Genesis Segment 4
Noah, His Family, and Descendants
Video of ark floating with anchorstones.
Across virtually all races from the
Eskimos of Alaska to the Aborigines of Australia, to Indians of the Amazon to
the gypsies of Transylvania, legend, folklore and recorded history speaks of a
great flood. It is recorded as fact in many sacred books of many of the world’s
religions.
Richard Andree, a German author published
a book in 1891 which records 88 separate flood stories.
This suggests that as the descendants of
the flood survivors branched out all over the world, they took the flood memory
with them.
For more than 2000 years, historians of
several nation recorded that the remains of Noah’s big ship were visited by
pilgrims.
Around 800 B.C., Assyrian visitors are
reported to have entered the ship, which was 3 stories deep in the ground.
Genesis 8:1 And God remembered Noah, and every
living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God
made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;
2 The fountains also of the deep and the
windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
3 And the waters returned from off the
earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters
were abated. [moved lower]
4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on
the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. [Not on
Mt. Ararat]
If Tishri were the first month on Noah’s
calendar, Nisan would have been the seventh month. Thus the ark came to rest on
the exact date, Nisan 17th that centuries later was the day of Jesus
Christ’s resurrection, Nisan 17.
5 And the waters decreased continually until
the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the
month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
6 And it came to pass at the end of forty
days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:
7 And he sent forth a raven, an unclean
bird...
8 Also he sent forth a dove, a clean
bird...
13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and
first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the
waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the
ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the seven
and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.
They were on ark one full solar year.
Genesis 7:11 says 17th day of second month. Add 10 days to the lunar calendar.
15 And God spake unto Noah, saying, [He
isn’t leaving the ark until God gives the okay.]
16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy
wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.
17 Bring forth with thee 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; that they may breed
abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and
his wife, and his sons' wives with him:
19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every
fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went
forth out of the ark.
If the boat had landed on a mountain peak
it would have been awful tough for him and the animals to get out of the boat,
let alone walk down off of it.
Throughout history there are many stories
of climbing expeditions that failed to get even close to the top of Mt. Ararat.
20 And Noah builded an altar unto the
LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt
offerings on the altar.
Noah kept God first. This was the need
for the extra clean animals. They were saved from the flood, only to be the
first things sacrificed after flood. Animal activists must have been mad, oh
they all died in the flood.
First use of altar. No mention with Adam,
Cain Abel, Seth or Enoch.
21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; [great
FOS especially after what had just transpired] and the LORD said in his heart, I
will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of
man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more
every thing living, as I have done.
22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
While the earth remains, so it is
limited. This is the first record of seasons of cold and of a winter.
9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons,
and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
God entrusted the survival of all the
genera to Noah’s keeping. Noah built pens to make sure the propagation of
animals took place and that no animals became extinct.
It is interesting to note that where they
have found this boat that an altar 12 by 12 by 12 and miles and miles of ancient
stone fencing around an ancient house were also found nearby.
In fact the mountain they found the boat
on is known as Doomsday Mountain by the locals, and the neighboring village is
called the place of 8.
All big ships need ballast inside them
for stability on the high seas. Chunks of metallic slag used as ballast for this
ancient boat was found in the area consisting of manganese dioxide, titanium,
and aluminum. Metals that modern scientist have just become familiar with in
this century.
In order to build a ship this size where
the timbers intersected they had to be connected with a metal, like iron, iron
rivets and iron brackets.
Another thing about the wood that was
used on the ark, it would show no evidence of growth rings because it hadn’t
rained yet. A mist came out of the ground to water it, which means the
temperature on earth hadn’t varied more than 10 degrees yet.
The petrified wood that has been found at
this site has no rings. Paleontologist say that one of the characteristics
of trees during the so-called carboniferous period is that they have no growth
ring.
9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat [food] for you...
The Hebrew word for “moving” [7431,
remes] in this verse is the word “creeping” that describes the smaller animals
that were on the ark.
3 Every four footed small animal that
lives shall be food for you; even as the green herb [green plants] have I given
you all things.
8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his
sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant
with you, and with your seed after you;
Covenant is mentioned seven times from here to verse 17.
10 And with every living creature that is
with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with
you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with
you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood;
neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of
the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that
is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it
shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I
bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is
between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters
shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Rainbow. When God sees the rainbow He
remembers His covenant with mankind.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I
will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and
every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the
token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that
is upon the earth.
18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the
ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
Ham means hot. Japheth means opened. Shem
means name. The Christ line came through Shem, Name Shemites, or Semites. The
phrase Semitic, meaning Jewish, comes from Shem.
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and
of them was the whole earth overspread.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman,
and he planted a vineyard:
Noah raised food and cared for the
animals.
28 And Noah lived after the flood three
hundred and fifty years.
29 And all the days of Noah were nine
hundred and fifty years: and he died.
So two people lived for one third of the
time man has been on Earth, approximately 2000 of the 6000 years man has been
here.
After the flood people’s ages dropped off
considerably. Shem 600 years. Eber 464 years. Abraham 175 years. Jacob 147
years. Joseph 110 years.
Some suggest that this is due to major
environmental changes brought about by the flood. The blood becoming more
contaminated, which is where the life of the flesh is. Leviticus 17:11.
Chapter 10 contains the listing of the
children of Noah and the table of nations. Basically the division of the earth
among Noah’s three sons is that Shem’s descendants went to Asia, Ham’s to
Africa, and Japheth’s to Europe.
10:8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to
be a mighty one, in the earth.
Nimrod means to rebel, or let us rebel.
He was a hero whose legends and myths have spawned into other religions and
mythology still present today, such as Hercules.
9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD:
wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. [Or
against the Lord, or in defiance of the LORD.]
He was a mighty hunter of the sons of
men, to get men to believe wrongly. To get men to stop worshiping the true God.
There is a later proverb of Semitic
origin, “as Jehovah was not known in Babylonia.”
Josephus says: “Nimrod persuaded mankind
not to ascribe their happiness to God, but to think that his own excellency was
the source of it. And he soon changed things into a tyranny, thinking there was
no other way to wean men from the fear of God, than by making them rely upon his
own power.”
The Targum [Aramaic paraphrase] of
Jonathan says: “From the foundation of the world none was ever found like
Nimrod, powerful in hunting, and in rebellions against the Lord.”
The Jerusalem Targum: “He was powerful in
hunting and in wickedness before the Lord, for he was a hunter of the sons of
men, and he said to them, “Depart from the judgement of the Lord, and adhere to
the judgment of Nimrod!”
Therefore it is said: “As Nimrod is the
strong one, strong in hunting, and in wickedness before the Lord.”
10 And the beginning of his kingdom [1st
kingdom] was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
[Babylonia, Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are.]
Some say Babel is Babylon, which means
the gate of god.
He first protected the people from the
wild animals. Then he devised a plan to build walls around the city to keep the
animals out. So the first kingdom, had hero worship at its center and Nimrod as
tyrannical dictator in charge.
Nimrod set himself up as priest-king of
Babylonia. He became known as the sun-god. When he died his wife, Semiramis,
gave birth to an illegitimate son, Tammuz, who she claimed was Nimrod reborn,
reincarnated.
She claimed that her son was
supernaturally conceived and that he was the promised seed, the saviour. Not
only was the son worshiped but the mother as well. Sound familiar? Origin of the
trinity. When the nations were spread abroad they took their new “religion” with
them.
Genesis 10:11 Out of that land went forth
Asshur, or as a Targum has it: he, Nimrod, went forth into Asshur. Nimrod
invaded Assyria.
11b and builded Nineveh, (and the city
boulevards, Rehoboth) and Calah,
12 And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the
same is a great city.
Nineveh became the competitor of Babylon
as the capital of Assyria. It was the chief city of the second kingdom.
19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.
So wherever the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah are, they would be part of a boundary for the land of Canaan. [Show
locations on map.] This will be important later.
32 These are the families of the sons of
Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations
divided in the earth after the flood.
Chapter 11 contains the record of the
Tower of Babel. It is one of the least understood records in the OT. This is
unfortunate since this record is one of the great accounts of the preservation
of the Christ line.
Since the fall of man in Genesis 3,
mankind was in need of a redeemer, a physical descendant of Adam. The Adversary
knew that if the genealogy of the Christ could be stopped before the Christ was
born, then man would be forever unredeemed and the Adversary would rule the
world forever.
Much of the 4000 year struggle portrayed
in the OT is Satan, God’s adversary trying to prevent the Messiah from coming.
Genesis 11:1 And the whole earth was of
one language [lip], and of one speech.
All the people on Earth spoke only one
language. The restating of this fact for emphasis lets us know without question
the condition on the earth. There was only one language.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed
from the east [from the area of where the ark landed], that they found a plain
in the land of Shinar, [Babylonia]; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to,
let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and
slime had they for morter.
The bricks being used were burned, or
fire-hardened, rather than sun-dried. This is highly unusual. The sun does a
fine job of drying the bricks. Wood was not plentiful. It was used
conservatively.
However, these builders were in such a
hurry they didn’t want to wait for the sun and did not seem to mind having to
burn precious wood resources.
Hebrew texts reads, “Come, let us brick
bricks and burn a burning.” God shows by this double use of the FOS polyptoton
the great determination they had in doing their evil task.
The slime that they had for mortar was
bitumen, which was common to the area and very tenacious. Pieces of brick held
together by bitumen can still be found in that area.
Bitumen is a natural derivative of crude
petroleum. It was found in abundance in the plain of Jordan near the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth
The tower was to be very high, even into
the heavens. The Hebrew reads, “...a tower with its top in the heavens.”
There is some debate by scholars who
believe that the zodiac would be depicted on the top of this tower for
worshiping the stars. Another is that it was hollow and wouldn’t have the zodiac
on it since it was built in the plain and not on a mountain.
The Bible doesn’t say what was on the
tower, but it is very obvious that it was not a center for the worship of the
true God.
Babel was a cosmopolitan city. Edersheim says
according to the lowest calculations that it covered an area of no less
than 100 square miles, 5 times the size of London. The highest computation has
it covering 200 square miles, or 10 times the size of London.
It was a first class world city. No
wonder that the worldly pride of that age should have wished to make such a
place the world capital of a world empire whose tower may reach into the
heavens.
The people said “... let us make us a
name.” Name in Hebrew is shem, the same word Shem as the son of Noah in the
Christ line. “Let US make US a name, a Shem, our own Messiah, our own way.”
They wanted independence from God. This
was the first attempt at one world rule, one world government, an antichrist.
The people had one language and decided to build a city and a tower for pagan
worship.
Nimrod was the founder and ruler of
Babel. Nimrod, the mighty hunter in the face of the Lord. Nimrod the
tyrant, became the one who took over for Cain and Lamech as torchbearers of
evil.
Satan, the god of this world, had
inspired Nimrod and his hosts to rebel against God. His men had set up the
kingdom of Babel, and were now ruling it. These “influenced” ones, had
purposed in their hearts to destroy the Messiah’s bloodline.
Historically in almost every major
kingdom known to man, people inspired by Satan have risen to the top echelon.
This will see its ultimate consummation in the kingdom of the antichrist in the
Book of Revelation. Here was the adversaries first major shot at setting up his
government to destroy the Christ line.
The building of the city and the
acquiring of their “name” were hastened by fear. They would have to accomplish
their plans or else, without unification and centrality, they would be
scattered.
Verse 4 again: And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
Look at the emphasis of the degree to
which they assumed they would be scattered. “Scattered,”
“abroad,” “face,” and “whole earth” all imply a wide area. The desire to rule
the world and the fear of not accomplishing their task accelerated the building
of Babel.
5 And the LORD came down to see the city
and the tower, which the children of men builded.
God is omniscient, all-knowing, so He did
not need to “come down” to know what was happening. This figure implies
God’s “collecting of evidence.”
God is a God of perfect justice and will
not judge without the proper evidence. The phrase “children of men” in this
verse is a key to the large number of people involved in this sin.
“The children of men” is in the Hebrew
“the sons of Adam,” and is the FOS pleonasm. God could have simply said
“mankind” or “man,” but by using the figure God emphasized it was Adam’s
descendants, the entire human race.
Genesis 11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
These words seem to imply that the
building of the tower of Babel was only intended as the commencement of a
further course of rebellion. The gathering of all material forces into one
common center would have led to universal despotism and to universal idolatry.
God uses the word “behold” to
emphasis the unity of the people. God saw that their work was evil and needed to
be stopped.
Genesis 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
Notice that God mimics the speech of the
children of men. In the words of Alfred Edersheim, (p.43).
“In allusion to the boastful language in
which the builders of Babel and of its tower had in their self-confidence stated
their purpose: “Go to, let us make brick,” etc. (Verse 3), Jehovah expressed His
purpose of defeating their folly, using the same words: “Go to, let Us go down
and there confound their language.”
Once verbal communication became
impossible, the great power they had due to unity was lost. The natural rivalry
and strife among them mixed with the inability to communicate resulted in them
quitting the work on the city and separating from each other into various parts
of the earth.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from
thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
The usage of “scatter” here paints
a true picture of what happened. The word is used in various ways in the Bible,
like, “scattering stubble in the wind,” “scattering a flock of sheep,” and
the “scattering of a defeated army in war.”
The wide extent to which they scattered
is indicated by using “face of the earth.”
There is one more figure utilize by God
in this record of the Tower of Babel. The Hebrew and the English both read, “The
Lord scattered them...”
The true God did not confound the speech
of the people. The Devil is the author of all confusion [I Cor. 14:33], the true
God “is light, and in Him is no darkness at all “ (I John 1:5).
The Hebrew language has an idiom
explained in EWB Figures of Speech in the Bible.
He writes “Active verbs were used by the
Hebrews to express, not the doing of the thing, but the permission of the thing
which the agent is said to do.” (p.823)
God removes His hand of protection and
the devil who by now is absolute hate immediately takes the necessary evil
action.
God never breeches man’s free will,
therefore He could not have confounded the speech of the people. If a man
follows the Word of God, he will be blessed by God.
Once outside the boundaries of the Word,
the man is subject to the will and whim of the Adversary. God warned the people
of this many times. One example is in Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 30:15 See, I have set
before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
16 In that I command thee this day to
love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his
statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy
God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
17 But if thine heart turn away, so that
thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve
them;
18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall
surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the
land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Why does God use this idiom in the Bible?
The usage of the idiom always kept God in the foreground and prevented people
from glorifying the Devil. Many people today would be spiritually more
prosperous if they would heed what God told Israel in Exodus 23:13 instead of
glorifying the Devil during adverse times.
Exodus 23:13 And in all things that I
have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other
gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.
The idiom of permission is used of God
throughout the OT. Examples include: “And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh
“ (Ex. 9:12), “The Lord killeth” (I Sam. 2:6), “and God smote him there for his
error; and there he died.” (II Sam. 6:7), and “and the Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away” (Job 1:21).
The principle explaining the idiom works
like gravity. God set up both the spiritual laws and the physical laws. No sane
person would accuse God of killing a man who purposely jumped to his death off a
10 story building, even though the law of gravity was established by God.
In the same way it is not God’s fault if
a man disobeys the spiritual laws and receives similar consequences. God showed
the people on earth how to conduct themselves. When they raised in rebellion
against God and wanted to worship pagan gods, they suffered the consequences
meted out by the Adversary. In this particular record, the Adversary divided the
languages and scattered mankind.
This has had both positive and negative
effects from God’s point of view. As time went on, the true God used the
scattering to His advantage. He could do this because one of the final results
of the confusion of the languages was the formation of nations and cultures,
which developed barriers which often allowed the people of God to escape
persecution.
Immediately after the division of the
languages and the scattering of the people, there was no longer an immediate
danger to the Christ line. It is very clear that God had to find a permanent way
to protect His people.
Permitting the Adversary to destroy all
the people on earth every few hundred years wouldn’t fly. In Genesis 11 the
languages were confounded. This led to the establishment of different languages
and culture groups and nations that would later serve to protect the Christ line
and the people who wanted to believe God.
For example, when Moses was being hunted in
Egypt for killing an Egyptian, he fled to another country, Midian. Had the whole
world been ruled by Egypt, Moses would have had nowhere to go for safety.
David fled into the land of the
Philistines when hiding from King Saul. When Jeroboam was prophesied to be the
first king of the ten northern tribes and Solomon tried to kill him, Jeroboam
fled to Egypt and got protection there. Had Solomon ruled the entire world,
Jeroboam would have been killed.
When Herod the Great, King of Judea,
tried to kill the young child Jesus, the angel told Joseph to take him down to
Egypt out of Herod’s control.
All throughout history people have sought
asylum in foreign countries. The Huguenots migrated from France to Germany, and
the Pilgrims went from England to Holland to America to escape persecution and
maintain their religious freedom.
While hatred and strife, and thus
persecution, have a hard time crossing language and cultural barriers, the love
of God does not. History is replete with examples of men of God, missionaries,
official envoys and common travelers who have moved across the continents of the
world bringing news and peace to those they meet and receiving back in kind.
Genesis 11:9 Therefore is the name of it
called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth:
and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Ancient traditions have Nimrod arrested and tried and found guilty of a crime worthy of death. His body was cut into pieces, burnt(?), and the pieces were sent to all the different areas where people who spoke the same language had gathered so all knew that Nimrod had received the justice of God.