Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning
As Moses continues his narrative of beginnings, he comes quickly to an account of the Flood, God’s global judgment on human sin. Perhaps you’ve never noticed how thoroughly the flood account is imbued with Creation language.
The account begins with the observation that “man began to multiply on the face of the earth” (Gen 6.1)—which is a direct response to God’s command to multiply in Genesis 1.28. A few verses later (Gen 6.6), Moses states that God “repented” that he had made man on the earth. Thus Moses introduces the Flood as, in effect, God’s reversal of the Creation event: his Uncreation, if you will.
And so begins the account. God describes all the life he created in Genesis 1, using the same language: “man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air” (Gen 6.7)—“all flesh, wherein is the breath of life” (Gen 6.17). God orders Noah to preserve two of each of these life forms (Gen 6.20), specifying “male and female” (Gen 6.19).
As he continues his instructions, he specifies not just two, but fourteen–seven pairs–of the clean animals, again including both male and female (Gen 7.2), and specifying both beasts and fowl (Gen 7.2-3).
Sidebar: Some question why God specified 7 pairs of each clean beast—and some are completely unaware that this specification was even made. Why this command? Well, for starters, we’re told that upon exiting the ark, Noah made a large sacrifice (Gen 8.20), and after going to all that trouble to preserve breeding pairs, you don’t want to kill them. I also note that that dove eventually didn’t return to the ark (Gen 8.12). Further, I speculate that Noah and his family might have eaten some meat on the ark, and further, they may have wanted some breeding insurance for clean animals as the repopulation proceeded.
Back to our account.
As Noah and his family enter the ark, the Creation language is repeated (Gen 7.8-9). And then they wait for seven days until the rain starts (Gen 7.10). Is this intentionally matching the Creation week? Maybe.
Summarizing the entry into the ark, Moses recalls the Creation language of “after its / their kind” (Gen 7.14), “the breath of life” (Gen 7.15), and “male and female” (Gen 7.16). As the water rises and the death begins, Moses repeats the language: “of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man” (Gen 7.21, 23). He speaks further of “the face of the earth” (Gen 1.29) as the now-emptied home of animal life (Gen 7.23).
As the rain continues, “the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth” (Gen 7.18). This too recalls Creation language; in the beginning the Spirit was on the face of the waters (Gen 1.2), and on the 2nd day God separated the land from the water. This gracious provision for life in the Creation week is now reversed; the means for life among land animals is removed, and all flesh “in whom is the breath of life” dies (Gen 7.22).
After the ark lands on dry ground, Noah waits for seven days (there’s that period again) to send out a dove (Gen 8.10), and another seven days (Gen 8.12) to sent it out (successfully) again. Is this an intentional doubling of the Creation week to imply the completeness of God’s restoration of his good Creation? I’m just suggesting this; we don’t have any way of being certain of the significance.
So on “the first day of the first month the waters were dried up from off the earth” (Gen 8.13)—for the second time (Gen 1.9-10). And into this new world “every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” emerge to “be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth” (Gen 8.17-18).
And the account closes by recounting God’s words: “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen 8.22).
Creation order is restored.
So we find that Creation and the Flood are intimately linked in the plan of God. In response to man’s sin, God undoes his miraculous creation—miraculously—and then returns it to its original state, despite the presence of sin. He shows his mercy more spectacularly than he did by creating humans to begin with. And he can do this, obviously, because he was capable of creating the cosmos in the first place.
Creation is the basis for mercy. It matters.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
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