underestimate the abilities and inventions of Noah and the countless other pre-Flood people!
PRIMARY PASSAGES
Genesis 6–9
KEY VERSE
“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Genesis 6:5–8
WRAP UP
“Our Father, thank You for telling Noah to build the ark. He was such a great example of faith and dedication! With all the sin and evil that filled the world in his time, even worse than today, it must have been incredibly easy to be drawn into sin, and not to stay faithful to You in the six hundred years he lived before the Flood. Please help me to have faith that overcomes the pressures of this world, like Noah’s.”
1 Ussher calculated about 2350 BC, which was about 1,650 years after creation.
2 A population of at least hundreds of thousands is likely, and many more are mathematically reasonable. See “What Was the Pre-Flood Population Like?” by Ken Ham, https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/pre-flood-population. Also consider “Population of the Pre-Flood World,” by Tom Pickett, www.ldolphin.org/pickett.html, and “Why Don’t We Find Human and Dinosaur Fossils Together?” by Bodie Hodge, https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/humans/why-dont-we-find-human-dinosaur-fossils-together/. Dr. Henry Morris III of the Institute for Creation Research says, “If one uses a very conservative formula of six children for each family, an average generation of 100 years, and a lifespan of 500 years, there would have been over 235 million people alive at the time of the global Flood. That is probably much too low an estimate. For instance, if the average family size were eight instead of six, the generation was only 93 instead of 100, then the population at the death of Adam (930 years after creation) would have been 2.8 million. At that rate, the population at the time of the Flood would have been over 137 billion!” Henry M. Morris III, The Book of Beginnings (Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research, 2012), p. 219 — based on Henry M. Morris, 1970, Biblical Cosmology and Modern Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1970), p. 87.
3 “When Cain killed Abel, Adam was nearly 130 years old (Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old, and Eve’s statement in Gen. 4:25 implies he was born shortly after Abel died.) So it’s possible that Cain and Abel were around 120 years old when Cain killed Abel. In 120 years, Adam and Eve must have had many children, and even grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” (from Readers Respond section in Answers magazine, volume 9.4, October–December 2014).
4 Acts 3:19–21
5 Genesis 5:32. Noah is 500 when his first son, Japheth, is born (Gen. 10:21). Shem (son 2) was born two years after Japheth. We know this because Gen. 11:10 tells us that Shem was 100 two years after the Flood, and Noah was 600 when the Flood began. Noah’s youngest son was Ham (son 3, Gen. 9:24). No time span is specified, but a logical guess is that he was born 2–3 years after Shem. This means that the three sons were probably all born by about 95 years prior to the Flood.
6 510’ x 85’ x 51’ is based on the older and longer 20.35-inch “Nippur” cubit, which is believed to be the most likely cubit length used.
7 It is extremely interesting that when God told King David that his son, Solomon, would build the Temple in Jerusalem, the Spirit placed many details in David’s mind, and directed him in creating a written set of instructions. These were passed by David to Solomon. While the Temple was ornate and of immense importance, the Ark of Noah — which had to withstand the cataclysmic Flood and convey thousands of land animals plus eight people and enough food to sustain them for a year — it seems likely that God provided even more details than he did for the Temple (see 1 Chronicles 28:11–19).
8 Genesis 6:7, 7:11, 7:23
9 Noah was apparently told of the coming Flood when he was 480. In Genesis 6:3, 120 years before the Flood, God declared, to no one in particular, that man only had 120 years before he was going to wipe things away and change the world. The Flood came when he was 600 (Gen. 7:6). Genesis 5:32 says that all three of Noah’s sons were born after he turned 500, which means that his oldest son, Japheth, was 100 when the Flood came.
10 One way or another — whether just Noah’s family, or with the help of additional laborers — Noah was able to complete the Ark within God’s 120-year timeframe. It is likely that it required about 55–75 years for preparation and build-time. See https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/how-long-did-it-take-for-noah-to-build-the-ark/, by Bodie Hodge.
11 See “Did People Like Adam and Noah Really Live Over 900 Years of Age? https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/genealogy/did-adam-and-noah-really-live-over-900-years/ by Drs. Georgia Purdom and David Menton. Consider also “Why Did People Start to Have Shorter Lives After the Flood?” https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/why-did-people-have-shorter-lives-after-flood/ by Bodie Hodge.
—5—
GOD SENDS THE ANIMALS!
(c. 2349 B.C.)
The Ark was finished, with hundreds of tons of food stowed inside. But what about the animals?
Once the Ark’s massive hull was complete, it may have taken several more years to finish the cavernous interior. To help keep the animals safe and more easily managed on the violent ocean, Noah and his family constructed rooms,1 and probably stalls, cages, coops, and aviaries, plus their own living quarters.
A few animals required large spaces, but the average size of a creature was about as big as a sheep.2 Since God created animals to eat plants — and we know from the fossil record that the earth before the Flood had a lush abundance — those He sent3 to the Ark probably did not prey upon one another.4 In addition, because God only selected representatives of each kind,5 not of each species, there was plenty of room on the Ark for
