SueAnn Porter

We know that Noah built and ark, filled it with his family and lots of smelly animals. How much of this do we take on the “tradition” of what we are taught instead of looking at what it really says?

I noticed something today that I never noticed before.

¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. ¹² And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

–Genesis 7:11-12

It wasn’t just rain that flooded the earth. The underground fountains, or underground springs also moved and caused the earth to flood. It wasn’t just rain from the heavens but the water in the earth itself caused the earth to flood.

So then Noah, the family and the smelly animals were safe inside the ark.

¹⁷ Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and raised the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. -Genesis 7:17

This went on for forty days. Waters both from under the earth and from above the earth covered the planet, and raised the ark up. Notice the “lifted up above the earth”. A picture of Jesus.

¹⁸ The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters.

So here, it’s still raining, but the ark has been lifted up and is starting to sail into the waters. On the fortieth day, the rain doesn’t stop–the ark starts to move.

 ¹⁹ And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰ The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 

The high hills were covered, then the mountains were covered. The clock is still ticking.

²¹ And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. ²² All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died.

Everything drowned. People and animals alike.

²³ So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. ²⁴ And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DAYS.

Then on to chapter 8:

8 Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. ² The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.

The fountains of the deep AND the windows of heaven were stopped. The rain was restrained.

³ And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. ⁴ Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 

The waters started decreasing until at last the ark rests on a mountain top, on the seventh month (the flood started in the second month of the year v11) So there is still a lot of water covering the earth.

⁵ And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

Three more months go by, then the tops of the mountains are seen.

⁶ So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. ⁷ Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. ⁸ He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground.

This is a different forty days.

The dove goes out and back several times until she finally comes back with an olive branch so Noah knows that the water is abating. The next time the dove leaves, she does not come back.

In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried. — Genesis 8:14

A whole year later!