Noah was the only righteous man in a world consumed by violence and corruption. He was 'a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.' (Gen 6:9 ESV) Noah did everything just as God commanded him. (Gen 6:22).
What other biblical figure was righteous, blameless and did everything God wanted to preserve life from God's judgment?
God waited patiently in the days of Noah. But once the time had come the waters came!
Matthew 24:37-39 (KJV) -- But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
These weren't the waters of salvation that Jews prayed for on Shemini Atzeret, the last day of the great feast of Sukkot!! In the days of Noah, when the rain fell, a time for judgment had arrived.
God warned Noah of a great deluge that will wipe out all life from the face of the earth. He ordered Noah to build a large wooden teivah (“ark”), coated inside and out with pitch that would float upon the water, sheltering Noah and his family, and two members (male and female) of each animal species (and 7 of the "pure" species).
God treated all that came before Noah like thieves and robbers. They were all judged as evil by God and were wiped out by the flood.
Genesis 6:5-8 KJV -- And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
Rabbi Shimon Leiberman writes this about Gevurah:
"Gevurah or "strength" is usually understood as God's mode of punishing the wicked and judging humanity in general. It is the foundation of stringency, absolute adherence to the letter of the law, and strict meting out of justice. All this contrasts with chesed or "kindness" (discussed in Chesed - The World Is Built On Kindness) which implies mercy and forgiveness."
I want you to notice on the Tree of Life image above that God balances "Gevurah" with "Chesed"; Judgment with Grace. Strength with Loving Kindness. You will notice that the Hebrew letter that connects Gevurah and Chesed is the Holy Letter Aleph (1), the letter most closely associated with God.
God didn't choose Noah to save the world. God started over with Noah and everything else on the ark. This reminds me of Moses (Exodus 32) after the Israelites worshiped the Golden Calf. God told Moses that he would destroy the nation, and start over with Moses, but Moses pleaded with God not to and God spared the Hebrews. Moses acted as a mediator between the Lord and the people.
John 14.2 -- In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
In Noah's case, the only life that was spared entered through the door of the ark. Then God shut the door. Genesis 7:16 -- 'Then the LORD shut him in.'
There is a parallel to Yeshua who said in John 9.10 -- "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture."
Then God said to Noah, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 8:15-17)
Noah made the Ark (ta-va) according to the master’s specific dimensions. There is a parallel made to the Ark (aron) of the Covenant, in the tabernacle, which also was a focal point of salvation in the Torah. Even though we use the same English word, the words in Hebrew are different.
The word for the ark of the covenant, is Aron (ארון) in Hebrew literally means “chest or cupboard.” It comes from the verb /aRaH (ארה) which means “to bring out into the light.” Metaphorically it means “one's ability to bring things to light.
Moses’ basket is also called an “ark” and in Hebrew it is spelled the same as Noah's Ark (ta-va). It too was covered with pitch.
Of all the parallels, perhaps the most intriguing is this date -- the 17th day of the 7th month.
- Rain falls for 40 days and nights, and the waters churned for 150 days more before calming and beginning to recede "and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat." Genesis 8.8.
- Israel came through the Red Sea on the 17th of Nisan having left at Passover on the 14th. For them this was death to their old life (with the drowning of the Egyptians) and resurrection to a new life, free from slavery.
- The manna which had fed the nation of Israel for the 40 years in the wilderness stopped on the 16th of Nisan and from the 17th onwards Israel feasted on the new grain of the promised land (Josh 5:10-12). This again is a picture of the new life that came on the 17th!
- In Leviticus 23:5-7 -- Firstfruits works out to being on the 17th day of the 7th month.
- In Esther 3:1-12, A death sentence hung over the entire Israelite nation as their sworn enemy, Haman, had convinced the king to sign a decree to destroy them. The decree went out on the 13th Nisan (Esther 3:12). Esther then proclaimed a three day fast (Esther 4:16) for the 14th, 15th and 16th. On the 3rd day (5:1) Esther approached the king saying to herself 'If I perish, I perish!' (an attitude of death or resurrection... it's in God's hands!) On the 17th Nisan, the tables were turned on the enemy Haman and instead of the Jews being destroyed, his own life was taken!
- The 10th of Nisan, in the week leading up to Yeshua's crucifixion, was Palm Sunday. It was on this day that He presented Himself to the Israelites as their Messiah. On Thursday the 14th of Nisan, in direct fulfilment of the Exodus 12 passage, He was slain. Finally, on the same day, the 17th day of the 7th month, Nisan, the day Noah's Ark came to rest, this happened:
Luke 23:1-8 'On the first day of the week (17th of Nisan), very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
The Parshah of Noach concludes with a chronology of the ten generations from Noah to Abram (later Abraham).
Belowe is a messianic teaching regarding Noach is for Jew and Christian.
A deeper understanding of the time of the flood.
Epilogue:
During the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot, just before Parshah Noach, this billboard went up in in Palestinian Square in Tehran Iran. It was written boldly in Hebrew. It was a warning to Israel that "Another Storm is Coming." How terribly ironic!