Parashat Noah

A flood destroys all living creatures, aside from Noah, his family, and the animals in their ark.

By Nancy Reuben Greenfield

The following article is reprinted with permission from Jewish Family & Life!

 

Noah, a righteous man, was morally pure in his times, and walked with God. God said to Noah, “Because the earth is filled with wrongdoing I am about to destroy it. Make yourself an ark of wood with enclosures for animals. I shall bring a flood through the water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which there is the spirit of life. But with you I will maintain My covenant.” 

 

And God said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your household, for I have seen you righteous before Me in this age. Of every clean animal, you shall take seven pairs, and of animals that are not clean you shall take two of each. Each pair, male and female, is to be taken according to their species. In seven days, I will blot out everything in existence that I have made.”

 

Noah and his household entered the ark. Then all living creatures, two by two, male and female, came to Noah in the ark. After seven days, the flood waters were upon the earth. All the fountains of the great deep were torn apart and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

 

And the rain came upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, covering the highest mountains and blotting out all living things. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark were left. So the waters swelled over the earth for 150 days.

 

God remembered Noah and the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the waters subsided over many months. Forty days after the tops of the mountains became visible Noah opened a window and sent out a raven. It flew out but kept returning for all the earth was water. Then Noah sent out his dove who also could not find a place to land. After seven more days, Noah sent again the dove and it returned with an olive leave as food in her mouth. Seven days later, when Noah sent out the dove, she did not return. At last, the earth had dried.

 

God said to Noah, “Go forth from the ark with your household and let all the animals and living things go out with you so that they may move freely upon the earth and be fruitful and multiply.” And they did.

 

Then, Noah built an altar to God and took of every clean animal and clean bird and made an offering upon the altar. And God took note of this expression of compliance, and said to God’s Almighty Self, “Never again will I curse the ground when the imagination of man is evil from his youth, nor will I ever again destroy every living thing as I have done. The days of the earth shall be forever; seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”

 

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Every moving thing that lives as well as the green herbs shall be food for you. However, you shall not eat flesh whose blood is still in its soul. Also, I will demand the soul of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God, God made man.”

 

God said to Noah and his sons, “As for Me, I will establish My covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature on the earth. Never again shall all flesh be destroyed by flood waters.”

 

Then Noah planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and he uncovered himself within his tent. One son, Ham, who is the father to Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. Shem and Japeth took the garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and, walking backward so they could not see, covered their father’s nakedness.

 

When Noah awoke from his wine, he learned what his youngest son had done to him. Noah said, “Cursed be Canaan, son of Ham, he shall be a servant to his brothers. Blessed be God, the God of Shem. God will open the emotions of men to Japeth but God will dwell in the tents of Shem.”

 

Noah dies and a listing of the descendants of the sons of Noah is made.

 

Now, the whole earth was of one language and of uniform words. And it came to pass as they migrated from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And one said to another, “Come, let us make bricks and build ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach to the heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered all over the earth.”

 

God came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building. God said, “Lo! They are now one people and they have all one language and this is the first thing they undertake.”

 

So God made their language wither away so that the one no longer understood the language of the other. Then God scattered them across the earth and they stopped building the city. Therefore, God named the city Babel, for there God had confused the language of all the earth and from there God scattered them over the face of all the earth.

 

The descendants of Shem are then listed, including Terah, father of Abram. Abram is married to Sarai who has never given birth to a child.

 

Nancy Reuben Greenfield is a free-lance writer who lives in Carrollton, Texas with her husband and two young children.  She writes frequently on Jewish themes and is finishing a book, co-authored with her father, called The Golden Medina.