How many of you out there love a great disaster movie? The theaters fill up when a good one is released. Well, here in the Bible we have our own epic disaster tale. The story of a cataclysmic flood so great that it would even change the geography of the earth and the nature of its weather patterns. As we said in our previous study, Noah and his sons have come on the scene.
Verses 1-2 of today’s chapter tell us the things that were going on at the time of Noah’s story. The population was growing and the sons of God were marrying any of the daughters of humans that they chose. So, who are these sons of God? We know that God has only one Son (John 3:16) so it probably doesn’t mean actual sons of God, especially since, as we will see later in the chapter, these unions led to very sinful descendants. There are two predominant theories on this question:
- Some people believe that these sons of God are the fallen angels who were banished from heaven with Satan and are now in hell and do his bidding. This theory is supported by Job 1:6, 2 Peter 2:4-5, and Jude 1:6. Satan’s demons would have been employed to help interfere with the sanctity of marriage which we know to be one of Satan’s goals and would have resulted in ungodly offspring. While this theory has been disputed using Matthew 22:30 and Mark 12:25, we know that the angels in Heaven are spiritual beings and have no physical bodies to reproduce; they do, however, take on human form when they come to the earth (Hebrews 13:2).
- Other people believe that the “sons of God” represent the “godly” lineage of Seth and that the “daughters of humans” represent the “ungodly” lineage of Cain. This theory certainly makes sense also, in light of our previous lesson, and would also result in the fathers bringing an ungodly influence into the lives of their offspring.
Let’s look closely at the first part of verse 3. God declares that He will not always ‘strive’ (KJV) or ‘contend’ (NIV) with man because man is ‘flesh’ (KJV) or ‘mortal’ (NIV). Think about this statement for a moment. This is really an indictment of man’s sinful state. When man was in the Garden of Eden, he was sinless and had access to the Tree of Life. He could live forever. But now, the people of earth are not living by faith in God but are living under a death sentence. God is declaring them to be corrupt.
The second part of this verse says that man’s days will be a hundred and twenty years. These years represent how long it will be from the time of this proclamation until the flood occurs. Now we saw at the end of the last chapter that Noah was 500 years old when he started having children and we will see in Genesis 7:6 that Noah was 600 years old when he and his sons entered the ark so God made this decision/proclamation before Noah’s sons were born. It took a long time for Noah, having no modern tools, to build his ark but the Bible tells us that God was patient (I Peter 3:20). Could it even be that God was giving mankind time to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)? Let’s add another trait of God to our list… God is patient.
Verse 4 tells us of the Nephilim who were on the earth at that time. They were part of this intermarriage between the sons of God and the daughters of men. Verse 4 tells us that they existed during that time… and also afterward. These Nephilim would have died in the flood so we know that those after the flood were not necessarily their descendants. The Bible tells us that the Nephilim were giants (Numbers 13:32-33) and that those after the flood were the descendants of Anak. These people were so large that they were feared (Deuteronomy 1:28). We also see, in verse 4, that these men were legendary in their time. However, based on the rest of the chapter, and the resulting wickedness in their offspring, we should probably not assume that they were doers of good deeds. They were not the supermen and batmen of their day.
Verses 5-6 and 11-12 go on to explain verse 3. Read them now. How widespread had this sin problem become? God, who we know to be holy, experienced great sorrow over His rebellious creation. Mankind had chosen to live in sin rather than to have a relationship with Him. Read these verses again and consider how closely they describe our world today. We see in Matthew 24:36-39 that the world, at the time Jesus returns to rapture His church prior to the Great Tribulation, will be just as it was in the time of Noah. How close is man’s current corruption to the time of God’s final great punishment?
Verse 6 goes further to tell us that God regretted making mankind. Our sin makes God grieve. We see other examples of this in I Samuel 15:11, 35. Verses 7 and 13 tell us of God’s decision to rectify this state of wickedness on the earth. God considers the wicked to be fools (Psalm 14:1-3). Notice how extensive God’s action will be. Who all will be affected by this action?
Verse 8 tells us that Noah was the exception to the judgement because he found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Verse 9 tells us that he was righteous, blameless, and walked faithfully (NIV). Does this mean that Noah was without sin? Certainly not. The Bible tells us that all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and we can see one of Noah’s sins recorded in Genesis 9:20-23.
We know from Ephesians 2:8 that it is God’s grace that saves us because of our faith. It is God’s plan of salvation. When we confess our sins, believing with faith in Him, it is counted as righteousness to us (Romans 4:1-8). We see here in Genesis that Noah was a man of faith and it was this faith that caused God to consider him righteous. Noah was a man of God who did not conform to the ways of the world around him.
In verse 14, God gave Noah directions for the ark. He tells Noah what type of wood to use, to make rooms inside, and to coat it with pitch inside and out. Pitch was a tarlike substance used for waterproofing. Moses’ mother used it to coat the basket she would use when floating Moses in the Nile River (Exodus 2:3). Verse 15 tells us the dimensions to which Noah was to build this ark – it would have been approximately 450 ft. long x 75 ft. wide x 45 ft. high. This is the length of one and a half football fields and roughly the size of modern ocean ships. And it was six times longer than it was wide… the same ratio used by ship builders today. We have scientists and mathematicians to figure these kinds of things out for us today, but God just knew how to do it way back then. Praise His name. Verse 16 tells us that Noah was to give it a roof, a foot and a half row of windows all around underneath the roof, three decks, and a door on the side. This was not going to be a small construction job… it would take Noah a very long time!
In verse 17 God tells Noah of His plan. Imagine what Noah must be feeling. In chapter 2, God made a point to tell us that in the original creation, there was no rain. Noah most likely does not live near an ocean. And now, God wants him to build a boat like nothing anyone has ever seen before for a flood that will someday come.
In verse 18 God tells Noah that He will establish a covenant with him – future tense. He has just told Noah that He will destroy all life on earth so now He is reassuring Noah of a future covenant. A covenant is a promise. God will give Noah a promise in the future. A covenant also has a contractual feel to it and is a much stronger commitment than a promise. It can sometimes be contingent on a particular behavior on man’s part… but not always. This promise of a future covenant is honored by God in Genesis 9:9-16… after the flood. God also reassures Noah here that eight people will enter the ark Noah will build when the flood comes… Noah, his wife, his three sons, and his three daughters-in-law. God is telling Noah that death will come to those who love sin, but that the faithful will be saved.
In verse 19, God tells Noah that he is to bring two of each kind of creature into the ark with him, to save them from being lost in the flood. In verse 20, God assures Noah that he will not have to go collect all these animals… that they will come to him. And the final instruction, in verse 21, was to gather every kind of food and start stockpiling it to feed both the people and the animals.
We learn something amazing about Noah’s character in verse 22. Read what the Bible tells us about Noah in Hebrews 11:7. Noah obeyed God exactly as He instructed. Now God’s instructions must have seemed strange. There had never been rain. There had never been a boat like this and Noah may have even possibly had to hire workers to help build it. Imagine what the neighbors were saying. If there had been an insane asylum in those days, Noah might have been taken there. But Noah obeyed God to the letter. Would you have?
Responding to God: Praise God for His great love toward mankind. Thank Him for His patience. Spend some time in prayer, asking Him to help you determine those areas where you walk with Him in faith and those where your life grieves Him. Ask Him to help you obey Him as faithfully as Noah did.
Further Research: To learn more about the giants of old, use a concordance or an online Bible to search for Nephilim, giant, Anak, or Anakim. Read of Goliath in I Samuel 17.
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