark, waiting. And then the turning point comes, in a single phrase: God remembered Noah, and all the animals with him in the ship. He sent a wind over the earth, the waters began to subside, the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed, and the rain stopped. Slowly the waters receded, and after many days the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, and the tops of the mountains appeared.

The hinge of the whole flood story is those three words: God remembered Noah. Through the long ordeal, the rising waters, the endless days shut in the ark with no land in sight, Noah could have wondered whether he had been forgotten, whether God had shut him in and turned away. And then the text says God remembered him, and from that remembering everything turned: the wind blew, the waters fell, the ark came to rest. To say that God remembered Noah does not mean God had forgotten and then recalled him; it means that God now acted for him, that his attention and his saving purpose turned toward the one who had been waiting in the dark. There is deep comfort in this for the long ordeals of our own lives, the seasons when we feel shut in and forgotten, waiting for a rescue that does not come, wondering whether God has turned away. Noah's story says that God remembers. Even in the long waiting, when nothing seems to be happening and we feel overlooked, we are not forgotten; and in God's time his remembering turns toward us, and the waters begin to recede. The remembering may not come as quickly as we wish; Noah waited through many days before the wind blew. But God had not forgotten him in the ark, and he has not forgotten us in ours. The turn toward deliverance begins where the text says it began: God remembered. What feels like being forgotten is not the end of the story, for the God who remembered Noah remembers his own.

In the long ordeal when I feel shut in and forgotten, waiting for a rescue that does not come, can I hold to the turning point of Noah's story, that God remembered him, and trust that I am not forgotten either, and that in God's time his remembering will turn toward me and the waters will begin to recede?

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