Tevet 27 – But God remembered Noah…

January 7, 2024

Tevet 27, 5784; from sunset January 7, 2024, to sunset January 8, 2024

Noah’s Ark (1846), by the American folk painter Edward Hicks.

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased. – Genesis 8:1-3 (NAS)

It’s been a month already since it stopped raining. I’m sure Noah and his family don’t miss the constant pounding rain that they had endured for forty days. They’ve probably settled into a routine by now. They may even be getting a little bored…just staring out at the waters. Water, water, water.

I wonder if they played games while they were waiting for the waters to recede. If they were us, they could pull out their Bibles and do some studying. Maybe they would even be reading their own story. If they could have done that, perhaps they would have noticed something. Their story has a structure to it. What a comfort! Their story had a structure to it! It was planned. It was designed. You could even say there was a sense of poetry to it.

In Hebrew there is a literary device called a “chiasm.” A chiasm is a series of statements that are mirrored in subsequent statements. When we look at the verses in the flood chronology there is a symmetrical structure:

7 – 7 – 40 – 150 – 150 – 40 – 7 – 7

Let’s take a look at the verses in this structure:

Genesis 7:4 – 7 days to wait for the flood:

“For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.”

Genesis 7:10 – – 7 days to wait for the flood:

And it came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth.

Genesis 7:12 – – – 40 days of rain:

And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

Genesis 7:24 – – – – 150 days of the waters prevailing:

And the water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days.

Genesis 8:3 – – – – 150 days of waters receding:

and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.

Genesis 8:6 – – – 40 days of waiting:

Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;

Genesis 8:10 – – 7 days of waiting:

So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark.

Genesis 8:12 – 7 days of waiting:

Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; but she did not return to him again.

Shortly after the flood began (back in November), we looked at the similarities between the story of the flood and the story of creation. We saw how the ark was a mini version of creation; it contained everything needed to start over again. I think the chiastic structure of the flood story is another hint of how the flood mirrors creation. It shows how things grow and expand and then begin to revert back to their origin. The Bible itself is kind of like that. We start out with the creation of the heavens and the earth and, according to Revelation, we end with the creation of new heavens and a new earth.

We’re on a journey back to where we came from and along the way we’re probably going to go back through everything in reverse to get there. Revelation contains hints of the plagues recounted in the Exodus story and also images of the Garden of Eden with God once again dwelling among His people. Jesus taught that it would be “as in the days of Noah” (Matthew 24, Luke 17) when discussing when the Kingdom of God would come. One thing we can count on though…God promised to never flood the earth again as He did in the days of Noah.

So, perhaps we have one advantage that Noah did not. We have the Bible, and it contains a greater picture than what Noah saw. Or does it? While Noah was rocking back and forth on that boat, he knew that God had promised to establish His covenant with him. He knew the days of the waters would come to an end and that they would start over again…cleansed from the sin and chaos that had prevailed upon the earth. Isn’t that the same promise that we have today? New heavens, new earth, no more sin.

Date	# of Days	Event
Tishrei 10		Noah covers ark with pitch?
Tishrei 15		Noah gathers harvest into the ark?
Cheshvan 11		Noah, his family, and the animals enter the ark.
Cheshvan 17		The rains begin to fall.
Kislev 27	40	40 days later, the windows of heaven are closed.
Tevet 27	30	150 days of receding water: 30 down, 120 more to go!

If you’d like to read all of our posts on Noah, please click on the image above.