Or, God's Mercy Is Always in Time
Scripture: Genesis 8:1-22
Date: November 22, 2015
Speaker: Sean Higgins
I’m not sure how many times I’ve read the Flood story but until teaching through it I never really wrestled with the severity and stress of the story for the survivors. One-hundred years of ark building required perseverance. But one year on the ark put the severe in perseverance.
In Genesis 8 the waters abate and Noah’s family depart the ark. What’s the big deal? What is there for my heart in this part of the story? Plenty, and it’s a timely, if inconvenient, truth.
We are still in Book 3 of Genesis according to the headings of Moses. It began in Genesis 6:9 with “the generations of Noah” and won’t end until Genesis 9:29. The section started as God revealed that He was about to judge the entire earth and then He called Noah to build an ark (6:11-22). Noah “did all that God commanded him,” and then boarded the ark when God told him to go in (7:1-10).
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life…all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights (7:11-12).
The “waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered” and “the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days” (7:17-24). This was a dramatic, cataclysmic, world-wide-watery demonstration of God’s righteous wrath on wicked men.
Only eight persons from all of humanity were spared along with all the animals that God brought to Noah. As we begin chapter 8 the waters start to subside.
There are three scenes to this part of the story as we see Noah waiting on the ark (verses 1-12), walking off the ark (verses 13-19), and worshipping at an altar (verses 20-22).
Noah and his family have been on the ark for five months. If there wasn’t growing apprehension about getting off, there certainly was anticipation. If the relationships on board weren’t strained by now, they were certainly stretched.
But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. (Genesis 8:1–3a)
When God remembers it is not because He lost the information amidst the infinitude of His database. When God remembered Noah this was not an intellectual recall, this was Him beginning to act on His previous commitment. God made a promise to Noah (Genesis 6:18) and He was going to keep His Word.
When God made a wind blow over the earth as His means of drying out the planet, what did that sound like? Our National Weather Service categorizes wind strength by the Enhanced Fujita scale from EF0 to EF5. At the first level, EF0, wind speeds are between 65-85 mph. Some roof surfaces are peeled off, some damage to gutters, branches are broken off trees and shallow-rooted trees are pushed over. At EF5, well-built houses are leveled off foundations and swept away, trucks and train cars can be thrown up to a mile.
What sort of wind did God send to disperse three to five mile high flood waters? According to the text, God gave no forewarnings to Noah. Would such a whirlwind be more comforting? Or did Noah think that things were getting worse? Also, the word wind (ruah) is the same word translated “Spirit” in 1:2. Maybe we ought to be more careful when we pray for God’s Spirit to move.
Three things worked together for the waters to subside.
It’s interesting that there is no mention at all of the sun. Perhaps the sun is assumed to work since the precipitation ceased. Perhaps Moses didn’t mention it because the Sumerian flood story gave all the credit to the sun god, Utu (Hamilton). Either way, Noah had no word from God about what was happening. He was along for the ride, tossed to and fro by every wind of drying.
At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. (Genesis 8:3b–5)
The 150 days includes the forty days and nights of rain as the waters rose while the ark pitched and reeled. Then the waters abated enough for the ark to rest on the mountains of Ararat . Came to rest is the same Hebrew root as Noah’s name meaning “rest”; Noah’s ark noahed. There are multiple peaks in the mountain range called Ararat in modern day Turkey.
The ark floated around for about five months (starting on 2/17/600 - 7:11 until it came to rest 7/17/600 - 8:4). It took more than another two months for additional peaks to become visible (10/1/600 - 8:5), seven months and counting.
At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. (Genesis 8:6–12)
Forty days after the grounding Noah sent forth a raven , an unclean, scavenging bird. The raven didn’t return to the ark; it fed off and landed on floating carcasses.
Seven days later he sent forth a dove…to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground but the dove came back. Seven days after that he sent out the dove again and, this time, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf . Olive tress will grow even if the roots are under water, but olive trees themselves don’t grow on mountains. That means that that the water level was getting lower. He waited another seven days before dispatching the dove and she did not return .
No word is repeated more in chapter 8 than “earth.”
In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. (Genesis 8:13–14)
It took two more weeks after he sent the dove out before Noah took the covering off of the top of the ark and looked. It was almost two more months until he actually got off the boat. In other words, it was two and half months after the dove did not return. Can you imagine what that was like? John Calvin called it an “incredible weariness of a whole year.” We’d be looking every five minutes! “Is it dry yet?”
Why so long? Couldn’t God have dehydrated the planet faster than this? The time makes an impression. God could have used a divine Dyson to vacuum the place. He created the universe out of nothing in only six days. But Noah waited for a clear word from the LORD.
Then God said to Noah, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 8:15–17)
These are the first recorded words since 7:1 when God told Noah to go onto the ark. There is an emphasis on getting out:
So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. (Genesis 8:18–19)
Each category is re-listed to show that nothing was lost. And God reiterated His purpose for animals to be fruitful and multiply (verse 17, see Genesis 1:22). The LORD will bless Noah and his sons with the same sort of cultural mandate at the beginning of chapter 9.
The first recorded act of Noah when his feet hit the earth was sacrifice.
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. (Genesis 8:20)
That Noah sacrificed some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird means that more animals were sacrificed per capita than ever before. It was a pleasing aroma because Noah’s heart was smelly with thanks. His thanks came out in a holocaust, from the Greek holokauston, from holos ‘whole’ + kaustos ‘burned’ (from kaiein ‘burn’).
And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:21–22)
This is not yet God’s covenant with Noah (which comes in chapter 9) but first His self-commitment. This is also the only time in Scripture that explicitly states God smelling (Wenham). It is strange to think of God enjoying the smoke of skin and guts.
It’s interesting that the reason for judging mankind in Genesis 6:5 is now given as the reason for not judging mankind. The flood did not change man’s nature. The flood illustrated God’s righteous wrath. Now, in spite of man’s depravity, God won’t destroy humanity like that again. In other words, the only thing keeping men from destruction at any moment is God’s grace. We know now that judged one Man for the sake of humanity in order to show His righteous mercy.
Great is His faithfulness. Seasons are as certain as God is trustworthy. Climate change, global warming…it’s going to be okay.
God’s mercy is always in time. We could say that God’s mercy is always on time, that is, He treats us to help the moment before we would be lost without it. He often wants us to wait so that we will learn steadfastness, so that we will learn dependence, so that He can make the situation still worse if He wants in order to increase the splendor of His deliverances. His mercy will not be too late.
But His mercy is always in time, too, always working in the world we really live in. Mercy is for those on earth. Mercy is for those with bodies. There was no display of mercy before Genesis 1:1. At the end of time His people will have a different relationship to His mercy; we will enjoy the fulfillment of His promises and face-to-face fellowship.
It is now when we are a live and are in trouble that angels stoop over heavenly banisters to see mercy making us into men. Here is your life, your needs, your suffering, your family, your calling. You don’t need deliverance from time, you need to remember that God’s mercy is always in time.