Ages of Noah’s Generations (pdf)
Table of 70 Nations (pdf)
Flood Timeline (pdf)
Table of Nations Chart (pdf)
Parallels Between Adam and Noah (pdf)
Noach Slides (pdf)
Noach Notes (pdf)
Overview of Noach (“Noah”) Genesis 6:9 – 11:32
The Western Greek mindset focuses on “what do you believe”; its emphasis is on the intellect. On the other hand, Eastern (Hebraic) mindset focuses on relationship and action. When Yehovah spoke to Jacob at the ladder reaching to Heaven, He said, “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.” (Gen 28:13). We see here Yehovah introducing Himself to Jacob by telling him of His relationship to Abraham and Isaac, and by telling him what He did (or will do) for him and his descendants. Other examples of this Hebraic mindset can be seen in these verses: Genesis 26:4 & 46:3; Exodus 3:6-8, 6:7, and 29:46; and there are many more in the Bible. And in last week’s Portion, we saw Yehovah’s great acts of creation and His relationship with Adam (and with Eve).
In this week’s Portion, we will see Yehovah’s actions as He brought on The Flood and also by coming down to confuse the languages at the Tower of Babel. He demonstrated His relationship with Noah when He cut covenant with him after The Flood, and as He continued that relationship with Noah’s descendants through Shem.
The first 11 chapters (covered in last week’s and this week’s Portions) are the foundation principles of Torah; failing to understand these basics will leave us lost and confused by the time we get to the New Covenant. Next week, starting in chapter 12, we will meet Abram and will start the narrative of His family ultimately bringing forth the Messiah… the message that forms that scarlet thread from Genesis all the way through Revelation.
To put this Portion into perspective, I would suggest that Noah is a foreshadowing of Yeshua. Mankind’s sinful condition at the time of Noah was equal to this condition at the time Yeshua…and also to this current age. Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his ways…just as Yeshua was. And Noah’s mission was to be the savior of the world…just as was Yeshua’s (at His First Coming and also as His Second Coming will be)! And here is an interesting perspective on The Flood: Are you afraid of being “left behind” when the rapture comes? Study this story of Noah and find out why you might prefer to be left behind after all!
Chapter 6 – Noah and the Ark
Last week’s Portion started with the six days of creation, when Yehovah pronounced all of it “very good.” And the Portion ended with:
“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”
So, in the course of almost 1,700 years, Planet Earth (and especially Mankind to whom He gave dominion) went from “good” (everything performing according to Yehovah’s purpose) to Mankind being continuously evil. And, as we discussed last week, this decline from order to chaos was caused perhaps by the unholy union of the Fallen Angels with the daughters of men; or perhaps merely by the mating of the daughter of the unrighteous descendants of Cain with the sons the righteous descendants of Seth. In either case, the end result of this was evil throughout the world.
This Portion starts by telling us the reason that Noah found grace:
“This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations.”
The Hebrew word that is translated “perfect” is tamiym, and it is the same word used in Leviticus to describe all of the animal sacrifices: “without blemish”.
“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”
Interestingly, the Hebrew word for “violence” is Hamas…as in the Islamic terror organization that controls Gaza. (The Arabic meaning of hamas is “control…lest you think that a terrorist organization would use a Hebrew word to name itself.) By the time of The Flood, every person on the face of the Earth was evil…except for Noah. That’s why Yehovah choose him to start the human race over again. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Yafet (Japheth).
Building the Ark
“Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch.”
The Hebrew word translated “cover” is kafar, which is the root of kippur…as in Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. We see here that the true meaning of “atonement” is merely to cover; Yeshua’s finished work on the Tree of Sacrifice did far more than cover our sins…it takes away our sins as far as the east is from the west!
We are given here the dimensions of the ark: 300 cubits long X 50 cubits wide X 30 cubits high. Converting these dimensions to units that we are more familiar with (1 Cubit =~18 inches (distance from fingertip to elbow) = 450 feet long X 75 feet Wide X 45feet high. Any marine architect will tell you today that this ratio (6:1) of length to width is the perfect ratio for stability…but not at all for maneuverability. So Yehovah designed the ark to stay upright during the turbulence of The Flood, not to jaunt around on an excursion.
And Yehovah instructed Noah to bring two of each type of animal and to bring enough food (fruit and seeds) for himself and his family, and also for all the animals to eat.
Chapter 7 – The Invitation
“Then the Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.”
“Righteous before Me in this generation” reiterates Noah’s perfect genealogy. Yehovah clarified His instructions concerning the numbers of the animals: two each of the unclean animals were to come into the ark and seven each of the clean animals….presumably so there would be enough to sacrifice and still have two left to reproduce. Interestingly, Yehovah expected Noah to know clean from unclean even though this list is not presented to us until the 11th chapter of Leviticus. More about that later.
Chapter 7 & 8 – The Flood
The rest of chapter 7 and all of chapter 8 give the details of The Flood. I have summarized the dates of the various Flood events in the file at the beginning of this page. Notice that there are some interesting dates (keeping in mind that Yehovah has not yet given His new calendar with the beginning of the year in the Spring (Exodus 12); so all these dates start counting the year from the Month of Tishri in the Fall.
Flood Started Chesvan 17
Rain Ends Kislev 28 – Middle Day of Chanukah
Ark Rested Nisan 17 – Day Yeshua Rose from the grave (2,500 years later)
3rd Dove Sent Elul 1 – Beginning of the 40 Days of Tshuvah (Repentance)
Waters Dried Tishri 1 – Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets)
Chapter 8 ends with Noah presenting burnt offerings to Yehovah of those clean animals. Here again we see that Yehovah expected Noah to know which animals are clean and which are unclean; and He also expected Noah to know the proper way to offer sacrifices…even though we are not introduced to these concepts until the Book of Leviticus. This suggests that these Levitical procedures were well known by everyone long before they were codified by Moses in Leviticus.
The closing words of this chapter:
“While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”
This says that now there will be seasons, which implies that there were no seasons before The Flood, reinforcing the concept that the water canopy surrounding the Earth maintained a uniform surface temperature over the entire face of the earth – it was a balmy 75 degrees year around from pole to pole!
Chapter 9 – The Covenant
“So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”
Here Yehovah does two things: 1) He reconfirms His instructions to Adam (Genesis 1:28) for Noah to be fruitful and multiply, and 2) He expands Mankind’s diet. Notice that “have dominion” is missing here from Adam’s charge from Yehovah; Adam (and Mankind) lost his dominion at the Fall…and didn’t regain it until Yeshua’s completed work on the Tree of Sacrifice.
In The Garden they ate fruit; outside The Garden Yehovah added the seeds of the field to their diet; and here He added meat from animals…but only those “clean” animals that eat the fruits and seeds that Mankind has been allowed to eat. And this restriction on eating only clean animals was NOT rescinded in Acts chapter 10 with Peter’s vision! (Read all the way down to Acts 10:28 to see this).
This covenant applies to all of humanity and to all other living creatures. In this covenant, Yehovah promised never again to destroy all life on Earth with a flood, and He created the rainbow as the sign of this everlasting covenant between Yehovah and every living creature on the earth. From these Covenant elements the rabbis get the Noachid Laws, upon which the ruling of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:19-21) was based. Man is to:
Establish Courts of Justice
No Blasphemy No Idolatry
No Bloodshed No Robbery
No Incest No Eating Flesh from Living Animal
Canaan’s Curse The chapter ends with the very strange (and misunderstood) story of Noah and his son Ham. The story starts out with Noah becoming drunk on wine from the grapes of his vineyard; and “he became uncovered in his tent”. Ham saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers, who went into the tent to cover their father. Now…there is a lot missing in the English about this story; there are a couple of theories about what actually happened: perhaps a homosexual event; or perhaps the boys castrated their father. Now, how did I get that?? Rashi suggests the latter occurred with this line of thinking: the three boys did not want to risk their inheritance (which, at that point in time, was the entire world!!) so they castrated their father to prevent him from having any more offspring. Apparently, inheriting one-third of everything on the Earth was the least the boys would accept – one-fourth or less simply would not be acceptable! So, because the boys (led by Ham) denied him a fourth son, Noah would curse Ham’s fourth son, Canaan. And Canaan’s curse was that he would serve his brothers. I don’t necessarily go along with this explanation; I’m just trying to give you a different perspective on this difficult passage.
Chapters 10 & 11 – The Descendants of Noah
This is a listing of the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Yaphet. And this forms the basis of the Table of Nations: 70 nations coming from those three sons of Noah. I have summarized these in the Table of Nations chart again at the beginning of this page.
At the beginning of Chapter 11 we are introduced to this character Nimrod (his name means “to rebel”). He was the first world dictator, and he rebelled at the idea of following Yehovah’s plan for Mankind. We see in his story how Nimrod attempted to enslave Mankind: he took away their individuality and forced them into conformity. Please review my notes on this subject for more detail. So, in order to break Nimrod’s hold on Mankind, Yehovah had to confound their languages so they could no longer communicate with each other and conspire against Yehovah. We see at the very end of Torah (in Deuteronomy 32:7-9), that was when Yehovah delegated control over the Nations to His Heavenly Divine Council…but He kept the Children of Israel for Himself. He was their Yehovah and they were His Children.
Next week we will start the narrative of Abram.
The Accompanying Haftarah Reading is Isaiah 54:1 – 55:5); here the Prophet Isaiah describes Israel as a forsaken childless woman. But then He also encourages her as He promises to gather her back to Him. This Haftarah compares this regathering to the promise He made to Noah. We read from the Prophet Isaiah 54:8-10:
“In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. “To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”
Incidentally, Peter gives us more details of this End Time judgment that Isaiah referred to:
“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.”
Now that’s the global warming that today’s Climate Change Globalists should be worried about!
The Accompanying Brit Chadashah reading is Matthew 24:37-39; when Yeshua’s Disciples came to Him and asked Him about His return to the Earth, He told them about the signs that would precede His return and about the conditions of the World at that time. We read the words of Yeshua from Matthew 24:37-39:
“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
As we see the rise of violence and evil in the World today, we know that the End of this Age is near. We also know we are engaged in a battle – both Natural and Spiritual. We fight in the Natural by speaking the Truth of Yeshua’s salvation to those around us. We fight in the Spiritual through prayer and by separating ourselves from this World; by drawing closer to Yehovah so we may clearly hear (and execute) His Plan that He has prepared for each one of us.