After the Flood

A few time frame to note about the Great Flood. Incidentally, other cultures also have the legend of the Great Flood in them. In some Bible commentary, the Great Flood is believed to occur around 2319BC. From the Scripture, the Flood consisted of non-stop rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Then it took another 150 days for most of the water to recede. And it was a little time more before it was dry enough for Noah to come out.

The Flood was so great that it covered the Earth and took almost more than half a year to dry. Also Noah had to sent some birds out to see if there was dry land, imagine the view from the Ark is essentially looking out into the ocean, and Noah may not know there was dry land over the horizon. If we ask how could 40 days of rain produced so much water, then in v2, the answer is that the Flood is caused by rain (windows from heaven) as well as water coming out from underground (fountains of the deep).

One of the very first thing Noah did was to worship God. Noah also sacrificed some of the animals he brought into the Ark. Perhaps this explains God asked him to take 7 pairs of some animals while only one pair of others.

God was so moved by His actions on the magnitude of the Flood that he promised that there will never be such an event again. So in the tribulation, armageddon and other end times events, God will not try to destroy people, but rather His Will is to save as many people as possible before that Great Day (see 2 Peter 3 below).

Genesis 8

Noah’s Deliverance

 ¹ Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. ² The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.³ And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. ⁴ Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
⁶ So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. ⁷ Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. ⁸ He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. ⁹ But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. ¹⁰ And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. ¹¹ Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. ¹² So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore. 
¹³ And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried. 
¹⁵ Then God spoke to Noah, saying, ¹⁶ “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” ¹⁸ So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. ¹⁹ Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

God’s Covenant with Creation

   
²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹ And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. ²² “While the earth remains,
      Seedtime and harvest,
      Cold and heat,
      Winter and summer,
      And day and night
      Shall not cease.”

2 Peter 3

⁵ For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, ⁶ by which the worldthat then existed perished, being flooded with water. ⁷ But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
⁸ But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us,^[b] not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.