Noah

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Son of Lamech, grandson of Methuselah; tenth from Adam in Seth's line. In contrast to the Cainite Lamech's boast of violence with impunity, the Sethite Lamech, playing on Noah's ("rest") name, piously looks for "comfort" ( Nachum ) through him from Jehovah who had "cursed the ground." (See Lamech .) At 500 years old Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The phrase, "these are the generations of Noah" ( Genesis 6:9) marks him as the patriarch of his day. The cause of the flood is stated  Genesis 6:1-3, etc. "The sons of God (The Sethites, Adopted By Grace, Alone Keeping Themselves Separate From The World'S Defilements, 'Called By The Name Of Jehovah' As His Sons:  Genesis 4:26 Margin, Or As Kjv; While The Cainites By Erecting A City And Developing Worldly Arts Were Laying The Foundation For The Kingdom Of This World, The Sethites By Unitedly 'Calling On Jehovah'S Name' Founded The Church Made Up Of God'S Children,  Galatians 3:26 ) saw the daughters of men (Cainites) and they took them wives of all which they chose" (Fancy And Lust, Instead Of The Fear Of God, Being Their Ruling Motive) .

When "the salt of the earth lost its savour" universal corruption set in.  Judges 1:6-7, does not confirm the monstrous notion that "the sons of God" mean angels cohabiting carnally with women. The analogy to Sodom is this, the angels' ambition alienating their affections from God is a spiritual fornication analogous to the Sodomites' "going after strange flesh"; so covetousness is connected with whoremongering, as spiritually related ( Ephesians 5:5). The book of Enoch takes the carnal cohabitation view; but because  Judges 1:1 accords with it in sonic particulars it does not follow he accords with it in all. The parallel  2 Peter 2:4 refers to the first fall of the apostate angels, not to  Genesis 6:2. The Israelites were "sons of God" ( Deuteronomy 32:5;  Hosea 1:10); still more "sons of Jehovah" the covenant God ( Exodus 4:22;  Deuteronomy 14:1;  Psalms 73:15;  Proverbs 14:26). "Wives" and "taking wives," i.e. marriage, cannot be predicated of angels, fornication and going after strange flesh; moreover Christ states expressly the "angels neither marry nor are given in marriage" ( Matthew 22:30;  Luke 20:35-36).

"Unequal yoking" of believers with unbelievers in marriage has in other ages also broken down the separation wall between the church and the world, and brought on apostasy; as in Solomon's case (compare  Nehemiah 13:23-26;  2 Corinthians 6:14). Marriages engrossing men just before the flood are specified in  Matthew 24:38;  Luke 17:27. Mixed marriages were forbidden ( Exodus 34:16;  Genesis 27:46;  Genesis 28:1). "There were giants in the earth in those days": Nephilim , from a root to fall, "fallers on others," "fellers," tyrants; applied in  Numbers 13:33 to Canaanites of great stature. Smith's Bible Dictionary observes, if they were descendants of the Nephilim in  Genesis 6:4 (?) the deluge was not universal. Distinct from these are the children of the daughters of men by the sons of God, "mighty men of old, men of renown." "The earth was corrupt before God, and filled with violence through them" ( Genesis 6:11;  Genesis 6:13).

So God's long suffering at last gave place to zeal against sin, "My Spirit shall not always strive with (Keil, Rule In) man," i.e. shall no longer contend with his fleshliness, I will give him up to his own corruption and its penalty ( Romans 1:24;  Romans 1:26-28), "for that he also (Even The Godly Sethite) is flesh," or as Keil, "in his erring he is fleshly," and so incapable of being ruled by the Spirit of God; even the godly seed is apostate and carnal, compare  John 3:6. God still gave a respite of 120 years to mankind. Noah alone found grace in His sight; of him and Enoch alone it is written, "they walked with God." Noah was "just and perfect (Sincere In Aim, Whole-Hearted:  Matthew 5:48 ;  Genesis 17:1 ;  Philippians 3:15 ) in his generations," among the successive generations which passed during his lifetime. God renews His covenant of grace to mankind in Noah's person, the one beacon of hope amidst the ruin of the existing race ( Genesis 6:18). He was now 480 years old, because he entered the ark at 600 ( Genesis 7:6).

He was 500 when he begat his three sons, subsequently to God's threat (  Genesis 5:32 In Time Is Later Than  Genesis 6:3 ) . In the 120 years' respite Noah was "a preacher of righteousness," "when the long suffering of God was continuing to wait on to the end ( Apexedecheto , And No 'Once' Is Read In The Alexandrinus, The Vaticanus, And The Sinaiticus Manuscripts) in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing," the limit of His long suffering ( 1 Peter 3:20;  2 Peter 2:5;  Hebrews 11:7). "Warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with reverential (Not Slavish) fear ( Eulabetheis , Contrasted With The World'S Sneering Disbelief Of God'S Word And Self Deceiving Security) prepared an ark by faith (Which Evidenced Itself In Acting Upon God'S Word As To The Things Not Yet Seen) to the saving of his house (For The Believer Tries To Bring 'His House' With Him:  Acts 16:15 ;  Acts 16:31 ;  Acts 16:33-34 ;  Acts 10:2 ) , by the which he condemned the world (Since He Believed And Was Saved, So Might They; His Salvation Showed Their Condemnation Just:  John 3:19 ) and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."

In  Ezekiel 14:14 Noah, etc., are instanced as saved "by their righteousness," not of works, but of grace ( Romans 4:3). The members of his family alone, his wife, three sons and their wives, were given to him amidst the general wreck. The ark which Noah built by God's order was like a ship in proportions, but with greater width ( Genesis 6:14-15). The Hebrew Teebah is the same as Moses' ark of bulrushes ( Exodus 2:3): an Egyptian word for a "chest" or "coffer," fitted for burden not for sailing, being without mast, sail, or rudder. (See Ark .) Of "gopher," i.e. cypress wood, fitted for shipbuilding and abounding in Syria near Babylon, the region perhaps of Noah. With "rooms," literally, nests, i.e. berths or compartments, for men and animals. Pitched with "bitumen" making it watertight. The length 300 cubits (i.e., the cubit = 21 inches, 525 ft.), the width was 50 cubits (i.e. 87 ft. 6 inches), the height was 30 cubits (i.e. 52 ft. 6 inches).

The "Great Eastern" is longer but narrower. Peter Jansen in 1609 built a vessel of the same proportions, but smaller, and it was found to contain one-third more freight than ordinary vessels of the same tonnage, though slow. Augustine (de Civ. Dei, 15) notices that the ark's proportions are those of the human figure, the length from sole to crown six times the width across the chest, and ten times the depth of the recumbent figure measured from the ground. Tiele calculated there was room for 7,000 species; and J. Temporarius that there was room for all the animals then known, and for their food. "A window system" (Gesenius) or course of windows ran for a cubit long under the top of the ark, lighting the whole upper story like church clerestory windows. A transparent substance may have been used, for many arts discovered by the Cainites ( Genesis 4:21-22) and their descendants in the 2,262 years between Adam and the flood (Septuagint; Hebrew 1656 Years) were probably lost at the deluge.

The root of Tsohar "window" implies something shining, distinct from Challon , a single compartment of the larger window ( Genesis 7:6); and "the windows of heaven," 'Arubbowt , "networks" or "gratings." Noah was able to watch the bird's motions outside so as to take the dove in; this implies a transparent window. One door beside the window course let all in. As under Adam ( Genesis 2:19-20) so now the lower animals come to Noah and he receives them in pairs; but of clean animals seven pairs of each kind, for sacrifice and for subsequent multiplication of the useful species, the clean being naturally distinguished from the unclean, sheep and (Used For Milk And Wool) from carnivorous beasts of prey, etc. The physical preservation of the species cannot have been the sole object; for if the flood were universal the genera and species of animals would exceed the room in the ark, if partial there would be no need for saving in the ark creatures of the limited area man then tenanted, for the flooded area might easily be stocked from the surrounding dry land after the flood.

The ark typified the redemption of the animal as well as of the human world. The hopes of the world were linked with the one typical representative human head, Noah ( Genesis 5:29). Death existed in the animal world before man's creation, for man's fall foreseen and the world reflected the sad image of the fall that was to be; moreover, the pre-existing death and physical evil had probably a connection with Satan's fall. The regeneration of the creature (the animal and material world) finally with man, body as well as soul, is typified by Noah and the animals in the ark and the renewed earth, on which they entered ( Romans 8:18-25;  Revelation 21:1;  2 Peter 3:13;  Matthew 19:28). The deluge began on the 17th day of the second month, i.e. the middle of November, the beginning of the rainy season, Tisri the first month beginning at the autumnal equinox. It lasted 150 days, i.e. five months of 30 days each; and the ark rested on Ararat the 17th of the seventh month ( Genesis 7:11-12;  Genesis 7:24;  Genesis 8:4). The year thus was then 360 days, the old Egyptian year, which was corrected by the solar year, which also the Egyptians knew.

"The fountains of the deep breaking up and the windows of heaven being opened" is phenomenal language. "The Lord shut Noah in," as it shall be in the last days ( Isaiah 26:20); so Israel on the night of the slaying of the firstborn ( Exodus 12:22-23;  Psalms 31:20;  Psalms 83:3;  Psalms 27:5). The simplicity of the history, the death of all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, and the six times mention of the rescue of the favored few, impress one with the feeling of the completeness of the desolation and the special grace which saved the eight. The "40 days and 40 nights of rain" were part of the 150; forty is the number significant of judgment and affliction; as Israel's 40 years in the wilderness; Moses', Elijah's, and our Lord's 40 days of foodlessness.

The Speaker's Commentary considers the Ararat meant to be southern Armenia (As In  2 Kings 19:37 ;  Isaiah 37:38 ; The Only Other Passages Having The Word) , not the mountain 17,000 ft. above the sea, for 15 cubits water above it would submerge the whole earth. Noah successively sent, to ascertain the state of the earth, at intervals of seven days, a raven which rested on the ark but never entered it, wandering up and down and feeding on the floating caresses (Emblem Of The Restless Worldly Spirit) , and a dove, which finding no rest for the sole of her foot returned and Noah put forth his hand and took her and pulled her in unto him into the ark (Emblem Of The Soul First Drawn By Jesus To Himself:  John 6:44 ;  John 10:28-29 ) ; next she brought a fresh olive leaf (Emblem Of Peace And The Holy Spirit, The Earnest Of Our Inheritance:  Ephesians 1:13-14 ) , which can live under a flood more than most trees; Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. 4:8) and Pliny (H.N. 50) mention olives in the Red Sea. At the third sending she returned no more (The Emblem Of The New Heavens And Earth Which Shall Be After The Fiery Deluge,  2 Peter 3:1-13 ;  Romans 8:21 , When The Ark Of The Church To Separate Us From The World Shall Be Needed No More,  Revelation 21:1-22 ) ; contrast  Isaiah 57:20 with  Matthew 3:16;  Matthew 11:29.

Noah did not leave the ark until God gave the word; as Jesus waited in the tomb until with the third messenger of day the Father raised Him ( Ephesians 1:20). Noah's first act was a sacrifice of thanksgiving; "and Jehovah smelled a savour of rest," in consonance with Noah's name meaning "rest", and promised, in consideration of man's evil infirmity, not to curse the ground any more nor to smite every living thing as He had done, but to cause seedtime and harvest, day and night, not to cease. In the three great ethnological divisions, Semitics, Aryans (Indo-Europeans), and Turanians, the tradition of the flood exists. The Aryan has the Greek accounts of Ogyges' and Deucalion's floods, on account of men's deterioration in the brazen age (Pindar, Ol. 9:37). As Deucalion threw the bones Of mother earth behind his back, and they became men, so the Tamanaki on the Orinoco represent the surviving man to have thrown the palm fruit. (Ovid, Metam. 1:240; Apollodorus, i.) Lucian (de Syra Des, 12-13) says it destroyed all mankind.

Hindu tradition says Manu was ordered by a great fish to build a ship secured to the horn of Brahma in a fish form to escape the deluge, and was at last landed on a northern mountain. The Phrygian Annakos who lived more than 300 years in Iconium (Enoch, Whose Years Were 365) foretold the deluge. A medal of Apamea, a pagan monument, in Septimius Severus' reign represented the current tradition namely, a floating ark, two persons within, two going out of it; a bird is on the ark, another flying to it with a branch; No is on some coins: evidently borrowed from the Hebrew record. The Chinese Fahe, the founder of their civilization, escapes from the flood, and is the first man with his wife, three sons and three daughters, in the renovated world (Hardwick, "Christ and other Masters," 3:16). The Fiji islanders (Wilkes' Expl. Exped.) believe in a deluge from which eight were saved in a canoe (Hardwick, 3:185).

The aborigines of America were of one stock, the Turanian; the Mexicans (The Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Plascaltecs, And Mechoacans) represent a man (Coxcox) and woman in a barque, a mountain, the dove, and the vulture. The Cherokee Indians believe a dog incited one family to build a boat wherein they were saved from the flood which destroyed all people. In the royal library of the old palace of Nineveh were found about 20,000 inscribed clay tablets, now in the British Museum. Mr. G. Smith has deciphered the account of the flood in three distinct copies, containing duplicate texts of an ancient original. The copies are of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal's time, i.e. 660 B.C. The original, according to the tablets, belonged to the city of Erech, and was in Semitic Babylonian. The variant readings in the three copies have crept into the text in the lapse of ages. The Assyrian copyists did not always know the modern representatives of the ancient forms of the characters in the original, so have left some in their obsolete hieratic form.

The scribe has recorded the divisions of lines in the original. What were originally explanatory glosses have been incorporated in the text. The Assyrians used commonly to copy Babylonian classics. Assurbanipal was closely connected with Erech, it alone remaining loyal when the rest of Babylonia revolted; to it therefore he restored the idol Nana, which the Elamites carried away 1635 years before (2295 B.C.). Mr. Smith thinks the original text was about 1700 B.C. Izdubar (Nimrod According To Smith) the hero, a sage, asks Sisit or Hasisadra (Greek Xisuthrus), an immortal, son of Ubaratutu, how he became so; in reply he narrates the story of the flood, and assigns his own piety as the cause of his translation. The gods revealed to him their decree: "make a great ship ... for I will destroy the sinners and life ... cause to go in the seed of life, all of it to preserve them.

The ship ... cubits shall be the measure of its length, and ... cubits the amount of its breadth and height. Into the deep launch it. ... I said, this that thou commandest me I will perform. I brought on the fifth day ... in its circuit 14 measures ... its sides 14 measures ... over it a roof ... I poured over the outside three measures of bitumen ... I poured over the inside three measures of bitumen ... I caused to go up into the ship all my male and female servants, the beasts, the animals of the field .... Shamas spoke, I will cause it to rain from heaven heavily, enter ... the ship, shut thy door ... I entered ... shut my door ... to guide the ship to Buzursadiribi the pilot I gave. The bright earth to a waste was turned. The flood destroyed all life from the face of the earth ... Ishtar ... the great goddess said, the world to sin has turned. Six days and nights the storm overwhelmed, on the seventh the storm was calmed. I opened the window, I sent forth a dove .... it searched a rest which it did not find, and returned. I sent forth a swallow and it returned. I sent forth a raven and it did not return.

I poured out a libation, I built an altar on the peak of the "mountain" ( Μizir , The Ararat Of The Bible; In Assyrian Geography The Precipitous Range Overlooking The Valley Of The Tigris N.E. Of Mosul, Arabic Judi, Assyrian Guti) . When his judgment was accomplished, Bel went up to the midst of the ship and took my hand and brought me out ... my wife ... he purified the country, he established in a covenant, ... then dwelt Sisit at the mouth of the rivers. Sisit said, the chief who grasps at life, the like way a storm shall be laid upon him." This account agrees with the Bible in making the flood a divine punishment for sin, and threatening the taking of life for life. The oldest Babylonian traditions center around the Persian gulf, accordingly the tradition assumes a form suiting a maritime people. Surippak in the Babylonian king Hammurabi's inscriptions 1600 B.C. is called "the city of the ark."

The "ark" becomes a "ship," it is launched into the sea in charge of a pilot. Berosus' fragment preserves a similar Chaldean story: "Xisuthrus, warned by Kronos of a coming flood, wrote a history of the beginning, course, and end of all things, and buried it in the city of the sun, Sippara; built a vessel five stadia long and two broad, and put on board food, birds, and quadrupeds, wife, children and friends. After the flood abated Xisuthrus sent out birds which not finding food or rest returned. Again he sent, and they returned with mud on their feet. The third time they returned no more. The vessel being stranded on a mountain, Nizir, E. of the Tigris, he quitted it, built an altar, and sacrificed to the gods and disappeared. The rest went to Babylon from Armenia, where part of the vessel remains in the Corcyrean (Kurdistan) mountains; they dug up the writings at Sippara, and built temples and cities, and Babylon became inhabited again" (Cory's Anc. Fragm. 26-29).

No record of the flood appears in the Egyptian monuments, but Plato (Timaeus, 21) testifies that the Egyptians believed that catastrophes from time to time by God's anger had visited all lands but Egypt; the last was a deluge submerging all lands but Egypt, 8,000 years before Solon's visit to Amosis, no rain falling in Egypt. The various yet mainly agreeing accounts imply the original unity of mankind diverging from one common center after the flood, and carrying to their various lands the story which has by corruption assumed various shapes. The Bible narrative unites details scattered up and down in various traditions but nowhere else combined:

(1) The divine warning in the Babylonian, Hindu, and Cherokee accounts.

(2) The care for animals in the Babylonian, Indian, and Polynesian versions.

(3) The eight saved in the Fiji and Chinese stories (The Latter Specifying A Man, His Wife, Three Sons And Their Wives) .

(4) The birds sent forth before leaving the ark, in the Babylonian.

(5) The dove, in the Greek and the Mexican.

(6) The olive branch, in the Phrygian legend.

(7) The building of the altar afterward, in the Babylonian and the Greek account.

(8) The bitumen, in the Erech version; also shutting the door; the cause, sin; the seven days, the dove returning, the raven not so; the mountain; the Deity bringing out from the ark and establishing a covenant; the retribution for taking life.

The Bible account cannot be derived from anyone of these traditions, while they all can flow from it. Probably Shem related the event as it would strike an eye witness, "all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered ... 15 cubits upward," as doubtless they ascertained by a plumbline. If Babylonia were the region of Noah few hills were in view and those low, possibly the Zagros range.  Deuteronomy 2:25;  Genesis 41:57;  1 Kings 18:10, show the limited sense of "all the high hills under the whole heaven." A flood destroying all the existing race of man, and those animals alone in the limited region, as yet occupied by man, and covering the visible horizon, satisfies the requirements of Scripture. Thus geological, physical, and zoological (Namely, The Distribution Of Animals, Each Continent Having For Ages Before The Flood Its Own Peculiar Species, And The Numbers Being Vast) objections are solved. Not that there is insufficiency of water to submerge the earth, nay the water is to the land as three-fifths to two-fifths; a universal flood might have been for 150 days, and yet leave no trace discernible now.

But the other difficulties make a partial one probable. The geological diluvium is distinct from the historical. The diluvium or drift in many places, consisting of sand, pebbles, organic remains, and rock fragments, was produced by violent eruptions of water at various times, not the comparatively tranquil flood of Scripture. Traces of man are supposed to be found during the formation of the drift, but that formation was apparently the work of ages, and these before Noah, not of a temporary submersion. Moses implies the ark did not drift far from where it was first lifted up, and grounded about the same place. The flood rose by degrees, not displacing the soil, nor its vegetable tribes as the olive, nor rendering the ground unfit for cultivating the vine. Hence the nonappearance of traces of the flood accords with the narrative. But the elevation of mountains followed by floods submerging whole regions is traceable, and further confirms the account of Noah's flood. Depression of the large tracts occupied by the existing race of men would open the fountains of the deep, so that the land would be submerged.

 Psalms 29:10 translated "Jehovah sat (so sit,  Psalms 9:4;  Psalms 9:7-8;  Joel 3:12) at the flood"; Mabbul , Noah's deluge; as King and Judge vindicating His people and destroying their ungodly foe, "and therefore Jehovah will sit King for ever." Their foes now are what "the flood" was then ( Isaiah 28:2;  Isaiah 59:19;  Jeremiah 46:7-8;  Jeremiah 47:2). Jehovah will not let them overwhelm His people, as He did not let it overwhelm Noah. "As God swore the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth," so He swears He will, after His mercy returns to Israel, "no more be angry with nor rebuke her" ( Isaiah 54:9). Christ stamps the history as true, declaring that the world's unpreparedness for His second coming, through engrossment in business and pleasure, shall be such as it was in Noah's days before the flood ( Matthew 24:37;  Luke 17:26). Peter ( 2 Peter 3:3-13) confutes the scoffers of the last days who deny the Lord's coming to judgment on the plea "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation," but the same objection might have been urged before the flood against its possibility.

Yet the earth was deluged by that water out of which it had originally risen; ( 2 Peter 3:6) "by which (plural Greek) heavens and earth, in respect to the waters which flowed together from both, the then world perished, in respect to its occupants, men and animals, and its existing order" ( Kosmos ); for "the fountains of the great deep were broken up" from the earth below, and "the windows of heaven above were opened. So "the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word (Which First Made The Existing Order Of Men And Animals, And Then Destroyed Them) are kept in store, reserved unto fire (stored up within our earth, and the action of which appears in our igneous reeks once in a state of fusion, also in the sun our central luminary) against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Noah as second head of mankind receives God's blessing (Genesis 9), the first part of it the repetition of that on Adam ( Genesis 1:28), "be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth," which blessing had been marred by man's sin. Terror, not as in Eden love, should subject the lower animals to man, God's vicegerent.

Vegetable diet had heretofore been the sole one sanctioned ( Genesis 1:29), as it is still in some Eastern countries. Whether men restricted themselves from flesh or not, previous to the flood, is unknown. Now first its use was explicitly conceded, man's needs often finding insufficient food from the ground under the curse; thus Lamech's prophecy was fulfilled ( Genesis 5:29), Noah his son becoming head of the regenerated world under more favorable circumstances. But flesh with the life or blood in it was not to be eaten, both for humanity's sake, and also as typifying His blood shedding in whom is our life ( Leviticus 17:10-11;  Acts 15:29). Moreover, henceforth (Though Formerly Having Let Cain Live) God requires man's blood of the shedder, whether man or beast ( Exodus 21:28;  Psalms 9:12). As the priesthood belonged to all Israel, before it was delegated to Aaron's family as Israel's representative, so the judicial and magisterial authority belonged to mankind, and was subsequently delegated to particular magistrates as mankind's representatives.

The security of the natural world from destruction by flood is guaranteed by God's promise, and that of the social world by God's making human life inviolable on the ground of man's bearing God's image. These three precepts, abstinence from blood, murder punishable by death ( Romans 13:1-4, etc.), the civil authority, have four more added by inference, constituting the "seven precepts of Noah": abstinence from blasphemy, incest and unchastity, theft, and idolatry. As Noah the head of the new family of man represents all peoples, God takes the rainbow, a natural phenomenon, seen by all everywhere, as pledge of His covenant with mankind; so when covenanting with one nation in Abraham's person, He made circumcision, an arbitrary sign, His seal. (See Bow .) As Scripture records Noah's piety so also his sin. Wine making was probably one of the discoveries of the ingenious but self indulgent Cainites. Noah, having planted a vine (Armenia Being Celebrated For Vines) , through sinful ignorance and infirmity suffered himself to be overcome by wine. The saint's sin always brings its chastisement. He exposed his person; his shame stirred up Ham's mocking undutifulness and dislike of his father's piety. (See Ham ; CANAAN.)

Canaan shared Ham's guilt, and by undutifulness should wound his father as the latter had wounded Noah. God overruled, as always, this fall of Noah to His glory, His righteousness becoming known by Noah's prophecy, reaching to the last ages. Ham, who despised his duty as a son, hears his son's doom to be a slave. The curse fell on Ham at the sorest point, namely, in his son's person. Canaan became "slave of Shem's" descendant, Israel. Tyre fell before Greece, Carthage before Rome, and Africa for ages has been the land of slaves. (See Japheth on his foretold "dwelling in the tents of Shem.")

"Blessed be Jehovah (The Covenant Fulfilling) God of Shem" marks that to Israel, Shem's representative, Jehovah should especially reveal Himself as their God, and through Israel ultimately to "the whole earth" ( Psalms 72:18-19;  Isaiah 2:2-5;  Romans 11:12-32). Noah lived after the flood 350 years. Noah was the second father and federal representative head of man-kind; alone after the flood, as Adam was alone in Eden. The flood brought back man to his original unity. The new world emerging from the water was to Noah what Eden had been to Adam. Noah's vine was the counterpart to the two trees of Eden: a tree of life in the moderate use of its fruit, a tree of knowledge of evil, shame, and death in excess, which, lust persuaded him as in Eve's case, would raise him to expanded knowledge and bliss.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

No'ah. (Rest). The tenth in descent from Adam, in the line of Seth, was the son of Lamech, and grandson of Methuselah. (B.C. 2948-1998). We hear nothing of Noah till he is 500 years old, when it is said he begat three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. In consequence of the grievous and hopeless wickedness of the world at this time, God resolved to destroy it. Of Noah's life during this age of almost universal apostasy, we are told but little. It is merely said that he was a righteous man, and perfect in his generations, (that is, among his contemporaries), and that he, like Enoch, walked with God. St. Peter calls him "a preacher of righteousness."  2 Peter 2:5 . Besides this, we are merely told that he had three sons, each of whom had married a wife; that he built the ark in accordance with divine direction; and that he was 600 years old when the flood came.  Genesis 6:7.

The ark. - The precise meaning of the Hebrew word, ( tebah ), is uncertain. The word occurs only in Genesis and in  Exodus 2:3. In all probability, it is to the old Egyptian, that we are to look, for its original form. Bunsen, in his vocabulary gives tba , "A Chest", tpt , "A Boat", and in the Coptic version of  Exodus 2:3;  Exodus 2:5, thebi is the rendering of tebah .

This "chest" or "boat" was to be made of gopher, (that is, cypress), wood, a kind of timber which, both for its lightness, and its durability, was employed by the Phoenicians for building their vessels. The planks of the ark, after being put together were to be protected by a coating of pitch, or rather bitumen, both inside and outside, to make it water-tight, and perhaps also as a protection against the attacks of marine animals.

The ark was to consist of a number of "nests" or small compartments, with a view, no doubt, to the convenient distribution of the different animals and their food. These were to be arranged in three tiers, one above another; "with lower, second and third (stories) shalt thou make it." Means were also to be provided for letting light into the ark. There was to be a door, that was to be placed in the side of the ark.

Of the shape of the ark, nothing is said, but its dimensions are given. It was to be 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth and 30 in height. Taking 21 inches for the cubit, the ark would be 525 feet in length, 87 feet 6 inches in breadth, and 52 feet 6 inches in height. This is very considerably larger than the largest British man-of-war, but not as large as some modern ships.

It should be remembered that this huge structure was only intended to float on the water, and was not in the proper sense of the word, a ship. It had neither mast, sail, nor rudder; it was, in fact, nothing but an enormous floating house, or rather oblong box.

The inmates of the ark were Noah and his wife and his three sons with their wives. Noah was directed to take also animals of all kinds into the ark with him, that they might be preserved alive.

(The method of speaking of the animals that were taken into the ark "clean" and "unclean," implies that only those which were useful to man were preserved, and that no wild animals were taken into the ark; so that there is no difficulty from the great number of different species of animal life existing in the word. - Editor).

The flood. - The ark was finished, and all its living freight was gathered into it as a place of safety. Jehovah shut him in, says the chronicler, speaking of Noah; and then there ensued a solemn pause of seven days before the threatened destruction was let loose. At last, the threatened destruction of the flood came; the waters were upon the earth. A very simple, but very powerful and impressive description is given of the appalling catastrophe. The waters of the flood increased for a period of 190 days. (40+150, comparing  Genesis 7:12 and  Genesis 7:24, and then "God remembered Noah" and made a wind to pass over the earth, so that the waters were assuaged.

The ark rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month on the mountains of Ararat. After this, the waters gradually decreased till the first day of the tenth month, when the tops of the mountains were seen, but Noah and his family did not disembark till they had been in the ark, a year and a month and twenty days. Whether the flood was universal or partial has given rise to much controversy; but there can be no doubt that it was universal, so far as man was concerned: we mean that it extended to all The Then Known World. The literal truth of the narrative obliges us to believe that The Whole Human Race , except eight persons, perished by the flood.

The language of the book of Genesis does not compel us to suppose that the whole surface of the globe was actually covered with water, if the evidence of geology requires us to adopt the hypothesis of a partial deluge. It is natural to suppose it that the writer, when he speaks of "all flesh," "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life" refers only to his own locality. This sort of language is common enough in the Bible when only a small part of the globe is intended. Thus, for instance, it is said that " All Countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn and that" a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that All The World should be taxed."

The truth of the biblical narrative is confirmed by the numerous traditions of other nations, which have preserved the memory of a great and destructive flood, from which but a small part of mankind escaped. They seem to point back to a common centre whence they were carried by the different families of man as they wandered east and west. The traditions which come nearest to the biblical account are those of the nations of western Asia. Foremost among these is the Chaldean. Other notices of a flood may be found in the Phoenician mythology.

There is a medal of Apamea in Phrygia, struck as late as the time of Septimius Severus, in which the Phrygian deluge is commemorated. This medal represents a kind of a square vessel floating in the water. Through an opening in it are seen two persons, a man and a woman. Upon the top of this chest or ark is perched a bird, whilst another flies toward it carrying a branch between its feet. Before the vessel are represented the same pair as having just, quitted it and got upon the dry land. Singularly enough, too, on some specimens of this medal, the letters No or Noe have been found on the vessel, as in the cut on p. 45.

(Tayler Lewis deduces the partial extent of the flood from the very face of the Hebrew text." "Earth," where if speaks of "all the earth," often is, and here should be, translated "land," the home of the race, from which there appears to have been little inclination to wander. Even after the flood, God had to compel them to disperse. "Under the whole heavens," simply includes the horizon reaching around "all the land" the visible horizon.

We still use the words in the same sense and so does the Bible. Nearly all commentators now agree on the partial extent of the deluge. If is probable also that the crimes and violence of the previous age had greatly diminished the population, and that they would have utterly exterminated the race had not God in this way saved out some good seed from their destruction. So that the flood, by appearing to destroy the race, really saved the world from destruction. - Editor).

(The scene of the deluge. - Hugh Miller, in his "Testimony of the Rocks," argues that there is a remarkable portion of the globe, chiefly on the Asiatic continent, though it extends into Europe, and which is nearly equal to all Europe in extent, whose rivers, (some of them, the Volga, Oural, Sihon, Kour and the Amoo, of great size), do not fall into the ocean, but, on the contrary are all turned inward, losing themselves in the eastern part of the tract, in the lakes of a rainless district in the western parts into such seas as the Caspian and the Aral. In this region, there are extensive districts still under the level of the ocean. Vast plains white with salt and charged with sea-shells, show that the Caspian Sea was at no distant period greatly more extensive than it is now.

With the well-known facts, then, before us regarding this depressed Asiatic region, let us suppose that the human family, still amounting to several millions, though greatly reduced by exterminating wars and exhausting vices, were congregated in that tract of country which, extending eastward from the modern Ararat to far beyond the Sea of Aral, includes the original Caucasian centre of the race. Let us suppose that, the hour of judgment having arrived, the land began gradually to sink, (as the tract in the Run of Cutch sank in the year 1819), equably for forty days at the rate of about 400 feet per day; a rate not twice greater than that at which the tide rises in the Straits of Magellan, and which would have rendered itself apparent as but a persistent inward flowing of the sea.

The depression, which, by extending to the Euxine Sea and the Persian Gulfm on the one handm and the Gulf of Finlandm on the other, would open up by three separate channels the "fountains of the great deep," and which included an area of 2000 miles each way, would, at the end of the fortieth day, be sunk in its centre to the depth of 16,000 feet, - sufficient to bury the loftiest mountains of the district; and yet, having a gradient of declination of, but sixteen feet per mile, the contour of its hills and plains would remain apparently what they had been before, and the doomed inhabitants would, but the water rising along the mountain sides, and one refuge after another swept away. - Editor).

After The Flood. - Noah's great act, after he left the ark, was to build an altar and to offer sacrifices. This is the first altar of which we read in Scripture, and the first burnt sacrifice. Then follows the blessing of God upon Noah and his sons. Noah is clearly the head of a new human family, the representative of the whole race. It is as such that God makes his covenant with him; and hence, selects a natural phenomenon, as the sign of that covenant. The bow in the cloud [ the rainbow! ], seen by every nation under heaven, is an unfailing witness to the truth of God.

Noah now for the rest of his life betook himself to agricultural pursuits. It is particularly noticed that he planted a vineyard. Whether in ignorance of its properties, or otherwise, we are not informed, but he drank of the juice of the grape till he became intoxicated, and shamefully exposed himself in his own tent.

One of sons, Ham, mocked openly at his father's disgrace. The others, with dutiful care and reverence, endeavored to hide it. When he recovered from the effects of his intoxication, he declared that a curse should rest upon the sons of Ham. With the curse on his youngest son, was joined a blessing on the other two. After this prophetic blessing, we hear no more of the patriarch, but the sum of his years, 950.

(Motion).

2. One of the five daughters of Zelophehad.  Numbers 26:33;  Numbers 27:1;  Numbers 36:11;  Joshua 17:3. (B.C. 1450).

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Son of Lamech, the descendant of Seth, and father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah is introduced as a just man, perfect in his generations, and as one who walked with God. To him God revealed that because the earth was full of violence, He would destroy all flesh with the earth. God bade Noah make the ark, and He would establish His covenant with him, and would preserve alive in the ark Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. The N.T.reveals the fact thatNoah had faith, and that in godly fear he prepared the ark, in obedience to God's warning, for the saving of his house, thereby condemningthe world and becoming heir of the righteousness which is by faith. God's salvation was seen by faith in the midst of coming judgement.  Hebrews 11:7 .

In  Genesis 6 : God said, "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [or 'indeed'] is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Men lived to a much greater age than this till long after the flood, so that this seems to refer to the period from the warning to the deluge. We know from other scriptures that God gave the people time for repentance "the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing."  1 Peter 3:20 .

Noah is called a "preacher of righteousness,"  2 Peter 2:5 , but another scripture shows that his preparing the ark and his preaching had no effect: "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away."  Matthew 24:38,39 .

When Noah and all the creatures were safely shut up in the refuge God had devised for them, it is said, God 'remembered' them. In due time He abated the flood, and eventually bade Noah go out of the ark, for though Noah saw that the earth was dry, yet he waited like a dependent one for God's word. His first act on the cleansed earth was to build an altar to the Lord, and offer burnt offerings of all the clean animals and fowls. The Lord smelled a sweet savour, and said in His heart that He would not again curse the ground for man's sake, nor would He again smite every living thing as He had done. We are thus taught that the providential government of God is carried on upon the ground of the sweet savour of Christ's sacrifice. God blessed Noah and his sons, and established His covenant with them and with every living thing, and gave the bow in the cloud as a token of it. He gave Noah and his sons authority over all living things, with permission to eat flesh, but not with the blood.

Thus God, after smelling a sweet savour in the burnt offering (type of the sacrifice of Christ, and so the earth not being again cursed for man's sake) began the new earth by establishing His covenant with Noah and his sons, blessing the earth and putting its government into their hands. It was a new beginning in a new earth: the "heavens and the earth which are now " are in  2 Peter 2:5;  2 Peter 3:6,7 , put in contrast to the "world that then was ," the 'old world.' Alas! in this new world failure at once characterised the man to whom government had been entrusted. Noah planted a. vineyard, drank of the wine, became intoxicated, and dishonoured God and himself, and was dishonoured by his son.

Noah pronounced a blessing on Shem and Japheth: Jehovah's name is connected with Shem, while Japheth, head of the Gentiles, is enlarged providentially by God  ; a curse is pronounced on Canaan.  Genesis 6 —   Genesis 9 . Noah is twice spoken of as a righteous man, along with Daniel and Job, though able to secure only their own safety when God's sore judgements were on the land.  Ezekiel 14:14,16,20 . See ARK and FLOOD.

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

The early history of the human race is one of rebellion against God and rejection of the revelation that God had given ( Genesis 6:5-6; cf.  Romans 1:20-25). Conditions became so morally corrupt that God decided to destroy the rebellious people and to make a new beginning. The new ‘father’ for the human race would be the one man who had remained faithful to God, Noah. When all the people around him were ungodly, Noah remained blameless. He was a righteous man who lived in unbroken fellowship with God ( Genesis 6:8-11).

Saved through the flood

Noah preached righteousness to those around him, but they would not listen to him ( 2 Peter 2:5). God’s way of dealing with the corrupt and unrepentant people was to send a great flood to destroy them ( Genesis 6:17; see Flood ).

God told Noah to build a huge ark in which he, his family, and at least one pair of all the animals of the region could find safety and so be preserved through the disaster ( Genesis 6:12-14;  Genesis 6:19;  Genesis 7:1-2; see Ark ). Noah demonstrated his faith in God by doing all that God commanded him ( Genesis 7:5;  Hebrews 11:7). As a result, all in his household were saved ( Genesis 7:7;  Genesis 8:16-19;  1 Peter 3:20), so that they, with the preserved animals, could begin life on earth afresh ( Genesis 8:17).

After Noah offered sacrifices of dedication and thanksgiving, God warned him not to expect a golden age, because people would always be sinful. Yet God in his grace would allow the sinful human race to continue to live on his earth, and would not punish it with such a flood again ( Genesis 8:20-22). God confirmed this promise by making a covenant with Noah and with the human race through him ( Genesis 9:8-13).

Repopulating the region

With this new beginning, God gave Noah similar responsibilities to those he had originally given to Adam – responsibilities to populate the earth and look after it ( Genesis 9:1-3; cf.  Genesis 1:28-30). The following chapters of Genesis record how the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Japheth, Ham and Shem, spread throughout the region, and as a result different ethnic groups, languages and cultures developed ( Genesis 9:18-19;  Genesis 10:5;  Genesis 10:20;  Genesis 10:31).

Of the peoples who developed from Japheth, Ham and Shem, those descended from Ham’s son Canaan were doomed to have their land taken from them by the descendants of Shem. This was partly because Canaan had particularly disgraced Noah when he and Ham found him lying drunk and naked in his tent ( Genesis 9:20-27).

Noah lived to a great age. During the centuries after the flood, he had the satisfaction of seeing the growth of his descendants and the re-establishment of a healthy human society ( Genesis 9:28-29;  Genesis 10:32).

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Genesis 5:25-29

The words of his father Lamech at his birth ( Genesis 5:29 ) have been regarded as in a sense prophetical, designating Noah as a type of Him who is the true "rest and comfort" of men under the burden of life (Matt.11:28).

He lived five hundred years, and then there were born unto him three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth ( Genesis 5:32 ). He was a "just man and perfect in his generation," and "walked with God" (Compare  Ezekiel 14:14,20 ). But now the descendants of Cain and of Seth began to intermarry, and then there sprang up a race distinguished for their ungodliness. Men became more and more corrupt, and God determined to sweep the earth of its wicked population ( Genesis 6:7 ). But with Noah God entered into a covenant, with a promise of deliverance from the threatened deluge (18). He was accordingly commanded to build an ark (6:14-16) for the saving of himself and his house. An interval of one hundred and twenty years elapsed while the ark was being built (6:3), during which Noah bore constant testimony against the unbelief and wickedness of that generation ( 1 Peter 3:18-20;  2 Peter 2:5 ).

When the ark of "gopher-wood" (mentioned only here) was at length completed according to the command of the Lord, the living creatures that were to be preserved entered into it; and then Noah and his wife and sons and daughters-in-law entered it, and the "Lord shut him in" (Gen.7:16). The judgment-threatened now fell on the guilty world, "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" ( 2 Peter 3:6 ). The ark floated on the waters for one hundred and fifty days, and then rested on the mountains of Ararat ( Genesis 8:3,4 ); but not for a considerable time after this was divine permission given him to leave the ark, so that he and his family were a whole year shut up within it ( Genesis 614-14 ).

On leaving the ark Noah's first act was to erect an altar, the first of which there is any mention, and offer the sacrifices of adoring thanks and praise to God, who entered into a covenant with him, the first covenant between God and man, granting him possession of the earth by a new and special charter, which remains in force to the present time ( Genesis 8:21-9:17 ).). As a sign and witness of this covenant, the rainbow was adopted and set apart by God, as a sure pledge that never again would the earth be destroyed by a flood.

But, alas! Noah after this fell into grievous sin ( Genesis 9:21 ); and the conduct of Ham on this sad occasion led to the memorable prediction regarding his three sons and their descendants. Noah "lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years, and he died" (28:29). (See Deluge

Noah, motion, (Heb. No'ah) one of the five daughters of Zelophehad (Num.26:33; 27:1; 36:11;  Joshua 17:3 ).

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

the son of Lamech. Amidst the general corruption of the human race Noah only was found righteous,  Genesis 6:9 . He therefore "found grace in the sight of the Lord," and was directed for his preservation to make an ark, the shape and dimensions of which were prescribed by the Lord. In A.M. 1656, and in the six hundreth year of his age, Noah, by divine appointment, entered his ark with his family, and all the animals collected for the renewal of the world. ( See Deluge . ) After the ark had stranded, and the earth was in a measure dried, Noah offered a burnt- sacrifice to the Lord, of the pure animals that were in the ark; and the Lord was pleased to accept of his offering, and to give him assurance that he would no more destroy the world by water, Genesis 9. He gave Noah power over all the brute creation, and permitted him to kill and eat of them, as of the herbs and fruits of the earth, except the blood, the use of which was prohibited. After the deluge Noah lived three hundred and fifty years; and the whole time of his life having been nine hundred and fifty years, he died, A.M. 2006. According to common opinion, he divided the earth among his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. To Shem he gave Asia, to Ham Africa, and to Japheth Europe. Some will have it, that beside these three sons he had several others. St. Peter calls Noah a preacher of righteousness, because before the deluge he was incessantly preaching and declaring to men, not only by his discourses, but by the building of the ark, in which he was employed a hundred and twenty years, that the cloud of divine vengeance was about to burst upon them. But his faithful ministry produced no effect, since, when the deluge came, it found mankind practising their usual enormities,  Matthew 24:37 . Several learned men have observed that the Heathens confounded Saturn, Deucalion, Ogyges, the god Coelus or Ouranus, Janus, Protheus, Prometheus, &c, with Noah. The fable of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha is manifestly drawn from the history of Noah. The rabbins pretend that God gave Noah and his sons certain general precepts, which contain, according to them, the natural duties which are common to all men indifferently, and the observation of which alone will be sufficient to save them. After the law of Moses was given, the Hebrews would not suffer any stranger to dwell in their country, unless he would conform to the precepts of Noah. In war, they put to death without quarter all who were ignorant of them. These precepts are seven in number: the first was against the worship of idols; the second, against blasphemy, and required to bless the name of God; the third, against murder; the fourth, against incest and all uncleanness; the fifth, against theft and rapine; the sixth required the administration of justice; the seventh was against eating flesh with life. But the antiquity of these precepts is doubted, since no mention of them is made in the Scripture, or in the writings of Josephus, or in Philo; and none of the ancient fathers knew any thing of them.

Holman Bible Dictionary

Old Testament 1. The son of Lamech, a descendant of Adam in the line of Seth, and a survivor of the flood. A good and righteous man, Noah was the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth who were born when he was 500 years old. God warned Noah that He was going to wipe mankind from the face of the earth. Because Noah walked with God and stood blameless among the people of that time, God gave him specific instructions for building the ark by which Noah and his family would survive the coming flood. Noah followed the building instructions down to every detail. Then a week before the flood ( Genesis 7:4 ), Noah led his family and all of the animals into the ark just as God directed. After seven days, the rain began and lasted for 40 days. As he sought to know whether it was safe to leave the ark, he sent out first a raven and then a dove. When the dove returned with an olive leaf, Noah knew the water had receded.

Once out of the ark, Noah built an altar and sacrificed clean animals as burnt offerings on the altar. Then the Lord promised never again to destroy living creatures as He had done in the flood and established a covenant with Noah and his sons and sealed that covenant with a rainbow. See Covenant .

The sinful nature of humanity is one thing that remained preserved on the ark. Once on dry ground, Noah planted a vineyard, drank of its wine, became drunk, and exposed himself in his tent. Ham informed Shem and Japheth about their father's nakedness. The latter two showed respect for their father and covered him. As a result, they received rich blessings for their descendants from Noah. Ham in turn received a curse for his descendant: Canaan. Noah lived another 350 years after the flood and died at the age of 950 years.

New Testament  Hebrews 11:7 affirms Noah's actions of faith in building the ark. The references to Noah in   1 Peter 3:20 and   2 Peter 2:5 speak of Noah and those of his family who were saved in the flood. See Flood .

2. One of Zelophehad's five daughters ( Numbers 26:33 ). Of the tribe of Manasseh, these daughters received an inheritance in the land in their father's name even though he was dead with no male offspring ( Numbers 27:1-11 ). This was most unusal in that time. Judith Wooldridge

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Rest, comfort, the name of celebrated patriarch who was preserved by Jehovah with his family, by means of the ark, through the deluge, and thus became the second founder of the human race. The history of Noah and the deluge is contained in  Genesis 5:1-9:29 . He was the son of Lamech, and grandson of Methuselah lived six hundred years before the deluge, and three hundred and fifty after it, dying two years before Abram was born. His name may have been given to him by his parents in the hope that he would be the promised "seed of the woman" that should "bruise the serpent's head." He was in the line of the patriarchs who feared God, and was himself a just man,  Ezekiel 14:14,20 , and a "preacher of righteousness,"  1 Peter 3:19,20   2 Peter 2:5 . His efforts to reform the degenerate world, continued as some suppose for one hundred and twenty years, produced little effect,  Matthew 24:37; the flood did not "find faith upon the earth." Noah, however, was an example of real faith: he believed the warning of God, was moved by fear, and pursued the necessary course of action,  Hebrews 11:7 .

His first care on coming out from the ark was to worship the Lord, with sacrifices of all the fitting animals. Little more is recorded of him except his falling into intoxication, a sad instance of the shame and misfortune into which wine is apt to lead. His three sons, it is believed, peopled the whole word; the posterity of Japheth chiefly occupying Europe, those of Shem Asia, and those of Ham Africa.

Numerous traces of traditions respecting Noah have been found all over the world. Among the most accurate is that embodied in the legend of the Greeks respecting Deucalion and Pyrrha. We may also mention the medals struck at Apamea in Phrygia, in the time of Septimus Severus, and bearing the name NO, an ark, a man and woman, a raven, and a dove with an olive branch in its mouth. See ARK.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Noah ( Nô'Ah ), Rest.  Genesis 6:8. The son of Lamech and grandson of Methuselah. Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In consequence of the hopeless wickedness of the world at this time, God resolved to destroy it. During this age of almost universal apostasy we are told that Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generations— I.E. , among his contemporaries—and that he, like Enoch, walked with God.  Genesis 6:9. Peter calls him "a preacher of righteousness."  2 Peter 2:5. He had three sons, each of whom married a wife; he built the ark in accordance with divine direction; and was 600 years old when the flood came.  Genesis 6:7. On coming from the ark he built an altar, made an offering, and received a promise that the world should never again be destroyed by a flood.  Genesis 8:20. The closing history in his eventful life of 950 years is given in  Genesis 9:1-29. Noah was to be the father of a new race. From his small family the earth was to be repeopled. And 350 years did he live among his posterity, a monument of God's justice and God's faithfulness. One more incident is related of him.  Genesis 9:20-27. He planted a vine and drank, knowingly or not we cannot say, too freely of the fruit of it. A shameful scene ensued. But the patriarch recovered, and in the spirit of prophecy predicted happiness to his faithful sons, judgment to the ungodly. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." The days of Noah were 950 years when he died.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

NOAH. 1 . Nôach , ‘rest.’ The name is explained in   Genesis 5:29 by a play on nicham , ‘to comfort’; but perhaps the reading supported by the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] should be adopted, ‘This same shall give us rest .’ In one tradition Noah is the hero of the Flood, and answers to Ut-napishtim in the Bab. [Note: Babylonian.] legend. See Deluge. Ut-napishtim was translated to immortality; and this is perhaps referred to in   Genesis 6:9 b (cf.   Genesis 5:24 and see Enoch). In another tradition he is the discoverer of the art of making wine (  Genesis 9:20-27 ). Elsewhere in the Bible, besides the references to the Flood, Noah is mentioned in   1 Chronicles 1:4 ,   Ezekiel 14:14;   Ezekiel 14:20 ,   Luke 3:36 .   Luke 3:2 . Nô‘âh (  Numbers 26:38;   Numbers 27:1;   Numbers 36:11 ,   Joshua 17:8 ). One of the daughters of Zelophehad, of the tribe of Manasseh. They claimed their father’s inheritance because he had died leaving no sons. It was given to them, on condition that they were not married into another tribe.

A. H. M‘Neile.

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

NOAH. —The hero of the Hebrew version of the Semitic tradition of the Flood; mentioned twice in the Gospels. In the genealogy of Jesus ( Luke 3:36) he appears in the ninth generation after Adam, as in the OT narrative. The second mention is in  Luke 17:26-27 ||  Matthew 24:37-38, where Jesus uses the Flood in the days of Noah to illustrate the sudden and unexpected coming of the Son of Man; the indifference of the people in the time of Noah is paralleled by the indifference of men to this approaching event.

The use of the illustration shows the familiarity of the Jews with the story of Noah. In the OT there is but the slightest mention of him outside of the immediate Flood-story in Genesis. The writer of  Isaiah 54:9 describes the present distresses of Israel ‘as the waters of Noah,’ to be followed by peace, according to the unchangeable covenant of peace, as surely as the promise and the covenant followed the Flood. Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 14:14;  Ezekiel 14:20) knows of three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, efficient mediators to deliver the people by their righteousness; but in the present case, even the three shall be able to deliver only themselves (see also  Hebrews 11:7).

O. H. Gates.

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

His name signifies rest or repose, from Nuach. Some derive it from Nacham, consolation. The Holy Ghost hath given the character of this patriarch when calling him a preacher of righteousness. ( 2 Peter 2:5;  Genesis 6:8-22; and  Genesis 7:1-24;  Genesis 8:1-22; and  Genesis 9:1-29 throughout. We have the Holy Ghost's own comments upon Noah's history and character. ( Hebrews 11:7) To those Scriptures I refer.

Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types

 Genesis 6:9 (c) He may be taken as the type of a good man, upright, moral, clean, honest and dependable. However, he learned that he would be under the judgment of GOD if he did not find a way of salvation. He therefore entered and stayed in the ark which he built, and was saved from the great flood of GOD's wrath. Every good man must be saved by the Saviour. Everyone outside of Christ will be lost. (See also  Hebrews 11:7).

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) A patriarch of Biblical history, in the time of the Deluge.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

No´ah, the second father of the human race, was the son of the second Lamech, the grandson of Methuselah, and the tenth in descent from Adam.

The father of Noah must not be confounded with the Lamech who was the fourth in descent from Cain. The two Lamechs have one remarkable circumstance in common; to each of them a fragment of inartificial poetry is attached as his own composition. That of the Cainitic Lamech is in . That of the Sethite now comes before us in :—'Lamech lived 182 years, and then begat a son, and he called his name Noah, saying

This shall comfort us

From our labor,

And from the sorrowful toils of our hands;

From the ground,

Which Jehovah hath cursed.'

The allusion is undoubtedly to the penal consequences of the fall in earthly toils and sufferings, and to the hope of a Deliverer excited by the promise made to Eve. That this expectation was grounded upon a divine communication we infer from the importance attached to it, and the confidence of its expression.

That the conduct of Noah corresponded to the faith and hope of his father we have no reason to doubt. The brevity of the history satisfies not human curiosity. He was born six hundred years before the Deluge. We may reasonably suppose that through that period he maintained the character given of him—'Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God' . These words declare his piety, sincerity, and integrity, that he maintained habitual communion with the Father of Mercies, by the exercises of devotion, and that he was an inspired instrument of conveying the will of God to mankind. The wickedness of the human race had long called upon the wisdom and justice of God for some signal display of his displeasure, as a measure of righteous government and an example to future ages. For a long time, probably many centuries, the better part of men, the descendants of Seth, had kept themselves from society with the families of the Cainite race. The former class had become designated as 'the sons of God,' faithful and obedient: the latter were called by a term evidently designed to form an appellation of the contrary import, 'daughters of men,' of impious and licentious men. These women possessed beauty and blandishments, by which they won the affections of unwary men, and intermarriages upon a great scale took place. As is usual in such alliances the worse part gained the ascendancy. The offspring became more depraved than the parents, and a universal corruption of minds and morals took place. Many of them became 'giants, the mighty men of old, men of renown,' apostates (as the word implies) heroes, warriors, plunderers, 'filling the earth with violence.' God mercifully afforded a respite of one hundred and twenty years (;; ), during which Noah sought to work salutary impressions upon their minds, and to bring them to repentance. Thus he was 'a preacher of righteousness,' exercising faith in the testimony of God, moved with holy reverence, obeying the divine commands, and, by the contrast of his conduct, condemning the world : and probably he had during a long previous period labored in that benevolent and pious work.

At last the threatening was fulfilled. All human kind perished in the waters, except this eminently favored and righteous man, with his three sons (born about a hundred years before) and the four wives [DELUGE].

At the appointed time this terrible state of the earth ceased, and a new surface was disclosed for the occupation and industry of the delivered family. In some places that surface would be washed bare to the naked rock, in others sand would be deposited, which would be long uncultivable; but by far the larger portion would be covered with rich soil. With agriculture and its allied arts the antediluvians must have been well acquainted [ADAM]. The four men, in the vigor of their mental faculties and bodily strength, according to the then existing scale of human life, would be at no loss for the profitable application of their powers. Immediately after the desolating judgment the merciful Jehovah gave intimations of his acceptance of the sacrifice and thanksgivings of Noah and his family, and of his gracious purposes revealed in the form of a solemn covenant for the continual benefit of them and their posterity. The beautiful phenomenon of the rainbow was put to a new and significant use. As infallibly certain as is the production of a rainbow under certain conditions of the atmosphere, so certain and sure of fulfillment are the promises of Jehovah.

As the flood affected equally the common ancestry of mankind, all nations that have not sunk into the lowest barbarism would be likely to preserve the memory of the chief person connected with it; and it would be a natural fallacy that every people should attach to itself a principal interest in that catastrophe, and regard that chief person as the founder of their own nation and belonging to their own locality. Hence we can well account for the traditions of so many peoples upon this capital fact of ancient history, and the chief person in it—the Xisuthrus of the Chaldeans, with whom is associated a remarkable number of precise circumstances, corresponding to the Mosaic narrative; the Phrygian Noë of the celebrated Apamean medal, which, besides Noah and his wife with an ark, presents a raven, and a dove with an olive-branch in its mouth; the Manes of the Lydians: the Deucalion of the Syrians and the Greeks, of whose deluge the account given by Lucian is a copy almost exactly circumstantial of that in the book of Genesis; the many coincidences in the Greek mythology in respect of Saturn, Janus, and Bacchus; the traditions of the aboriginal Americans, as stated by Clavigero, in his History of Mexico; and many others.

Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia

1. His Genealogy . His blood was pure back to Seth ( Genesis 5:3-32 ), and he was a son of God ( Genesis 6:9 ).
2. His Sons . Noah had three sons--Shem, Ham, and Japheth ( Genesis 5:32 ). The order of their births is somewhat difficult to determine. Ham was the youngest ( Genesis 9:22-24 ) and the proof goes to show that Shem was the first born ( Genesis 5:32 ). What is the obvious meaning of this statement? Simply that Noah was five hundred years old At the birth of Shem and that the others were born afterwards. Is there Anything in the subsequent history of Noah and his sons that is against This interpretation? Let us see. The phrase "Japheth the elder" ( Genesis 10:21 ) does not express seniority according to the testimony of the best scholars. Noah was six hundred years old at the flood ( Genesis 7:6 ), and Shem was one hundred at this time (600 - 500 = 100). Noah and his family entered the ark on the tenth day ( Genesis 7:1-10 ) of the second month of the six hundredth year of Noah's life ( Genesis 7:11 ), and came out on the twenty-seventh day of the second month of the six hundred and first year of his life ( Genesis 8:12-14 ). They were in the ark one year and seventeen days. Shem was at least one Hundred one years and seventeen days old when he came out of the ark ( Genesis 5:32;  Genesis 7:7-11;  Genesis 8:12-19 ). Arphaxad was born two years after the flood, that is, after the flood began ( Genesis 11:10,11 ). Shem was, therefore, one hundred two years old at the birth of Arphaxad.
3. God s Revelation to Him'. God revealed to Noah His purpose to Destroy the human race. The limit already placed upon the existence of The wicked people was one hundred twenty years. ( Genesis 6:3,11-13 ).
4. The Ark . Noah was commanded to make an ark of gopher wood. The Dimensions, allowing eighteen inches to the cubit, were four hundred Fifty long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high ( Genesis 6:15 ). During the building of the Ark Noah preached righteousness to his contemporaries ( 2 Peter 2:5 ).
5. Inmates of the Ark . The ark contained eight persons--Noah, his Wife, three sons and their wives, and two of every kind of unclean Animals, and seven pair of animals that were clean, and seven pair of All kinds of fowls ( Genesis 6:17-22;  Genesis 7:1-16 ).
6. The Flood . The water fell in ceaseless torrents for forty days And forty nights until the highest mountains were covered fully Twenty-two and a half feet ( Genesis 7:12,20 ), and ended in the destruction of everything upon the dry land ( Genesis 7:21-24 ).
7. Noah s Salvation'. Noah's salvation is ascribed to
   1. faith,
   2. fear,
   3. the ark,
   4. obedience,
   5. water ( Genesis 6:22;  Genesis 7:5;  Hebrews 11:7;  1 Peter 3:19-21 ).
8. God s Covenant with Noah'. After the flood God established a Covenant with Noah that He would never again destroy all living flesh By water ( Genesis 8:18-22;  Genesis 9:1-17 ).

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Bibliography Information McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Noah'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/n/noah.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The patriarch of Scripture antiquity who, by the command of God, constructed an ark for the preservation of the human race and the dry-land animals during the prevalence of the deluge that would otherwise have swept all these forms of life away.