Reflections on Genesis 7

Genesis 07 (Contemporary English Version)
1. The LORD told Noah: Take your whole family with you into the boat, because you are the only one on this earth who pleases me.
   
2. Take seven pairs of every kind of animal that can be used for sacrifice and one pair of all others.
   
3. Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird with you. Do this so there will always be animals and birds on the earth.
   
4. Seven days from now I will send rain that will last for forty days and nights, and I will destroy all other living creatures I have made.
   
5. Noah was six hundred years old when he went into the boat to escape the flood, and he did everything the LORD had told him to do. His wife, his sons, and his daughters-in-law all went inside with him.
   
6. (SEE 7:5)
   
7. (SEE 7:5)
   
8. He obeyed God and took a male and a female of each kind of animal and bird into the boat with him.
   
9. (SEE 7:8)
   
10. Seven days later a flood began to cover the earth.
    
11. Noah was six hundred years old when the water under the earth started gushing out everywhere. The sky opened like windows, and rain poured down for forty days and nights. All this began on the seventeenth day of the second month of the year.
    
12. (SEE 7:11)
    
13. On that day Noah and his wife went into the boat with their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives.
    
14. They took along every kind of animal, tame and wild, including the birds.
    
15. Noah took a male and a female of every living creature with him,
    
16. just as God had told him to do. And when they were all in the boat, God closed the door.
    
17. For forty days the rain poured down without stopping. And the water became deeper and deeper, until the boat started floating high above the ground.
    
18. (SEE 7:17)
    
19. Finally, the mighty flood was so deep that even the highest mountain peaks were almost twenty-five feet below the surface of the water.
    
20. (SEE 7:19)
    
21. Not a bird, animal, reptile, or human was left alive anywhere on earth.
    
22. The LORD destroyed everything that breathed. Nothing was left alive except Noah and the others in the boat.
    
23. (SEE 7:22)
    
24. A hundred fifty days later, the water started going down.
    
    

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    Seven days before the flooding of the earth was to begin God told Noah to enter the ark along with his family and the various animals. Typically when this account is portrayed, two of every kind of animal and bird go into the ark. However, that is not quite accurate. Rather, it was two of every kind of animal that was unclean. But 14 of every kind of animal that was clean. In other words, seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean. The only explanation given for the extra sets of clean animals is to "keep offspring alive on the face of the whole earth." (7:3) The purpose of this is not clear, but some speculate that the extra sets served two purposes: To provide food on the ark, and to provide for the sacrifices offered to God following the flood.
    
    It is observed in this chapter that God had found Noah to be the only righteous person on earth at that time, and that he had done everything God commanded him, presumably in preparation for the flood. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came. After the flood such long lifespans are not seen. No doubt much changed following the flood. What a sight it must have been to see all of these animals and birds making their way to the ark, predator entering alongside prey. All directed there by God. Those who lived in the area, who had watched the building of this ark and had likely ridiculed Noah for his folly, surely must have realized something very unusual and significant was happening when they saw the animals swarm to the ark.
    
    Again, the traditional accounting of this event portrays only the rain that came down for 40 days and nights. But the actual account here in scripture says that, "all the sources of the watery depths burst open, the floodgates of the sky were opened." (7:11) Every possible source of water broke loose - from the sky and from underground. This was more than a gradual rising of water, but rather a rushing of water than would have brought swift destruction to mankind.
    
    Only Noah, his family, and the animals with them on the ark remained alive as the "waters surged on the earth 150 days." (7:24)