Read with me: Genesis 7

The waters of judgement

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

2 Peter 3:5-6

Even as a kid (and a non-Christian), I had learned of Noah’s ark through cartoon story books depicting the flood as one big adventure - a floating zoo with jolly Noah as its captain. In reality, the flood is one of most devastating judgements of God in all the bible.

Here in Chapter 7, it is as if the floodwaters themselves come alive as an active agent of God’s judgement. The repeated chorus, “the waters prevailed... the waters prevailed...” could just as well describe an unstoppable military force overwhelming its opponent.

●     [7:4] “For seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights...”

●     [7:6] “Noah (and his family) went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.”

●     [7:10] “After seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.”

●     [7:11] “... all the fountains of the great deep burst forth...”
[7:12] “And rain fell...” (Waters above... and waters below)
It is worth recounting God’s act of separating the waters on the 2nd day of creation (Genesis 2:7). What is happening here is the reversal of that act.

●     [7:17] “The flood continued forty days...”
“The waters increased and bore up the ark.”

●     [7:18] “The waters prevailed and increased greatly...”

●     [7:19] “The waters prevailed so mightily on the earth...”

●     [7:20] “The waters prevailed above the mountains...”

●     [7:23] “He blotted (washed away) every living thing... They were blotted out from the earth”

●     [7:24] “And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.”

Yet, these same waters of judgement become God’s means of salvation. [7:17] “The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.”

The apostle Peter explains how Noah and his family were saved - not from - but through these waters. “... when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.” (1 Peter 3:20)

Where else in scripture do we see an agent of God’s judgement become the very source of our salvation?

God's grief, God's judgement, God's grace (Genesis 7)

The Flood

Taiwan sees a dozen typhoons this time of the year, but a recent tropical storm that hit the southern region last week on August the 4th caught everyone by surprise. Yesterday’s news report estimates the death toll at 500 due to extreme flooding and mudslides burying whole villages. The international media refer to the storm as “Typhoon Morakot”, but the locals in Taiwan know it by another name. They call it “Devil Typhoon”[1].

What was unusual about Typhoon Marakot was not the intensity of the rain, but its length. Three to four days of sustained rainfall resulted in flood levels reaching 2.5 meters. Worldwide, the typhoon affected tens of thousands in Japan and the Philippines, 1.5 million in Taiwan and 11 million people in eastern China.

Today we read the biblical account of a deluge that lasted not 4 days but 40 days and 40 nights. It was a flood which waters reached not roof tops but mountain peaks. In Genesis 7 we read the account of the flood and Noah’s ark.

In case you think this is just a story or a myth. Let me start by saying that accounts of the flood exist in just about every single culture, nation and religion. In India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia, in China, Europe and the Americas[2] – civilizations the world over have some form of a great flood recorded in legend, scripture and history.