Genesis 6:19, commentary and pictures

God directed Noah to bring into the ark two of every living kind, male and female, to keep them alive with him and his family through the Flood. God Himself gathered the creatures and brought them to Noah, and they came peacefully two by two in great numbers and entered in orderly fashion into prepared places. Every species God had created was thus preserved alive, while the confused kinds said to have come from amalgamation were destroyed in the Flood. The ark was provided in pity and love as refuge from the coming storm of wrath for all who would repent and obey, during a probation of one hundred and twenty years in which Noah warned the world while building. Noah obeyed implicitly at great sacrifice without picking among God's commands, and his faithful warning and preparation stand as the example for readiness before Christ's second appearing.

Ark Directions and Setting

Genesis 6:19 belongs to the instructions for preparing the ark before the Flood, giving the detailed divine directions for its construction that had to be followed rather than human plans. Noah's work in building the ark as God directed, to save himself and his family, showed that he believed the warning he preached, and his relatives and others helped him in the building. The direction came one hundred and twenty years before the Flood by a holy angel declaring God's purpose to bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy the wicked and directing Noah to build the ark. It came amid prevailing corruption while Methuselah, Noah and others labored to keep alive the knowledge of the true God and to stay moral evil.

While building the ark Noah was to preach warning that those who believed the message and prepared by repentance and reformation would find pardon and be saved, a warning Enoch had already repeated to his children and which Methuselah and his sons lived to hear and helped by assisting in building the ark. The ark was a huge wooden vessel with tall curved sides, closely spaced ribs and long bands along the hull, built on open ground with upright supports and scaffolding, with logs and beams gathered around it and many workers laboring at its base. God caused Noah to know His purpose to give the impenitent world an exhibition of His power because after Adam's transgression brought sin, men and women grew more bold in disobeying His law.

Talented men possessing skill and knowledge had become corrupt in imagination because they left God out of their plans and councils, becoming wise to do evil, wise to do what God never told them to do. God saw that their example would harm those born afterward and took the matter in hand, sending warnings for 120 years through Noah until His patience was exhausted and He announced the end of all flesh and His purpose to destroy them with the earth. Genesis 6:19 belongs to the inspired account of Noah and the Flood in which Noah was a real person and the Flood was a historical event. Noah's generation also prefigures the present age, whose human nature is the same when uninfluenced by the Spirit of God.

Preservation of Living Kinds

The command was to bring into the ark two of every living thing of all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with Noah and his family. It was one part of God's direction for a refuge from the terrible storm coming upon the wicked inhabitants of the old world, a shelter where the obedient could be preserved alive with him until God's indignation was overpast. That refuge was offered amid a storm of God's wrath and terrible destruction upon the wicked, with one hundred and twenty years of warning in which to heed God's message and seek that refuge. Noah warned while building, yet only a few repented and only eight people, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark, while the rebellious race was swept away and drank the waters of the flood in fulfillment of the prophetic warning. His readiness showed genuine faith, for he obeyed God implicitly and did according to all the Lord commanded, not picking and choosing among precepts what was agreeable and convenient and rejecting what required self-denial, but doing God's will as soon as he knew it without consulting his own will, even though obedience meant sacrifice and loss of friends and property and name and life itself and becoming the subject of sport and derision.

What God preserved in the ark was every species of animal He had created. These are distinguished from confused species said to have resulted from amalgamation, which were destroyed by the Flood. Amalgamation of man and beast is said to have occurred after the Flood also, producing many animal varieties and certain human races.

Preservation through the ark included plant life, for Noah carried seeds with him and took them into the ark. God miraculously kept a few kinds of trees and shrubs alive for future generations. The pairs of animals were thus brought in so their kinds would be kept alive through the flood, alongside this preserving of seeds and plant life for the world afterward.

Noah and his family were preserved in the ark by a miracle because of their right-doing. Eight people accepted God's warning, entered the ark, turned from unrighteousness, and were saved from the Flood. Only those in the ark were safe, and the ark God used to save life thereby tested people by Noah's warning.

Animals Entering the Ark

The living creatures were to be brought in as male and female pairs so that their kinds would be kept alive through the flood, while clean beasts and clean birds were to come by sevens. God and angels gathered them from forest and field and brought them to the ark. Fierce and gentle beasts and birds came from across the land in great numbers, even darkening the heavens, and entered in orderly fashion into prepared spaces made ready for them.

They came peacefully, two by two, of themselves in obedience to God to find refuge in the ark. Their arrival was a striking display of God's power that people could not explain by natural laws, and a warning for salvation. Yet people remained unbelieving and disobedient despite seeing them go in, absorbed in their own pursuits and rejecting the warning. The animals came into the ark and were housed inside with Noah over seven days. Their housing marked the closing of the long probation and distinguished the obedient inside from the disobedient outside.

When Noah and his family entered, God with an invisible hand closed the door. Mercy stepped from the golden throne and no longer interceded, because continual resistance and contempt of entreaties and warnings separated sinners from God. They remained shut in one week with no rain as a time of testing, trial of faith and mockery. Then rain fell slowly and afterward in torrents, and every living being and dumb animal left outside perished while the inhabitants of the old world were swept away.

Warning, Rejection, and Judgment

In pity and love a refuge was provided for all who would accept it, with direction to build an immense boat on dry land to keep alive all who would believe and enter, and at the same time to preach that a flood of waters would be brought upon the earth to destroy the wicked. The promise was that those who believed the message and prepared by repentance and reformation would find pardon and be saved, and all who desired to be saved were urged to find refuge in the ark to escape the coming destruction. The command was given when wickedness had grown to fearful proportions and the inhabitants were about to be punished for bold transgression, when God was about to clothe Himself with vengeance and execute judgment against transgressors of His law and arise out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.

The antediluvian world was given a probation of one hundred and twenty years to repent before being swept away by a flood of waters. During that time Noah as preacher of righteousness warned of what was coming on the earth while he and his helpers were constantly at work building the immense ark, a boat on dry land, preaching all the more earnestly in proportion to the universal scorn, ridicule, self-importance and unrighteousness around them. He was joined by the voices of Methuselah and many others in warning and entreaty, the building itself was a warning, every blow struck on the ark served as a warning message and note of warning, and every passing day was one less of probation. Those who followed their own pleasure mocked the messages sent from heaven, laughed Noah to scorn for building, and continued eating, drinking and marrying until he entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.

God did not withdraw His Spirit without warning of the sure result of transgressing His law, but His Spirit continued to strive with rebellious man through Noah until the specified time had nearly expired. When they rejected Noah's words the Spirit of God ceased to strive with them.

Nearly all the inhabitants thought they were right and Noah was wrong, claimed to know more than him, closed their ears to words of truth, and brought darkness and the displeasure of God upon themselves. He was branded a fanatic and crazed alarmist, his warning of a coming rain and flood that had never been seen was laughed to scorn and mocked as parables, and his warning was explained away by false science and talk of science and laws controlling nature. The people reasoned they had had no rain so coming rain was fanatical and impossible, yet continued eating, drinking and marrying. They spent that graciously granted probation ridiculing, caricaturing, criticizing and laughing at Noah for his peculiar earnestness and intense feeling about judgments God would surely fulfill, calling him a crazy fanatic.

Their unbelief did not prevent fulfillment of the message and the flood from coming. At the appointed time rain was sent from heaven and the foundations of the great deep were broken up. The rebellious race who would not keep the commandments of heaven were swept away by the flood as an exhibition of power and fulfillment of prophetic warning, perished in the waters covering the earth and drank those waters, exemplifying the truth of God's word.

Only a few repented, the righteous on earth were but few. Some workmen and converts believed for a time before dying or backsliding. Only eight souls out of that vast population, Noah and his family, lived to enter the ark and were saved alive, while death was the portion of the rest.

Many who helped Noah build the ark to fulfill the instruction for preserving life did not believe the startling message, did not cleanse themselves from all wrong principles, did not overcome the temptation to do and say things entirely contrary to the mind and will of God, and did not turn from wrongdoing. They could assist in preparing a means of preservation and still perish when they chose corrupt company rather than what was good, so helping prepare the ark did not itself save Noah's carpenters.

The flood and its waters show God's verdict on the wicked and His judgment on increasing human sin and unbearable wickedness and disobedience to His law, given in determination to purify the world. Their destruction is described as an act of mercy to the world. The warning was a light to a crooked generation, but few heeded it, and salvation depended on how it was responded to, so those who rejected it perished in the flood.

Faithful Example for Today

Noah had faith that led him to get ready, and he obeyed God implicitly, building that immense boat on dry land as a heavy cross according to all the Lord commanded him. He did not pick and choose among God's precepts what was agreeable and for present comfort and convenience and reject what required self-denial, but did what he knew to be God's will without consulting his own will and choice and without reasoning out a course to save loss or inconvenience or to avoid ridicule. To obey meant sacrifice and suffering loss of friends and property and name and life itself, and becoming the subject of sport and derision of the godless, meeting obstacles, hard opposition, tribulation, ridicule and persecution for refusing to conform to the world. This course of doing all God indicates, carefully and conscientiously walking in the path God shows, is the course of all who have genuine faith.

His preparing the ark in response to God's warning shows that signs of the approaching event give reason to prepare even when its exact time is unknown. He spent one hundred and twenty years building while warning the world as a faithful preacher of righteousness, so that the building itself was a warning and every blow struck was a note of warning. That building work warned the world, preaching sermons that convicted and converted hearts. The same holds for erecting sanitariums and other institutions for God today, for faithful work done in the spirit and love of God preaches sermons. God watches the work, and by His word, by His Spirit, and by His providence He gives wisdom and directs how to do His will, so builders must labor together with Him in entire dependence upon Him, with prayer, holy song, and looking unto Jesus.

Noah and his household stood by God's word against the people of their time, helpless against a corrupt generation yet trusting God. Their destruction in the Flood is an example of why a small number following God does not make their course wrong. Noah's faithfulness in warning them despite unbelief is an example of the faithfulness required of those entrusted with giving God's message. His preaching warned and tested the world before the Flood, and God's truth for the last days does similar work of warning, testing, and proving people.

The ark was a refuge to keep alive all who would enter, and all were urged to find refuge in it to escape the Flood, but the multitudes refused to heed the warning and perished in the waters, and when they rejected Noah's words the Spirit of God ceased to strive with them, as with those who now reject the first angel's message. God warned that in one hundred and twenty years He would punish the inhabitants of the world by a flood and destroy them all, and directed Noah to build an immense boat on dry land to keep alive all who would believe and enter, yet Noah was laughed to scorn and mocked for building while the people reasoned they had had no rain so coming rain was fanatical and impossible. Their unbelief did not prevent fulfillment of the message, for the rain came and the wicked inhabitants perished in the waters of the Flood while only those in the ark were safe, showing how an absorbed, pleasure-loving, unready world will be overtaken by sudden destruction prior to Christ's second appearing. For one hundred and twenty years Noah warned the people of the coming Flood while preparing the ark, but they laughed him to scorn and continued eating, drinking, and marrying until Noah entered into the ark and the Flood came and destroyed them all, and even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. That warning before the Flood serves as a parallel to the decided warning message God gives the present world.

The verse belongs to that decided message of warning, and it means God commanded loyalty to His commands and separation from the world, which must not be belittled or set aside to link up with unbelievers or conform to the world. Nearly all the inhabitants thought they were right and Noah was wrong, claimed to know more than him, closed their ears to words of truth, called him a fanatic, explained away his warning by false science, and laughed and mocked his words as parables, bringing darkness and the displeasure of God upon themselves. Their unbelief did not prevent the Flood, and they perished in the waters that covered the earth. The lesson is not to walk contrary to God's Word in rebellion but to stand on the side of the loyal and true so as to be found faithful when Christ comes.

The ark upon the billowy deep outriding the storms that threatened it with destruction pictures how the word of God outrides the storms that threaten it with destruction. The law of God given after Adam's fall was preserved through Noah in the ark as part of the account associated with God's covenant with Noah, and was later observed by Abraham.