Genesis 6:17, commentary and pictures

God Himself speaks to Noah, declaring that He personally will bring a flood of waters upon the whole earth to destroy all flesh that has the breath of life, so that everything on the earth will die. He sends this judgment because the earth is corrupt before Him and filled with violence, men having turned from His will until wickedness is great and every imagination of the heart is only evil continually. Yet He first gives 120 years of probation, commanding Noah to build the ark as a refuge and preaching through him an offer of pardon and safety to all who will repent and enter. When the warning is mocked as impossible, the flood comes to the letter, saving only the eight believing souls in the ark while sweeping away the rebellious world, an act of retributive justice that vindicates His law and washes the earth clean yet remembers mercy toward the righteous. As it was then so it will be at the coming of the Son of man, with the same corruption, the same decided warning, and the same sudden destruction upon a scoffing, pleasure-loving world.

Wording and Scope

The declaration is God Himself speaking to Noah, the doubled I, even I stressing that He personally would bring the judgment. He told Noah He would send floodwaters over the earth to put an end to every breathing creature on land, after looking upon an earth corrupt before Him and filled with violence. The sentence came because men had turned from Him, refused His holy will, followed unholy imagination and perverted ideas, corrupted their way, and reached a state where every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually.

The announced judgment is a flood of waters upon the earth, a worldwide deluge that would cover the earth and deluge the world. Noah faithfully warned the people that this flood was coming and that its waters with rain would cover the earth, though no signs of such rain had ever existed. He declared that coming destruction as reality for one hundred and twenty years, calling men to repent, believe, and find refuge in the ark. So far as human wisdom could judge the flood seemed impossible, yet unbelief did not prevent it and the waters covered the earth.

Its object is to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, meaning every breathing land creature, people and animals, will die. God would send the flood to destroy the sinful race, including people and animals, rather than allow the long-lived people to reach the end of their natural lives, which could have lasted hundreds of years. The flood waters declared the wicked incurable and unwilling to submit to divine authority, and their destruction was judgment on a world filled with corruption and violence. In Noah's day God thus destroyed the earth's living creatures with a flood of water, while Noah and his family found refuge in the ark.

Its extent is total: everything that is in the earth shall die, leaving the earth desolate and swept of animals and abundant vegetation. God decided to bring a flood of waters to destroy all flesh with the breath of life from under heaven so that everything in the earth outside the ark would die. Because people had perverted God's gifts, He would destroy the race and sweep away the animals and abundant vegetation, leaving the earth desolate, with lofty trees destroyed and the beautiful earth broken up. His declared purpose to punish the inhabitants of the world by a flood was fulfilled to the letter, the rain came and the wicked inhabitants perished in the waters of the flood.

The account is history, not parable: Noah was a real person and the flood was a historical event given as inspired Scripture. Genesis 6 is affirmed as inspired Scripture, and the generation before the flood was marked by traits that also characterize the age before Christ appears in the clouds of heaven.

Cause of Judgment

God looked upon the earth and saw it corrupt before Him and filled with violence through men, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. That corruption was the reason He declared He would bring a flood of waters to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, so that everything in the earth should die. Men had been given probation and held their future in their own hands, and had they repented and turned to obey His commands He would have averted the judgment, but they would not believe or turn from wickedness and the word of destruction was fulfilled to the letter.

Men had turned from Jehovah, refused to do His holy will, and followed unholy imagination and perverted ideas until the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, which grieved God at His heart that He had made man. This inward evil ripened into outward violence that filled the earth, marking a race that had forsaken God and corrupted its way.

The root of that corruption was continual transgression of God's law, the transcript of His character given for good to keep men from moral corruption. After Adam's transgression men grew bolder in disobedience, broke the law made known to the Noachian world, followed Satan's principles in rebellion, and lost God's favor. Indulgence of appetite set their passions on fire until they became violent, basely corrupt, hardened, and evil in thought and act. By disgraceful transgression and decided opposition to His expressed will, with a plain Thus saith the Lord to guide them, they despised all warnings and went counter to Him in sin.

They perverted God-given abilities and gifts, exalting human invention and worshiping the work of their own hands. Their arts and skill were perfected to a degree exceeding later times, with abundant gold and silver, yet they used these blessings without gratitude for self-gratification, dissipation and amusement, and constant rivalry to exceed one another. Supposing they were improving God's plans, they forgot the Lord, left Him out of their plans and councils, refused to honor their Creator, and even devised war with heaven to gain Eden and regain paradise by opposition. The long-lived race thus turned advancement into self-exaltation and enmity against God.

By presuming on mercy while having plain warning to guide them, they exceeded the bounds of long-suffering and the limits of grace. Their wisdom became wisdom to do evil which God never commanded, and their wisdom and influence would have worked destruction to those yet to be born who came in contact with them, so the Lord cut them off. Having resisted conscience, the striving of the Spirit, and prophetic warnings, their wrongdoing became complete, incurable, and unwilling to submit to divine authority. God had revealed beforehand that He would not always bear with man in his rebellion, and when rebellion would go no further without spoiling one another in continual disobedience and defiance, He would bear with it no longer and interpose in wrath.

Warning and Probation

God made known His purpose to destroy the race by flood long beforehand, first showing it to Enoch who told his children, and then, one hundred and twenty years before the event, declaring it to Noah by a holy angel. With Enoch He communed through angels with divine instruction while Enoch lived separate from the wicked in solitude, reflection, prayer, and obedience to know and do His will. Through faithful messengers He warned Adam's descendants that in one hundred and twenty years He would destroy the earth and its inhabitants if they did not repent, leaving their future in their own hands, for had they repented and turned and obeyed He would have averted the judgment.

Before announcing the flood He commanded Noah to make an ark of gopher wood with rooms and pitch it within and without with pitch, an immense boat on dry land to prepare for the flood of waters to destroy all flesh. Every particular of its building had to be exactly according to divine instruction, with no human plans and devisings allowed, for God Himself communicated with Noah, gave him wisdom, and arranged every detail. The vessel so built was huge and wooden, with tall curved sides, closely spaced ribs, long bands, upright supports and scaffolding, gathered of logs and beams on open ground, its scale dwarfing the men laboring at its base and in the distance.

For one hundred and twenty years of probation Noah as a preacher of righteousness warned of the coming flood while building, proclaiming the message amid opposition and contempt. He was joined at times by Methuselah and his sons and family and by many others who heard his preaching and helped build in the effort to keep alive the knowledge of the true God and stay moral evil, some awakened to work as carpenters. Every blow struck on the ark was a warning, and the faithful work preached sermons that convicted hearts, offering pardon, safety, shelter and refuge until the indignation should pass to all who would believe the message, repent, reform, and enter.

Many of those helpers made only half reforms, did not believe the startling message, kept sinning, did not cleanse themselves from all wrong principles, did not overcome temptation to do and say things contrary to the mind and will of God, chose corrupt company, and apostatized and died in the general ruin despite their work. Participation in preparing for the coming disaster did not itself mean acceptance of the warning or obedience, and mere work on the ark without faith did not save. Only Noah and his family were at last counted righteous, only eight souls living to enter the ark.

The warning was treated as impossible and empty intimidation, though Noah declared the coming destruction as reality and urged repentance, belief, and refuge, and though his words carried power as the voice of God through His servant, strong by connection with infinite power. Worldly leaders, philosophers, and men of science, claiming to know more than God's servant, reasoned about science and nature's laws, dwelt on the fact that rain had never been seen, and judged the flood impossible by human wisdom. Nearly all thought themselves right and Noah wrong, closed their ears to truth, explained it away by false science, branded him a fanatic and crazed alarmist, laughed and mocked his words as parables, scorned and caricatured and criticized him and God's law, and held a carnival over his earnest words, yet their unbelief could not prevent the fulfillment and they perished drinking the waters that covered the earth.

In mercy God bore long with transgressors, His Spirit striving and pleading through Noah to bring men back to purity and loyalty until the appointed time, making salvation depend on how they treated the message. When Noah and his family entered the ark and God shut its door, mercy ceased pleading for those who had rejected the warning. Then He withdrew His Spirit from the sinful race, the Spirit ceased to strive and to impress truth on hearts, and the light sent became darkness to those who disregarded it, so that all hearing was vain.

Flood and Aftermath

After Noah and his family were shut in the ark, they remained enclosed seven days before any rain fell, a trial of faith amid mockery and derision, for up to that time there had been no rain upon the earth and only a mist had arisen to water it. When the appointed time came God sent rain from heaven and broke up the foundations of the great deep, uniting the waters from beneath with the waters from above. The rain began slowly at first, then increased until the heavens were opened and poured down in torrents. The waters rose until they covered the highest trees and the tops of the highest mountains, and those outside who would have given all for a place within climbed to the mountain tops only to be swept into the boiling deep. Every unbeliever outside the ark was swept away and perished in sin, so that not a living being or dumb animal outside remained alive.

Out of that vast population only eight souls, Noah and his family, who believed and obeyed and accepted the warning, found shelter in the ark and were saved, while the rebellious race was swept away and death was their portion. They were preserved through the covenant and the ark until the indignation was overpast, and the fulfillment of the warning exemplified the truth of the word that all who would not keep the commandments of heaven should drink the waters of the flood. God's purpose to destroy the earth by the flood did not include the Garden of Eden. The pure and lovely garden He had planted and especially blessed had remained on earth from the driving out of Adam and Eve until that time, but in wonderful providence He withdrew it to preserve a specimen of His perfect work of creation free from the curse He had put upon the earth, and He will return it to the earth again more gloriously adorned than before it was removed.

The waters of the flood rose to a known height that men afterward thought they could exceed by building, reaching up to the region of the clouds where the cause of the flood could be investigated. Afterward many denied God and explained the flood as the operation of natural causes. Others admitted that a Supreme Being had destroyed the former world yet rebelled against Him with hearts like Cain, disbelieving His covenant not to bring another flood upon the earth and building the tower of Babel to secure their own safety in case of another deluge, to exalt pride and to turn future generations away from God into idolatry. Some of Noah's own descendants resented God for destroying the people and for cursing the earth through the flood.

The people had held their future in their own hands, for if during the probation they had repented and turned to the Lord and obeyed His commands He would have averted His judgment. They would not believe the message, laughed at Noah, closed their ears to words of truth, explained away the warning by false science, and branded his words as fanatical parables, nearly all thinking themselves right and Noah wrong. But their unbelief did not stop the rain or prevent the waters from submerging the scoffing world, and they perished drinking the waters that covered the earth. Thus the word of destruction was fulfilled to the letter, repeating the loss that followed Adam and Eve's transgression in Eden.

Justice Mercy and Truth

The flood was God's own act of retributive justice in wrath upon disobedience, sent after prolonged mercy had failed to soften rebellion. Indulgence of appetite had set passion on fire until men became violent, basely corrupt, hardened, and evil in thought and act, persistently breaking the law made known to them and filling the earth with violence until patience reached its limit. By presuming on mercy while having a plain "thus saith the Lord" to guide them, going decidedly counter to His will and despising all warnings in sin and disgraceful transgression, they exceeded the bounds of long-suffering and the limits of grace. The destruction vindicated the honor of the law and repressed the increase of unrighteousness by blotting out a race indifferent to it, revealing to the whole human family that transgression can go so far that God must limit human life and interpose in wrath to keep men in continual disobedience and defiance from spoiling one another. By that flood He washed the earth of its moral pollution, cleansing and purifying the polluted world and destroying every living creature with the earth because wickedness had become unbearable after men disobeyed, lost His favor, showed no gratitude for blessings of gold and silver, and used them for self-gratification, dissipation, amusement, and self-enrichment while refusing to honor the Creator and letting appetite, passion, and violence bear sway.

For one hundred and twenty years of probation Noah as a faithful preacher of righteousness sounded the warning and built the ark as a refuge where believers might be saved in the day of destruction, joined at times by Methuselah and many others, so that by works as well as words every blow struck on the ark was a warning message pleading with the people to turn from disobedience. Only his family accepted, and when believers were shut in God sent steady rain after a one-week test until every unbeliever outside perished in sin and not a living being or dumb animal outside remained alive. The same pattern is repeating today, with plain warnings now sent and with earthquakes showing how quickly the ungodly will perish when judgments already falling in flood and flame upon evildoers culminate upon all who refuse to repent. Even in deciding to destroy all flesh, God remembered mercy in the midst of wrath, acknowledging the few righteous so that Noah and his family were saved and the righteous and faithful were not left to perish with the wicked. The waters declared the wicked incurable and unwilling to submit to divine authority, and their destruction was also an act of mercy and love to the world by cutting off evil that would not be healed.

Fulfillment of the warning showed God's word true and exemplified its truth, for those who rejected it and would not obey heaven's commandments were swept away and died while Noah and his family found shelter in the ark. Salvation was made to depend on how men treated the message from heaven, all were tested by the truth Noah preached, and those who believed and turned from unrighteousness were saved, but only eight persons, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark. God had caused Noah to know His purpose and instructed him to warn the people while building the immense boat on dry land as shelter for the obedient until the indignation was overpast, and Noah with those who kept the faith preached for one hundred and twenty years all the more earnestly in proportion to the ridicule and scorn heaped on them and on the law. By the standard of the law the obedient were distinguished from the disobedient as probation was about to close, and many of the believing ones kept the faith and died triumphant. The rebellious race were swept away and death was their portion, fulfilling the prophetic warning that all who would not keep the commandments of heaven should drink the waters of the flood, proving men cannot reject God's warnings with impunity after He withdrew His Spirit from the sinful race.

What was done by water points to what will be done by fire, for in Noah's day God destroyed the earth's living creatures with a flood of water in contrast to a future cleansing of the earth from moral corruption by an unquenchable sea of fire. That final destruction of all things by fire will come as it was in the days of Noah, when after one hundred and twenty years of preaching amid opposition the fear and love of God grow weak in the time when the hour of His judgment is come and calamities fall on earth and sea. The ark and every particular of its building had to be exactly according to divine instruction with no human plans and devisings allowed, and though some were awakened to work as carpenters, those helpers made only half reforms, kept sinning until they apostatized, and many died, leaving only Noah and his family counted righteous.

Pattern for Last Days

As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the Son of man, for the corrupt condition judged by the announced flood of waters to destroy all breathing flesh from under heaven represents the condition of the world today. The same forms of wickedness are still current with no new evils, the generation before the flood bearing traits that also characterize the age before Christ appears in the clouds of heaven, and there is no temporal millennium of a thousand years in which all are to prepare for eternity. Noah was a real person and the flood a historical event, and its unheeded warning of destruction that took all away stands as the pattern for the world before Christ's coming. God looks upon the world now as He looked upon it in Noah's time, when the earth was corrupt before Him and filled with violence.

He sends His messages to people today as He sent them in the days of Noah, giving a decided message of warning for the world now as He gave Noah a decided message for the antediluvians. Noah's warning before the flood illustrates the warning that precedes final destruction, and Noah's preaching which warned, tested, and proved the people before that destruction is the work the truth of God for the last days performs in warning, testing, and proving the world. This includes the first angel's message, which many scorn and reject, turning to farm and merchandise, until the Spirit ceases to impress truth on their hearts. The message God sends must still be proclaimed even when it is rejected, without changing the duty to warn people and give them opportunity to be saved.

The same kind of unbelief that rejected Noah will exist before Christ's return, for only eight accepted the warning, entered the ark, and were saved. Scoffers in the last days deny the promise of Christ's coming and say all things continue as from the beginning, in willing ignorance like those whose rejected light became darkness. A pleasure-loving, gain-seeking, dishonest world and a worldly, sleeping church reject warning and cry peace and safety until sudden destruction breaks upon them unprepared. Calamities, earthquakes, floods, and disasters by land and by sea will increase as judgment, with earthquakes showing how quickly the ungodly will perish when judgments fall and with judgments already falling in flood and flame upon evildoers, while fear and love of God weaken. During the one hundred and twenty years of probation every blow struck on the ark was a warning message, yet all who refuse to repent will perish.

As Noah prepared the ark for the coming flood, people are to prepare for Christ's return when the signs show that it is approaching. Noah publicly foretold the destruction God would bring upon the earth by the flood, and those who heard him dismissed him as a crazed alarmist, in the same way those who heard Christ foretell the destruction of Jerusalem dismissed that warning.

Call to Faithfulness

Noah believed the advance warning that a storm of judgment would destroy the wicked inhabitants of the old world, and by faith prepared a refuge in the ark for himself and his family on dry land, though the immense boat standing on dry ground was evidence of his faith and a heavy cross exposing him to sport and derision from the godless. He obeyed implicitly according to all that was commanded, not picking and choosing among precepts what was agreeable and convenient and rejecting what required self-denial, for genuine faith as soon as it knows the will of God does it without consulting its own will and choice even if obedience costs sacrifice and loss of friends, property, name and life itself. Obeying the special direction to build exposed him to loss, inconvenience and ridicule when he could have reasoned to take an easier course, and his refusal is entering the strait gate and traveling the narrow path cast up for the ransomed, pressing toward heaven against Satan, evil angels, transgressors of the law, earthly authorities, tribulations, hard speeches, ridicule, persecutions and demands to conform to laws and customs that would make him disloyal, holding every requirement rather than being swept down the strong downward current with the rebellious at last. He was a light to his crooked generation for one hundred and twenty years, warning of the coming flood while every blow on the ark preached, and with his household he trusted the word and stood against the corrupt people of his time amid overwhelming opposition, though few heeded and men laughed him to scorn. When bidden to enter he and his family went in and were shut in one week before rain fell, mocked and derided in a trial of faith since up to that time there had been no rain but only a mist to water the earth, while the beasts and fowls came two by two in obedience and found refuge and man remained disobedient and unbelieving despite the sight. Then rain began slowly, increased, and the heavens poured in torrents until the waters reached the tops of the highest trees and swept away every one outside into the boiling deep, though they climbed to mountain tops and would have given all for a place within, while the ark floated upon the troubled waters.

Had men cooperated with God, obeyed His law and worked out His expressed will, they would have found safety and salvation, retained the divine likeness with heaven's help, preserved longevity, and there would have been no Cain-worshipers. Nearly all the inhabitants thought themselves right and Noah wrong and fanatical, claimed to know more than the faithful servant, closed their ears to words of truth so that darkness came upon them, explained away truth by false science, and branded his words as parables with laughter and mocking. Their unbelief did not prevent the flood or stop the waters that covered the earth, and they perished drinking and drowning in those waters, showing that the majority's choice does not make rejection safe or right since only a few were saved. Unbelief therefore must not be followed, and walking contrary to the Word which stirs rebellion and brings displeasure must give place to walking on the side of the loyal and true in order to be found there when Christ comes.

As a decided message of warning was given through Noah that coming judgment was certain, so a decided message of warning has been given for the world now in the same way. That call means loyalty to the commands, upholding the importance of the Sabbath and not belittling it in order to link up with unbelievers, holding firmly the principles of faith without departing from them to make conformity to the world appear harmless. It means keeping separate from the world rather than trusting human wisdom and human judgment or heeding counsel in the work that works against what has been wrought to keep the people separate. The people destroyed had exalted human invention and worshiped the work of their own hands, supposing with perfected gifts, abundant gold and silver, and arts and skill greater than exist today that they were improving the plans and constantly seeking to exceed one another, forgetting the Lord until modern boasting about higher education that supersedes the knowledge of God apes that world and eats of the forbidden tree of knowledge.

God communicated with Noah and gave him wisdom, arranging every detail of the ark Himself, and Noah's faithful building warned the world with sermons that convicted and converted hearts. The same God today communicates with His people, watches the building of His institutions, and by word, Spirit and providence directs the work and gives wisdom to do His will to workers who ask counsel of Him, pray, sing, depend entirely on God, work in the spirit and love of God, and labor together with God looking unto Jesus. The ark upon the billowy deep outriding the storms of the flood waters that threatened it with destruction illustrates that the word outrides the storms of error, heresy, superstition and human efforts to obscure its plain simple meaning and make it contradict its own testimony. Through the ages it has been preserved uncorrupted with the impress of God rather than the stamp of man.