Yahweh Floats Noah's Boat

The population began to grow rapidly all across the earth.  There were lots of beautiful girls among all those people of the earth.  The sons of Yahweh were watching the earth people and when they saw these pretty girls they made them their wives. 

The marriage of gods with women produced children who became giants, strong and powerful men, heroes who became famous for their deeds and lived hundreds of years—but they were also evil men who did bad things and thought bad thoughts and were always thinking about what even more evil things they could do. 

At that time so very long ago people lived for a long time, often hundreds of years.  Yahweh decided that he was tired of dealing with the troublesome and evil people he had made.  He was tired of trying to get humans to behave.  One day Yahweh said to himself, “People would be a lot less trouble if they did not live so long.”  So he shortened the lifespan of humans to a limit of 120 years.  

Yahweh became increasingly frustrated that the race of man was responsible for so much that is bad in the world—violence  and wars, trouble making and fighting among neighbors, corruption and evil thoughts and desires. Yahweh became so disgusted with people that he was sorry he had made them, so he decided to destroy them all.  He said to himself, “I will wipe out this race of man I have created; I will destroy all the people, along with the animals, the birds and all living things on the earth.”

However Yahweh noticed that Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, were honorable and good men—the only good people in the entire world.  So Yahweh said to Noah, “All humanity is evil and violent.  I am going to end it.  I am going to destroy mankind and all living things, Noah, except for you.  I am not going to destroy you along with everyone else.” 

“This is what you have to do to save yourself and your family. You must make a very large boat, 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high, three stories high, with one window 18 inches square for ventilation.  After you finish building the boat I am going to bring a flood that will destroy the whole earth.  Everything on earth will die in the flood.”

“So,” continued Yahweh.  “You have seven days.  After the boat is built, you and your sons, and their families and their children, are to get on board the boat.  You are to take with you two of every living thing, one male and one female, from every species on earth—animals, birds, cattle, insects—all of the hundreds of thousands of species.  Also, you are to take on board all the food necessary to feed your family and keep the animals alive.”

So Noah did as he was told, built the huge boat and loaded two of each animal species into the boat, along with all the provisions and supplies that they would need during the time that the earth was flooded. 

After seven days the rains came.  The waters that were beneath the earth rose up to flood the land, and the water that was above the sky came down as rain, and the flood of waters from above and below the earth began to cover the earth.  It rained steadily for forty days and forty nights.  As the water rose it floated Noah's boat and it was lifted as high as the mountains.  The waters rose above the hills and covered everything.  All living things on earth died—all the cattle, the birds, the animals, the creepy crawly things, and, of course, all the people.  Everything died. Only Noah, and his family, and the animals on the boat were left alive.

Yahweh remembered that Noah and his family were still on the boat.  So after forty days Yahweh stopped the water flowing upward from the fountains of deep waters under the earth, he shut off the rain falling from the heavens above the earth, and he caused a powerful wind to blow across the earth to cause the land to dry.  After 150 days the waters began to recede.  The waters decreased continually until after 300 days the tops of the mountains were seen.  The boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat in the Arabian peninsula.    

Noah opened the window of the boat and released a dove into the sky to see if the waters had receded enough to find land, but the dove returned to the boat because there was no dry land.  Seven days later Noah sent out the dove again, and this time the dove returned in the evening with an olive branch in its mouth.  After another seven days, he sent out the dove again, and this time the dove did not return.  Now Noah knew that the flood was over and the waters that had covered the earth had dried up, so Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked out and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 

Then Yahweh spoke to Noah and said, “Noah, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives are to leave the boat now, and take with you all of the livings things in the boat—the birds, the cattle, the creeping things—and release them so that they may breed abundantly all across the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply.” 

So Noah and his family left the boat, along with all the animals.  Then Noah built an altar for sacrifices to the Lord Yahweh, and Noah sacrificed some of the animals and burned them on the altar. 

The Lord Yahweh smelled the sweet pungent smoke from the burning sacrifices and felt bad for all the damage he had done. He said in his heart, “I know man is evil and that his thoughts and imaginings are evil, but never again will I curse the ground or destroy the earth, nor will I ever again destroy everything living, as I have just done. As long as the earth exists, planting and harvest, heat and cold, summer and winter, day and night, shall not end.” 

So Yahweh said to Noah, and his sons, and his family, “Here is my unbreakable pledge to you, and to your descendants, and to every living creature that got off the boat with you, all birds and cattle, all animals of the earth:  I PROMISE that never again will I cause a flood to destroy the earth.  As a sign of my promise to you and to every living creature, I have placed a rainbow in the sky among the clouds, so that whenever it rains the rainbow that follows will remind me and you of my promise to you.”

 

Stories of great floods in the distant past are reflected in the traditions of many countries throughout the Near East, from Egypt all the way to Mesopotamia.  When floods came suddenly, as they did frequently in river valleys particularly after periods of heavy rain and violent storms, they would wipe out people, animals, food and homes, and people would have to start life over again after the flood.  In the book of Genesis there are two different flood stories involving Noah.  Many of the details are the same between the two stories, but there are also very big differences—the other version of the Noah story differs about how many animals were taken aboard the ark, the length of time it rained, how long it took for the earth to dry up after the rain, etc., but since the stories are substantially similar the second one will not be included in this collection of stories.  The Noah stories reflect an earlier story from Babylonia known as The Epic of Gilgamesh, a story that the Hebrew people would have known from their years in captivity in Babylonia. Like most of these stories, there are important questions answered: Why do devastating widespread floods occur? Will there be another devastating flood someday?  Why do we sacrifice animals on the altar during religious ceremonies? Why is there a rainbow in the sky after rains?