Genesis - Chapter Seven

In this chapter and the first few verses of chapter 8 God brings His judgment upon the earth—a global flood. Although there have been many throughout history who attempt to deny that the Flood was global in scope, opting rather for a local flood interpretation, an understanding of the biblical text and the availability of extra-biblical resource material unequivocally establishes only one reasonable conclusion—it was a global flood!

The following arguments are from an article entitled “Was the Flood Global” by Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, Carl Wieland and edited by Don Batten, which was taken from the Q&A section of the web site, www.answersingenesis.org.

The local flood idea is totally inconsistent with the Bible, as the following points demonstrate:

The need for the Ark

If the Flood was local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and escaped. Traveling just 20 km per day, Noah and his family could have traveled over 3,000 km in six months. God could have simply warned Noah to flee, as He did for Lot in Sodom.

The size of the Ark

If the Flood was local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all the different kinds of land vertebrate animals in the world? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, or only domestic animals, the Ark could have been much smaller.

The need for animals to be on the Ark

If the Flood was local, why did God send the animals to the Ark to escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce those kinds even if they had all died in the local area. Or He could have sent them to a non-flooded region.

The need for birds to be on the Ark

If the Flood was local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range. Birds can fly several hundred kilometers in one day.

The judgment was universal

If the Flood was local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not have been affected by it. They would have escaped God’s judgment on sin. It boggles the mind to believe that, after all those centuries since creation, no one had migrated to other parts—or that people living on the periphery of such a local flood would not have moved to the adjoining high ground rather than be drowned. Jesus believed that the Flood killed everyone not on the Ark (Matt. 24:37–39).

Of course those who want to believe in a local flood generally say that the world is old and that people were here for many tens of thousands of years before the Flood. If this were the case, it is inconceivable that all the people could have fitted in a localized valley in Mesopotamia, for example, or that they had not migrated further a field as the population grew.

The Flood was a type of the judgment to come

What did Christ mean when He likened the coming world judgment to the judgment of “all” men (Matt. 24:37–39) in the days of Noah? In 2 Peter 3, the coming judgment by fire is likened to the former judgment by water in Noah’s Flood. A partial judgment in Noah’s day would mean a partial judgment to come.

The waters were above the mountains

If the Flood was local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters) above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It could not rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched.

The duration of the Flood

Noah and company were on the Ark for one year and 10 days (Gen 7:11; 8:14)—surely an excessive amount of time for any local flood? It was more than seven months before the tops of any mountains became visible. How could they drift around in a local flood for that long without seeing any mountains?

God’s promise broken?

If the Flood was local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a Flood again. There have been huge ‘local’ floods in recent times: in Bangladesh, for example, where 80% of that country has been inundated, or Europe in 2002.

All people are descendants of Noah and his family

The genealogies of Adam (Gen. 4:17–26, 5:1–31) and Noah (Gen. 10:1–32) are exclusive—they tell us that all the pre-Flood people came from Adam and all the post-Flood people came from Noah. The descendants of Noah were all living together at Babel and refusing to “fill the earth,” as they had been commanded (Gen. 9:1). So God confused their one language into many and scattered them (Gen. 11:1–9).

There is striking evidence that all peoples on earth have come from Noah, found in the Flood stories from many cultures around the world—North and South America, South Sea Islands, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Japan, China, India, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Hundreds of such stories have been gathered. The stories closest to the area of dispersion from Babel are nearest in detail to the biblical account—for example, the Gilgamesh epic.

The Hebrew terminology of Genesis 6-9

“The earth” (Heb. erets), is used 46 times in the Flood account in Genesis 6–9, as well as in Genesis 1. The explicit link to the big picture of creation, especially in Genesis 6:6–7, clearly implies a universal Flood. Furthermore, the judgment of God is pronounced not just on all flesh, but on the earth: And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (Gen. 6:13)

“Upon the face of all the earth” (Gen. 7:3, 8:9) clearly connects with the same phrase in the creation account where Adam and Eve are given the plants on Earth to eat (Gen. 1:29). Clearly, in God’s decree the mandate is universal—the whole earth is their domain. God uses the phrase in Genesis also of the dispersal of people at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:8, 9)—again, the context is the whole land surface of the globe. The exact phrase is used nowhere else in Genesis.

“Face of the ground” used five times in the Flood account, also connects back to the universal context of creation (Gen. 2:6), again emphasizing the universality of the Flood.

“All flesh” (Heb. kolbasar) is used 12 times in the Flood account and nowhere else in Genesis. God said he would destroy ‘all flesh,’ apart from those on the Ark (Gen. 6:13, 17), and He did (Gen. 7:21–22). In the context of the Flood, “all flesh” clearly includes all nostril-breathing land animals as well as mankind—see Genesis 7:21–23. “All flesh” could not have been confined to a Mesopotamian valley.

“Every living thing” (Heb. kol chai), is again used in the Flood account (Gen. 6:19, 8:1, 17) and in the creation account (Gen. 1:28). In the creation account the phrase is used in the context of Adam and Eve’s dominion over the animals. God said (Gen. 7:4) that He would destroy “every living thing” He had made and this happened—only Noah and those with him on the Ark survived (Gen. 7:23).

“Under the whole heaven” (Gen. 7:19) is used six times outside of the Flood account in the Old Testament, and always with a universal meaning (Deut. 2:25, 4:19, Job 28:24, 37:3, 41:11, Daniel 9:12). For example, “Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine,” said the Lord (Job 41:11).

“All the fountains of the great deep.” The fountains of the great deep are mentioned only in the Flood account (Gen. 7:11, 8:2) and Proverbs 8:28. ‘The deep’ (Heb. tehom) relates back to creation (Gen. 1:2) where it refers to the one ocean covering the whole world before the land was formed. And it was not just “the fountains of the great deep” but “all the fountains of the great deep” which broke open.

A special Hebrew word was reserved for the Flood or Deluge: Mabbul. In every one of the 13 occasions this word is used, it refers to Noah’s Flood. Its one use outside of Genesis, Psalm 29:10, refers to the universal sovereignty of God in presiding over the Deluge. The New Testament also has a special word reserved for the Flood, cataclysmos, from which we derive our English word “cataclysm.”

The decrees in Genesis 9 parallel those in Genesis 1

In Genesis 9:1 God gives man the exact same commission as in Genesis 1:28—“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” He also gives man dominion over “every beast of the earth” (Gen. 9:2, cf. 1:28) and man is instructed as to what he can and cannot eat (Gen. 9:4–5), which parallels Genesis 1:29–30. These decrees in Genesis 1 are universal in extent, and clearly they are also here, after the Flood. If Adam and his descendants were to rule the whole earth, so were Noah and his descendants. If “earth” in Genesis 9:1 is the whole earth, as all would agree it is, then surely it is also the whole earth in the context of the Flood in Genesis 8:13!

The New Testament speaks of the Flood as global

New Testament passages which speak of the Flood use universal language: “the flood came and took them all away” (Jesus, Matt. 24:39); “the flood came and destroyed them all” (Jesus, Luke 17:27); “did not spare the ancient world [Greek: kosmos], but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly” (2 Peter 2:5); “a few, that is eight people, were saved through the water” (1 Peter 3:20); Noah “condemned the world” through his faith in God (Heb. 11:7); “the world that then was, being flooded by water, perished” (2 Pet 3:6). All these statements presuppose a global Flood, not some localized event.

Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and your entire household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” And Noah did according to all that the LORD commanded him.

Noah, a righteous man who “walked with God” (6:9)—a manifestation of Noah’s faith in God, had a very warm and personal relationship the Lord. This benefit, which is from a genuine faith-walk with Christ, has always been true as it is to this day. Today with the canonized Word, God speaks to His children when they come to it in simple faith.

The ark was a type of Christ. As it saved those who by faith entered into it from certain physical death, so whosoever by faith alone in Christ alone are born again (from above) are at that very moment baptized (immersed) permanently into the Body of Christ, to be delivered from certain spiritual death.

Not only was Noah allowed to take his family, who may be assumed to believe as he, but he was also instructed to take a number of each kind of air-breathing animals and birds. Some were “clean” and others “unclean,” the distinction had to do with sacrifice (8:20), another typology of the eventual death of Christ. Later the designations of “clean” and “unclean” would pertain to God’s instruction for eating (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14). “Seven each” (Literally: seven seven) may mean “seven pairs” or three pairs plus one extra.

God informed Noah that there were only seven more days remaining before the rains would come, which assumes that a vast store of moisture was suspended above the earth (the canopy of vapor that caused conditions on earth to resemble those inside a greenhouse and which may have accounted for the longevity of man during this time—Genesis 1:7). These seven days were all that remained for those during that day to respond to the righteous preaching of Noah to come to God in faith. At the end of this time frame, God’s grace would come to an end.

But no one else responded to Noah’s pleas. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be (Matthew 24:38, 39). This corrupt society, with the benefit of 120 years of warning, carried on as normal and thinking nothing would ever happen. And this condition mirrors the social environment of today. Very few take seriously the fact of physical death and what may lie beyond. Even many who are in their twilight years, who are next to death’s door, nurture hardened hearts in unconcern.

Proper faith produces obedience to God’s direction. It is said that Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. It made little difference that never before was there the commodity of rain or any object resembling a boat. It made no difference that the society of the day railed at and mocked him. It only mattered to God that Noah believed Him, and it only mattered to Noah that God spoke and gave direction—and in Noah’s mind this made it so.

Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth. So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. 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. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark—they and every beast after its kind, all cattle 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. And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.

Noah was 600 years old when the Flood began. As God commanded, Noah with his family and all the animals and birds that had the “breath of life” and that had been designated by God entered the ark. Noah did not have to lead this wildlife into the ark; all creatures entered on their own accord. And the Lord shut them in.

When it comes to salvation man often resorts to religiosity, his self-efforts (works) to achieve the approbation (approval) of God. But such activity will never do; the door to the “ark of salvation” can never be closed by man’s efforts. Then when the flood waters of judgment come, nothing will protect from their destructive force. Man’s efforts at religion will only serve to condemn him. The only solution is to do it God’s way. And His way is by faith alone in Christ alone. When this path is followed, God will then personally shut the door, insuring one’s salvation, and no one, to include God Himself, will be able to open it until the believer is safe “on the other side.”

Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 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. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. 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. And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.

A comparison of this passage with the previous one, especially 7:10-12, reveals that “in the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of the 600^th year of Noah’s life” a vast sub-oceanic upheaval caused the seas to encroach upon the continental coasts and lowlands. At the same time the entire antediluvian vapor-charged canopy, which had been suspended in the upper atmosphere since the second day of creation (Genesis 1:6, 8), fell for a period of 40 twenty-four hour days upon the earth.

It is now known that if all the water in our present atmosphere were suddenly precipitated, it would only suffice to cover the earth to an average depth of less than two inches. . . .

The fact that antediluvian climatology was indeed different from that which we know today is supported by biblical references to a vast canopy of water vapor suspended high in the antediluvian atmosphere (“waters above the firmament,” Gen 1:7), to the absence of rainfall as we know it today (Gen 2:5), and to the appearance of rainbows for the first time after the Flood (“I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth,” Gen 9:13). Such a vast expanse of water vapor would, of necessity, have created a greenhouse effect in the entire world, providing warm climates even in the polar regions. (The presence of vast coal deposits and of the frozen remains of tropical animals in polar regions clearly points to a sudden climatic change on a nearly global scale.)

(Wycliffe Bible Dictionary, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1975, “Flood” by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D, Director of Postgraduate Studies, Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana)

The chronology of the Flood, taken from the Believer’s Bible Commentary by William MacDonald, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, follows:

The judgment of the Flood was all-inclusive for those who remained outside the ark. Every human, every animal and ever bird who possessed the breath of life was destroyed by the Flood. Only those contained within the ark survived. Likewise, there is a day of eternal damnation coming. Only those who are contained within the “Ark” of Jesus Christ (by their act of faith) will survive it and inherit eternal life.