The Great Flood

 

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. (Genesis 8:1-12 ESV).

 

There are many other accounts of a great flood other than that which is contained in our canon of Scripture. The oldest known recording of a global flood is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh from the eighteenth-century BC. Remember that being dated older than Moses’s writings only confirms that this tablet was written earlier, not that its contents are original or correct. There is also an account from ancient Hawaiian history. A man named Nu-u made a great canoe with a house on it and filled it with animals. In this story, the waters came up over all the earth and killed all the people; only Nu-u and his family were saved. There is a Chinese legend that explains that the flood was caused by an argument between a crab and a bird. Fuhi, his wife, three sons, and three daughters escaped a great flood and were the only people alive on earth. After the great flood, they repopulated the world. And there is an account from ancient Greek legend. One is about Deucalion who is told to build a chest to survive a flood. Some men on high mountains also survive, though.

 

Of course, believers hold that the account in Genesis 6-8 is the only accurate and true story. After human beings brought sin into the world (cf. Genesis 3), things grew worse and worse until God decided to use the power of water in the form of a flood (cf. Genesis 6). Many people would die, but God saved Noah and his family to become the stewards God had created them to be. In our reading today we are told that Noah’s ark came to rest in some mountains, and that God “sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” Here God is giving humans and his creation a new start. Noah sends out a dove to fly over the receding waters and look for a place to land. But it finds nothing at first. Seven days later, though, the dove returns with a leaf from an olive tree—a clear sign that plant life was flourishing again on God’s earth.

 

The great encouragement we may receive from this account is in the persistent love god has for us. He will never let us slip from His hands. We have His promise to work all things to our eternal good.