GENESIS 7
The Flood Comes
About This Chapter
The time for God’s judgment has arrived. In the previous chapter, God warned Noah that He would destroy the earth because of humanity’s widespread wickedness and violence. Now, the flood is about to begin.
God instructs Noah to enter the ark with his family and the animals He has commanded him to preserve. Noah obeys, and when the appointed time arrives, the waters begin to rise. What follows is a devastating judgment that transforms the world Noah has known.
As you read, notice the repeated emphasis on Noah’s obedience and God’s protection of those inside the ark. The same waters that bring destruction to the world outside carry the ark and preserve the lives within it.
This chapter also provides specific details about the timing and duration of the flood. These details help establish the sequence of events, which continues into the next chapter.
1Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family. I have seen that you do what is right in my sight, among all the people of this generation. 2Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of animal that is not clean, a male and its mate. 3Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their kinds alive all over the earth. 4Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will wipe off the face of the earth every living thing I have made."
5And Noah did everything the LORD commanded him.
6Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds, and of all creatures that crawl on the ground 9came to Noah and went into the ark, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10After seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
11When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that very day all the springs of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. 12Rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13On that same day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, went into the ark. 14With them went every kind of wild animal, every kind of farm animal, every kind of creature that crawls on the ground, and every kind of bird, everything with wings. 15Pairs of every creature that has the breath of life came to Noah and went into the ark. 16The animals that went in were male and female of every living thing, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
17For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth. As the water rose, it lifted the ark high above the ground. 18The water kept rising and grew very deep on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface. 19The water rose higher and higher until all the high mountains under the whole sky were covered. 20The water kept rising until it stood more than 15 cubits over the tops of the mountains. 21Every living thing that moved on land died: birds, farm animals, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all people. 22Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out: people and animals, creatures that crawl on the ground, and birds in the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24The waters continued to cover the earth for 150 days.