Noah Builds the Ark

A new baby. “Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and had a son” (5:28). Lamech was Methuselah's son and Enoch's grandson. A name with hope. “And he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands”” (5:29). Noah's name sounds like the Hebrew word for rest. Hard work. Toil means hard, tiring work. Lamech said the work was hard “because of the ground which the Lord has cursed” (5:29). Why the ground was cursed. After Adam sinned, God said, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17). Sin made the whole world harder. Waiting for rest. Lamech remembered what God had said, and he hoped God would bring relief. People have always longed for someone to make things right. Three sons. “And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (5:32). The rest Jesus gives. God did use Noah to save his family. But Jesus gives the true rest: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). What this means for you. When life feels heavy, bring it to Jesus. He is the One who gives rest to your heart.

Noah (5:29). The name Noach (say: NO-akh) sounds like nuach (say: NOO-akh), to rest. Lamech's explanation uses a related word, nacham (say: nah-KHAHM), to comfort. Noah's name carried a hope for rest and comfort. The cursed ground. Lamech's words point back to Genesis 3:17: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.” Many generations after Adam, people still felt the weight of the fall in their daily work. Hope in a dark time. This Lamech is not the proud, violent Lamech of Cain's family (4:23-24). Seth's Lamech spoke of “the Lord” and looked to Him for relief. His words were a small prayer of faith. An answer, but not the last one. God did bring a kind of rest through Noah: a family saved, a new start after the flood, and a promise about the ground (Genesis 8:21-22). But sin and the curse remained. Creation still waits. Paul wrote that “the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21). The full answer to Lamech's longing is still coming. The true rest. Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29). Shem, Ham and Japheth (5:32). All the nations after the flood come from these three sons (Genesis 10). Shem's line leads on to Abraham, to David and to Jesus. Why it matters. Every heart longs for rest from sin and its heavy load. Lamech hoped for it; Jesus gives it.

Lamech named his baby boy Noah. Noah's name sounds like the word for rest. Lamech said Noah would bring them comfort. Why did they need comfort? Life was very hard back then. God had put a curse on the ground because of sin. Farmers worked and worked to grow their food. Thorns and weeds grew everywhere. Lamech wanted God to give them rest. God did use Noah to save his family. But Noah could not take away sin. Only Jesus gives the real rest our hearts need. Jesus said, “Come to Me.”

Lamech named his baby Noah. Life was hard because of sin. Lamech hoped for comfort. Jesus gives us real rest.

More people. “Men began to multiply on the face of the earth” (6:1). The earth was filling up, just as God had blessed it to. Doing what they wanted. “The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose” (6:2). People chose whatever looked good to them, not what God wanted. God's patience. “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever” (6:3). Strive means to keep working with someone. God had been patient, but His patience would have an end. Famous but not good. The giants were “mighty men who were of old, men of renown” (6:4). Renown means famous. Strength and fame cannot make anyone right with God. God sees the heart. “Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5). Intent means plans. Continually means all the time. God's sad heart. “He was grieved in His heart” (6:6). God hates sin because He loves people, and sin ruins the people He made. Judgment announced. “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth” (6:7). God is good, so He will not let evil go on forever. What this means for you. Sin starts in the heart. Ask God to make your heart clean: “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psalm 51:10).

The heart (6:5). The Hebrew yetzer (say: YAY-tser) means the shape or plan that the heart forms. “Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Every plan, only evil, all the time: sin had reached the source of every choice. Jesus on the heart. Jesus taught that evil thoughts come out of the heart (Mark 7:21). Behavior is the fruit; the heart is the root. Taking and boasting (6:2, 4). The sons of God took wives “of all whom they chose,” and the Nephilim (say: NEF-ih-leem), “mighty men who were of old, men of renown,” were on the earth. These verses show people taking whatever they wanted and chasing fame while they forgot God. Flesh (6:3). “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh.” Flesh here means weak, mortal and turned away from God. God's patience was real, and it had a limit: “one hundred and twenty years.” Sorry (6:6). The verb translated sorry is nacham (say: nah-KHAHM), the same root as the comfort in Noah's name (5:29). God does not make mistakes (Numbers 23:19). This word shows that He is deeply moved by what sin does. Grieved (6:6). The verb atsav (say: ah-TSAHV) means to hurt or be pained. It is related to the word for toil in 3:17 and 5:29. Sin brought pain to the ground, and it brought pain to God's heart. Judgment (6:7). God's judgment was not a fit of temper. A holy God who loves His world will not let violence and evil go on forever. Why it matters. The human problem is not only bad actions but evil hearts. That is why we need more than better rules. God promises, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26).

More and more people lived on the earth. But most of them forgot about God. They did whatever they wanted. The Lord looked at their hearts. Their thoughts were only about evil all the time. That made God very sad. His heart was filled with pain. God said His Spirit would not stay with people forever. So God said He would judge the earth. God is fair, and He must deal with sin. Sin starts on the inside, in our hearts. We all need God to give us new hearts. Only Jesus can do that.

People did bad things. Their hearts were full of sin. God was very sad. God hates sin, but He loves people.

But Noah. The whole world deserved judgment. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (6:8). God was not finished with people. What grace is. Grace is God's kindness and favor that we do not deserve and cannot earn. Grace came first. Verse 8 says Noah found grace. Verse 9 then says he was a good man. Noah's good life was the fruit of God's grace, not the price he paid for it. Saved by grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). A changed life. “Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God” (6:9). Just means right with God. Perfect here means blameless and whole-hearted. Noah was not a man who never sinned. Like Enoch. Noah's great-grandfather Enoch had walked with God (5:24). Now Noah did too. A spoiled world. “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (6:11). Corrupt means rotten and spoiled. “All flesh had corrupted their way on the earth” (6:12). What this means for you. You do not have to earn God's love. Receive His grace in Jesus, and then walk with Him, even when others do not.

Grace (6:8). The Hebrew word is chen (say: KHEN), favor or grace. To find favor in someone's eyes means to be looked on with kindness. The same word is used when Joseph “found favor in his sight” (Genesis 39:4). Genesis 6:8 is the first time the Bible speaks of anyone finding grace. Grace before goodness. Verse 8 speaks of grace; verse 9 speaks of a righteous life. Noah was not saved because he was good; his goodness grew from God's grace. Hebrews 11:7 says Noah “became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Just and blameless (6:9). Tsaddiq (say: tsah-DEEK) means righteous, right with God. Tamim (say: tah-MEEM), translated perfect, means whole or blameless. It describes a man of integrity, not a man without sin. In his generations. Noah was blameless “in his generations,” among the people of his own time. He stood out against a corrupt world. Corrupt (6:11-12). The verb shachat (say: shah-KHAHT) means to ruin or spoil. “All flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” In 6:13 God uses the same verb: “I will destroy them with the earth.” People ruined the earth, and God's judgment matched what they had done. Violence (6:11). The Hebrew chamas (say: khah-MAHS) means cruelty and violence. God hates it because it destroys people made in His image. Why it matters. Grace does not leave people the way it finds them. It changes them. Noah's walk with God was grace at work in a dark world.

In a world full of sin, one man was different. The Bible says, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Grace means God's kindness that we do not deserve. Noah did not earn God's love. God chose to be kind to him first. Then Noah lived for God. Noah was a good man, and he walked with God. He was different from the people around him. The earth was full of violence. People hurt one another everywhere. Noah kept following God anyway. God's grace can change our lives too.

Noah found grace. Grace is God's kindness we do not earn. Noah walked with God. God's grace came first!

God told Noah. “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them” (6:13). God shared His plan with Noah. Build an ark. “Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch” (6:14). An ark is a big box-shaped boat. Pitch is tar that keeps water out. A giant boat. It was three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high (6:15). A cubit is about the length from your elbow to your fingertips, so the ark was about 450 feet long. One door. God said, “set the door of the ark in its side” (6:16). There was one way in. The flood. God said, “I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth” (6:17). A covenant. “But I will establish My covenant with you” (6:18). A covenant is a serious promise that God binds Himself to keep. Two by two. Noah would bring “two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you” (6:19), and food for everyone (6:21). He obeyed. “Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did” (6:22). By faith Noah “prepared an ark for the saving of his household” (Hebrews 11:7). What this means for you. Trust God's Word and do what He says, even when others do not understand.

The end of all flesh (6:13). God told Noah plainly what was coming. Noah, who walked with God, was not left in the dark. Ark (6:14). The Hebrew tevah (say: tay-VAH) means a box or chest. The only other place the word is used is for the basket that carried baby Moses on the Nile (Exodus 2:3). Both times God saved His people through the water in a tevah. Pitch (6:14). The word for pitch is kopher (say: KOH-fer), and cover is kaphar (say: kah-FAR). The same root is used later for atonement, the covering of sin (Leviticus 17:11). Many Christians see here a picture of the blood of Christ, which covers sin and keeps God's people safe from judgment. Built to carry life (6:15). Three hundred by fifty by thirty cubits is about 450 by 75 by 45 feet: a long, steady box made to carry life safely, not to race across the sea. One door (6:16). Jesus called Himself the door through which people are saved (John 10:9). Many Christians see the ark's single door as a picture of Christ, the one way of salvation: “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Covenant (6:18). Berit (say: beh-REET), covenant, appears here for the first time in the Bible. Before a drop of rain fell, God bound Himself by promise to Noah, and He kept it after the flood (Genesis 9:9-11). Faith that obeys (6:22). “Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.” “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household” (Hebrews 11:7). Noah had never seen a flood, yet he built on God's word alone. Why it matters. God provides a way of rescue before judgment comes. For us, that way is Jesus.

God told Noah what He was going to do. A flood was coming because of all the evil. God told Noah to build a huge boat called an ark. It would be made of cypress wood and covered with tar. It would have rooms, three decks and one door. Noah's family would be safe inside. Two of every kind of animal would come too. Noah would store food for everyone. It was a giant job! But Noah did everything God told him. Noah trusted God and obeyed Him. God made a promise to keep Noah safe. God always keeps His promises.

God told Noah to build an ark. Noah did everything God said. God kept Noah's family safe. God keeps His promises.

Noah Builds the Ark

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