Oh the flood. The awful flood that that covered the earth and drowned every living thing on it, with the exception of Noah, his family, and the animals they were allowed by God to bring. Sorry all of you believers in the unicorn. Contrary to popular belief, they did not get left behind when it started to rain. I'm pretty sure if God allowed the evil serpent on board He would certainly have brought the unicorn as well. Or maybe at least He would have included a tale of woe about the poor animal's vanity. In all seriousness, the world in those days must have been pretty darn terrible to make God want to wipe it clean and start over. That's a very sobering thought to consider. Can you imagine the thoughts going through Noah's mind when God asked him to build something he has no clue how to build to protect him from something he's never seen before? Yeah sure no problem right? I'd have been seriously freaking out at first. Fortunately for Noah, he had some divine aid to rely on. It's nice to think that, just like Noah, we still have God's help when we face our floods. You know, those tasks that we aren't sure how to accomplish and that we've never encountered before.
Once the flood was over and the waters receded, Noah and his posse exited the ark. On top of that great mountain God promised Noah that he would never again flood the earth destroying everything on it. How awesome to think that God wasn't just talking to Noah but to all future earth dwellers (including us today). I bet that rainbow that sealed the promise was something to see. I've seen some pretty rainbows before but I always picture this one being way better than any I could ever imagine.
After the flood story came some wonderful "begats." My mother would always talk of how boring it was to read the genealogical passages telling us who begat so-and-so who begat so-and-so who begat so-and-so that appear sporadically all throughout the Old Testament. Her mockingly affectionate dubbing of these passages "the begats" has always stuck with me.
Sandwiched in the middle of these begats is the Tower of Babel story. Until now in biblical history everyone on earth spoke the same language. When the men of this city (later named Babylon) decided to erect a building that would reach to the heavens, the Lord was displeased and confused their language so they could no longer understand each other. The notes in my Bible say that Babel sounds like the Hebrew word for confused. One definition of our english word babble is "to utter in an incoherent, foolish, or meaningless fashion." I'm sure an outsider watching this scene unfold would have gotten quite a laugh. Could you imagine carrying on a conversation in the middle of which the other person started talking in words you had never heard before? You can bet they thought they were losing their minds. I wonder if this is also when white padded rooms were invented?
I'm keeping up with you so far :-)
ReplyDeleteAn interesting note from my study aids pointed out that in verses 6.9 and 7.1 it clearly puts a qualification of "in this age" or "in this generation" on Noah's righteousness, thus implying that if he had lived in a less violent/lawless time period he wouldn't have been considered quite so righteous.
The author of the aid infers that this teaches us that with every person God looks at both what they were given spiritually at birth, as well as their environment. The author also says this teaching is paralleled in Romans when Paul speaks of how even those in the pagan world "are without excuse" as God will judge them according to what they have been given.
Looking forward to tomorrow's reading.