---

Noah 
  

Text:  rest, (Heb. Noah) the grandson of Methuselah (Gen.5:25-29), who 
was for two hundred and fifty years contemporary with Adam, and the 
son of Lamech, who was about fifty years old at the time of Adam's 
death. This patriarch is rightly regarded as the connecting link 
between the old and the new world. He is the second great progenitor 
of the human family. The words of his father Lamech at his birth (Gen. 
5:29) have been regarded as in a sense prophetical, designating Noah 
as a type of Him who is the true "rest and comfort" of men under the 
burden of life (Matt.11:28). 

He lived five hundred years, and then there were born unto him three 
sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Gen. 5:32). He was a "just man and 
perfect in his generation," and "walked with God" (comp. Ezek. 
14:14,20). But now the descendants of Cain and of Seth began to 
intermarry, and then there sprang up a race distinguished for their 
ungodliness. Men became more and more corrupt, and God determined to 
sweep the earth of its wicked population (Gen. 6:7). But with Noah God 
entered into a covenant, with a promise of deliverance from the 
threatened deluge (18). He was accordingly commanded to build an ark 
(6:14-16) for the saving of himself and his house. 

An interval of one hundred and twenty years elapsed while the ark was 
being built (6:3), during which Noah bore constant testimony against 
the unbelief and wickedness of that generation (1 Pet.3:18-20; 2 
Pet.2:5). 

When the ark of "gopher-wood" (mentioned only here) was at length 
completed according to the command of the Lord, the living creatures 
that were to be preserved entered into it; and then Noah and his wife 
and sons and daughters-in-law entered it, and the "Lord shut him in" 
(Gen.7:16). 

The judgment-threatened now fell on the guilty world, "the world that 
then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (2 Pet.3:6). The ark 
floated on the waters for one hundred and fifty days, and then rested 
on the mountains of Ararat (Gen. 8:3,4); but not for a considerable 
time after this was divine permission given him to leave the ark, so 
that he and his family were a whole year shut up within it (Gen.6-14). 

On leaving the ark Noah's first act was to erect an altar, the first 
of which there is any mention, and offer the sacrifices of adoring 
thanks and praise to God, who entered into a covenant with him, the 
first covenant between God and man, granting him possession of the 
earth by a new and special charter, which remains in force to the 
present time (Gen. 8:21-9:17). 

As a sign and witness of this covenant, the rainbow was adopted and 
set apart by God, as a sure pledge that never again would the earth be 
destroyed by a flood. But, alas! Noah after this fell into grievous 
sin (Gen. 9:21); and the conduct of Ham on this sad occasion led to 
the memorable prediction regarding his three sons and their 
descendants. 

Noah "lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years, and he 
died" (28:29). (See DELUGE).