Scripture Daily

Context No. 9 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 7:13-24: in context

13In the same day Noah, and Shem, Ham, and Japheth—the sons of Noah—and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered into the ship— 14they, and every animal after its kind, all the livestock after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. 15Pairs from all flesh with the breath of life in them went into the ship to Noah. 16Those who went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him; then the LORD shut him in. 17The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth. 18The waters rose, and increased greatly on the earth; and the ship floated on the surface of the waters. 19The waters rose very high on the earth. All the high mountains that were under the whole sky were covered. 20The waters rose fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. 21All flesh died that moved on the earth, including birds, livestock, animals, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. 22All on the dry land, in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. 23Every living thing was destroyed that was on the surface of the ground, including man, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ship. 24The waters flooded the earth one hundred fifty days.

Genesis 7 is the flood. After the creation and the first families, the earth has filled with violence (Genesis 6), and God resolves to wash it back and begin again through one household. Noah has already built the ark on command. This passage is the boarding and the rising water. Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives, and the animals go in, pair by pair, and then a small line turns the whole scene: the LORD shut him in (7:16).

The rescue is sealed from the outside. Noah does not close the door on his own safety. After that the waters rise for forty days until even the mountains are covered, and all flesh dies (7:21-23). The words run creation in reverse. In Genesis 1 God pushed the waters back to uncover dry land. Here the waters come back and the dry land is gone, the world un-made.

Israel was not alone in telling this. The Mesopotamian flood story, preserved in the Epic of Gilgamesh and older still in the poem of Atrahasis, has a chosen man build a boat, save his family, land on a mountain, and send out birds. Genesis tells its own version and gives it a reason the others withhold: this flood is judgment, not the whim of quarreling gods. Only Noah was left, shut in while the world came apart. What am I guarding as if I had secured it myself, when the door was shut by someone else?

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