NOTES for Gen 6:1-7:10
When reading the parable of Noah, the reader's attention is usually drawn first of all to the description of the worldwide flood. Meanwhile, the sacred writer, it appears, was interested in that story least of all. It interested him so little that he did not even consider it necessary to remove the quite obvious repetitions and parallel passages found in the parable when it comes to the description of the flood itself. Scholars and commentators of the Bible have often noted that the biblical author used two different versions of the tradition about the flood. The first is reflected in Gen 6:5-22 and in Gen 8:1-22, and the second in Gen 7:1-24. This clearly became possible only because the sacred writer considered the traditions about the flood merely a background for a story about something else, something far more important to him. And that more important thing was undoubtedly the figure of Noah. The most remarkable thing in Noah's life story turns out to be precisely the absence of that life story. In essence, the description of Noah's whole life fit into one sentence: "Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God" (Gen 6:9). The parable contains no details of this "walking," which is not surprising: the events are understood to belong to times that even historians today picture only vaguely. Something else is important: righteousness and righteous people have existed in the world in every age, and God has never abandoned them. In a certain sense, Noah becomes a collective image of all the righteous people of the pagan world who have ever lived on earth. And not only of those who "walked with God" in ancient times, but also of those who "walk with God" today. There are many people in the world who have not yet heard of the God of the Bible, and still more who have not heard in the Bible the voice of the One who led its authors. And if any of these people seeks God, God Himself leads that person after Him by paths known to Him alone. Whether such a righteous person will hear God in the words of the Bible, or whether they will remain for him only words, depends in part on us, who consider ourselves Christians.