Noah
- Topic in Antediluvian Patriarchs. By Charles Kamins.
- In Abrahamic religions, Noah was the tenth and last of the pre-flood Patriarchs.
A Righteous Man
The son of Lamech, Noah lived in a time of spiritual corruption when he alone was "righteous and blameless in his generations" and "walked with God" (Genesis 6:9)
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[c] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. (Genesis 6:11-14)
God announced to Noah the coming of a great deluge and instructed Noah to build an ark and bring his wife and three sons and representatives of all "clean" living creatures so that he and his family could survive and repopulate the earth.
Noah's Vision
Noah once had a vision in which he saw the earth sinking and its destruction drawing near. Like his grandfather, Methuselah, Noah, too, went to the ends of the earth to consult Enoch. Noah cried out sadly three times: "Hear me!" Then he said: "What has happened to the earth that it is so shaken? May I not go down with it?" An earthquake took place; a voice descended from heaven; and Noah fell with his face toward the ground. Enoch appeared before him, foretelling that the end of the dwellers upon the earth was near because they had learned the secrets of the angels, the misdeeds of Satan, and all the mysteries of the world which should have been hidden from them. But as Noah was innocent of any attempt to learn these secrets, Enoch foretold his deliverance from the Flood, and the descent from him of a righteous race of men (Enoch, lxv. 1-12).
Building the Ark
Noah was known to be a husbandman and farmer. Tradition holds that he invented many implements to till the soil and studied the plants. Also according to tradition, Noah planted cedar-trees and felled them continuously and he told the people he was building an ark to save himself from the Flood which was about to come upon the earth. He exhorted the people to change their ways but he was mocked, laughed at and cursed with "vile language."
Although he was a farmer, Noah learned how to build the vessel by studying the various sciences from the "Sefer Razi'el (the book from which the angel Raziel taught Adam all the sciences), which had been brought to him by the angel Rapahel.
Corruption of the world
The account of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood are among the best-known stories found in ancient texts. The stories contained in the Torah describe the time as filled with corruption brought about by the Fall of the Angels who took wives among the "daughters of humans," giving birth to the Nephilim, half human, half angel.
"The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually." (Genesis 6:5)
According to the Book of Enoch[Notes 1] it was the influence of fallen angels that led to the corruption of Adam's descendants. Fallen angels brought godlessness and fornication, taught enchantments, root-cuttings, astrology, the constellations, knowledge of the clouds, signs of the earth, the course of the moon. Other angels taught "the wicked smitings of spirits and demons, the smitings of the embryo in the womb that it may pass away and the smitings of the soul, the bites of the serpent,..."
It was sins of the angels that led to the flood in Noah's time. According to Enoch, Methuselah is the one chosen to convey God's warning to Noah. Later it is written that the angel Uriel also gave warnings to Noah.
The Flood Judgement
The angels Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel are unable to deal with the fallen angels under Azazel and appeal to God to judge the fallen men and angels. The Lord grieved in his heart at the sight of fallen humanity:
And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:6-7)
The Deluge
The Jahwist (YHWH) version of how the flood waters came to be, is indicated in Genesis 7:12 where it develops by way of a torrential downpour that lasts 40 days, then recedes in seven day periods. During this time, the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat where Noah opens the window and sends out a raven that went to and fro. Then he sends out a dove to see if the waters had decreased from the ground, but the dove could not find a resting place, and returned to the Ark. He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove, and the dove came back toward evening with an olive leaf. He waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return. When Noah removed the covering of the Ark, he saw that the ground was drying. (Genesis 8:1–13)
Noah's Offering
After the ark settled on Mount Ararat, Noah and his family descended from the ark and his first act on dry land was to build an alter to make offering to God. This is the first altar mentioned in the Torah.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.” (Genesis 8:15-17).
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. (Genesis 8:20-21)
God's New Covenant with Noah
9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. (Genesis 9:1-3)
God accepted Noah's offering and blessed him and his children with the same blessing he gave originally to Adam and Eve. In doing so, God's intention was to start over with the human race after destroying the influence of the fallen angels.
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. (Genesis 9:8-13)
Flood myths
Almost all ancient cultures include a myth about an ancient flood that share similarities to the one described here. Egyptian, Hindu, China, Sumerian, Babylonian, Greek and Toltec all have their versions of an ancient deluge that destroyed all of humanity save for one family. However among these tales, the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh is striking in its almost identical in character to the biblical tale. Since it is earliest written flood myth, it is possible that all other cultures adopted it. The ancient Hebrews were known to live in Mesopotamia and so it is likely they incorporated this story into their own early history.
See Also
Notes
- ↑ It is important to remember that Enoch's revelations and visions were given by the very same angels he blames for misleading humans.
External links
Sefer Raziel 'The Book of Raziel the Angel' made its way into the Kaballah, the book of esoteric practices and knowledge written in Hebrew. Until the time of the middle-ages, such hidden knowledge was passed on orally by tradition under penalty of death for those who reveal the contents. By the middle-ages, however, mystical Judaism was in danger of going extinct so practitioners assembled the oral teachings into the Kabbalah.
