%20compressed.png?updatedAt=1733383467626&ssl=1 "Noah’s Ark: A Journey of Faith and Renewal")
Noah’s Ark: A Journey of Faith and Renewal
In the ancient world, as humanity multiplied upon the earth, wickedness became rampant. People’s thoughts and actions were continually evil, leading to widespread corruption and violence. Observing this moral decay, the Lord regretted creating humankind and resolved to cleanse the earth of its corruption.
Amidst this depravity, one man stood out: Noah. He was a righteous and blameless man, walking faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. God saw that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence, and He decided to put an end to all people. He said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.”
The Divine Command to Build the Ark
God instructed Noah to build an ark of cypress wood, making rooms in it and coating it with pitch inside and out. The ark’s dimensions were to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. It was to have a roof, an opening below the roof all around, and three decks. God told Noah that He would bring floodwaters to destroy all life under the heavens, but He established a covenant with Noah. Noah was to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive, along with every kind of food to be stored for them.
Noah’s Obedience and the Gathering of the Animals
Noah did everything just as God commanded him. He was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. Noah, his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, birds, and creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded. After seven days, the floodwaters came upon the earth.
The Onset of the Flood
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. Rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. On that very day, Noah and his family entered the ark, along with pairs of all living creatures. The Lord shut them in, and for forty days, the flood kept coming on the earth. As the waters increased, they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Only Noah and those with him in the ark were left. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
The Recession of the Waters and the Ark’s Resting Place
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the ark, and He sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. The springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days, the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains became visible.
Noah’s Exploration and the Drying of the Earth
After forty days, Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
The Command to Leave the Ark
By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry. Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.” So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark.
