Brace yourself for a moment, because we are about to talk about a subject that is very sci-fi sounding. It’s a very overlooked section of the Bible and it’s no wonder because there are only a few verses relating to this race. 

 

They are called “Nephilim.” They are very strong and very famous. And they are giants! But what are they and where did they come from? Well here comes the sci-fi part:

 

They are supposedly the result of sexual relations between human women and heavenly beings! (Note that there are other ideas and theories behind this idea, but I feel that this verse says exactly what it says and that a lot of times when we come across weird things like this in the Bible, we would rather choose to ignore it and find reason to make it make sense.) Can you imagine that? Now make sure you catch this:

 

This is NOT God’s will AT ALL. 

 

These heavenly beings are recognized as “the fallen ones.” They have sinned against God. The earthly and divine realms were not supposed to cross in this way. This is thought to be a big part of the reason God decides that he must wipe out all of his creation. There is so much sin and evil on earth—it’s disgusting!

 

Around this time God decides that He’s not going to let people live for as long as they do. For now on, humanity can expect a life span of 120 years—a time much, much, shorter than what humans were used to. Remember that Methuselah (the oldest man recorded in the Bible) was 969 years old—and that wasn’t even that much older than anyone else living at the time!

 

God sees that human evil is out of control. It’s all that anyone does anymore— evil, evil, evil! There is violence everywhere and people are completely corrupt. And because of that, they’re corrupting everything else as well! In fact, humanity has become SO evil that God actually regrets having made man in the first place!

 

ouch…

 

Did you get that?

 

Humanity has become so evil that God actually regrets having made us in the first place.

 

Let this be a call to those of you that continue to say, “Oh I’ll get my life together when I’m older. Right now I’m young and need to experience life.”

 

Stop it.

 

These people had hundreds of years to get their lives straight. Yet, somehow they became so corrupt that God had to wipe them all out! Corruption breeds corruption that breeds corruption that breeds corruption. You might remember what I said about humans being made from dirt in my note, “You Are Dirt.” Well, the people of this time have become bad dirt.

 

Incase you haven’t caught my point, THE WORLD IS EXTREMELY, TERRIBLY, HORRIFICALLY, EVIL!!!!!!!

 

But there is one guy that God’s okay with. In fact he finds him quite righteous. His name is Noah, and he is Enoch’s great grandson— this is the same Enoch that walked so closely with God that God one day took him off the face of the earth with Him.

 

Now remember that Noah’s father Lamech, named him Noah saying, “This one will give us a break from the hard work of farming the ground that God cursed.” Again, the name Noah means rest or respite. 

 

Respite: a short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant

 

And in a way, Noah does bring rest to something that is very difficult and unpleasant. He is the one that God allows to live through the flood. He is the one that God gives a chance to redo the human race.

 

God sees something in Noah. Something different from everyone else at the time. He stands out. “Noah is a good man, a man of integrity in his community. Noah walked with God.” (Genesis 6:9-10)

 

Noah was righteous— A characteristic lacking from the time being.

 

Now Noah has 3 sons whom were born to him when he was 500 years old. I imagine that this would make the boys triplets. Their names were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These boys are going to be allowed to live through the flood along with their wives. Noah’s wife will live as well. This leaves eight human beings with the responsibility to repopulate the earth.

 

God speaks to Noah. “It’s all over. It’s the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I’m making a clean sweep.” God is going to flood the Earth and destroy everything alive under Heaven. He is going to allow Noah to live, but first Noah must build a boat exactly the way that God tells him to. And when I say exact, I mean exact.

 

God’s instruction manual for a building a flood boat:

-450 feet in length

-75 feet in width

-45 feet high

-Supplied with a roof

-Insert a window in the roof 18 inches from the top

-Insert a door in the side of the ship

-Make 3 decks: upper, lower, and middle.

 

But why is this boat so gigantic for eight people!? Well, it ends up that there is going to be a couple guests on the boat:

 

A male and a female of every living creature will join Noah on his boat: two of every species of bird, mammal, and reptile. Oh, and Noah is going to want to stock up on food as well.

 

Now this whole food thing may not be quite as difficult as you might think. Back in Genesis 1:30, God tells the animals that He is giving them everything that grows out of the ground for food. Now this might be a long shot, but perhaps animals are capable of sinning just like humans. Perhaps all animals were meant to be herbivores and have strayed from God’s original plan for them. Maybe all these animals only ate food from the ground and Noah would only have to stock up on veggies for the trip. Just an idea.

 

And did you know that there were more than just 2 pairs of every animal on God’s ship? You see, animals were divided into two different groups: clean and unclean.* Now God wanted to insure more greatly the survival of the clean animals than the unclean ones. So He told Noah that he was to take SEVEN pairs (again, popular number) of all of the clean animals onto the boat with him. Not just one pair— but seven! He was supposed to bring seven pairs of every kind of bird as well. This might be because the birds are important to spreading seeds throughout the world and so their survival is extremely important. Plus, if there are more birds when the flood is over, they could multiply quickly and spread the seeds at a faster pace than if there were only two of them.

 

However, Noah only needed to take one pair of every unclean animal on his boat with him. Now this makes me wonder if dinosaurs were unclean animals. Perhaps if they were, their chances of surviving during or after the flood were much slimmer than the rest. Or perhaps the dinosaurs as an entire species were the unclean animals! Food for thought. Anyways, moving on.

 

Now Noah was 600 years old when God decides to flood the earth. Remember, Noah was 500 years old when he had his children, so sometime between then and when God flooded the earth, God told Noah to build this giant boat. That means it that it could have taken up to 100 years to build this thing!

 

Noah and his wife as well as his sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah.

 

Can you imagine all the taunting and laughter that Noah must have underwent? Noah has been building a boat because his God is going to supposedly “flood” the earth! Plus, at this time the entire world is watered by underground springs! How is the earth going to flood?

 

And yet, it happens.

 

 

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

All of the underground springs erupt and all the windows of Heaven are thrown open! 

 

It’s raining! Water is everywhere!

 

FLOOD!!!

 

On this day, all of the animals boarded the ship along with Noah and the seven other people in his family. Now you gotta imagine that the door to the boat was massive because the Bible tells us that God closed it Himself.

 

It rains for the next forty days and the waters continue to rise and lift the ship high over the Earth. The flood gets so high that it actually covers the highest mountains! In fact, the high water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains! Anything that isn’t on Noah’s boat is dead.

 

Now this is definitely a great image of starting fresh with the Earth. In Genesis 1:2 it tells us that the Spirit of God flew across face of the waters. So right in the very beginning, all that existed was a great watery abyss. And now it’s happened again. The earth is covered in water- that’s it. We are back at phase zero.

 

Now whenever we think of the flood, we usually think of Noah being stranded on a ship for 40 days and 40 nights. Or at least I always did. However, the floodwaters actually covered the Earth for over 150 days! The waters obviously needed time to descend back to land. So God causes the wind to blow and the floodwaters begin to go down. The underground springs are now closed— shut off. The doors of Heaven have been closed and shut off as well. However, rain will continue on the earth, but it will be restrained.**

 

Five months after the flood had started, Noah’s boat landed in the Ararat mountain range.*** Then two and a half months later the tops of the mountains came into view. Now it was time to use that window that God had Noah build into the roof. 

 

Noah sent a raven out of the ship to see if the flood waters had cleared up. So Noah probably was not able to  to see outside of the ship at all other than this window in the roof. So the entire ship might have been completely closed in to protect it from the rain. 

 

Later Noah sent a dove to check on the flood but it couldn’t even find a place to perch.

 

Seven days later Noah sent the dove out again. This time it came back with an olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was just about done. He waited one more week and sent the dove out for a third time. This time the bird didn’t return.

Nine and a half months after the flood had started, it finally dried up. 

That’s a long time to be stuck on a boat with a zoo.

 

God then tells Noah that he can leave the boat and to take all the animals with him. So he does and the animals exit the boat family by family. I can imagine what a site that would be— each species of animal leaving the boat in pairs.

 

When Noah gets off the boat, he builds an altar to God and sacrifices some of the clean animals and birds there. Keep in mind that these are the clean animals— there are seven pairs of these animals, not just one. Which is good because otherwise Noah would have just driven some of these animals to extinction.

 

Now God finds the fragrance of burnt sacrifices very pleasurable. He hasn’t smelled it in 9 and a half months! And it smells so good. That’s like me walking past Mongolian Barbecue for the first time in 9 and a half months.

 

…

 

Great, now I’m hungry… 

 

God smells the sweet fragrance and thinks to Himself, “I’ll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent towards evil from an early age, but I’ll never again kill off everything living as I’ve just done.”

 

So in the end, Noah did live out the meaning of his name. Remember how his father said, “This one will give us a break from the hard work of farming the ground that God cursed.”? Well, now it has been done.

 

God ends chapter Genesis chapter 8 saying:

 

“For as long as Earth lasts, planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never stop.”

 

God blesses Noah and his sons and tells them to “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth! Every living creature—birds, animals, fish—will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You’re responsible for them. All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else. Except for meat with its lifeblood still in it—don’t eat that.”

 

So God gives Noah and all of humanity the role that he originally gave them when he created Adam and Eve. To take care of the earth. All of creation will fall under their authority and now they may eat more than just fruits and vegetables. Now they may eat meat. However, they are not allowed to kill animals— they may only eat what is already dead.

 

Then God tells Noah that He will avenge Noah’s blood against both animals and other humans. God’s vengeance on murder was stated like this:

 

“Whoever sheds human blood,

by humans let his blood be shed,

Because God made humans in His image

reflecting God’s very nature.”

 

God sets up another covenant with Noah. This one includes his children and everyone human who comes along after him. It also includes all of the animals and anything else living. God tells them that He will never again destroy the earth by means of a flood. Never again.

 

God then created a rainbow in the sky and said that it would forever be a sign of this covenant.** Whenever God would see a rainbow from then on, He would remember this deal He made.

 

 

The role of repopulating the Earth was played by Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. All humanity that lived after the flood could be linked these three boys. Ham had a rather famous child named Canaan, who became the ancestor of the Canaanites.

 

Noah, on the other hand, became a farmer and planted a vineyard. One day he got really drunk and passed out naked inside of his tent. Ham walked in the tent and saw his father naked and told his brothers. Apparently this was a huge deal. Shem and Japheth got a cloak and the two each grabbed a corner. Together they walked backwards into the tent so they wouldn’t see their father nude and covered him with the cloak.

 

Noah woke up with a hangover and learned of what Ham had done. I imagine there’s more to the story as to what Ham had done because Noah curses Ham’s son Canaan. He makes Canaan a slave of slaves and a slave to his brothers. The reasoning as to why Noah reacted this way, I am not completely sure of. But their are theories out there.

 

After the flood Noah lived for 350 years, making him 950 when he died.

 

 

 

 

 

This lesson has been based off:

Genesis 6 through 9

 

 

 

 

 

*This whole idea of clean and unclean animals might point at the idea of animals being capable of sinning.

 

**This points back to the ball of ice theory in the idea that the ball of ice has melted (or the Heaven’s have opened), but rain continues now that clouds have begin to form and rainbows can be created. Check out the end of my note “The Creation Architect” for more ideas on this theory. It relates to the Bible in terms as to why people lived so long back then.

 

***DID YOU KNOW that they found a lot of evidence of the landing spot of Noah’s Ark in the Ararat mountains just as the Bible said? Archeologist Ron Wyatt found a huge indention in these mountains and it measures out to be the same length of the boat that God told Noah to build! They did several other tests to find many other details that all relate to the details of the ship. For example, they took samples of the ground and found a form of carbon that relates to the teakwood the ship was built off of. Decay and volcanoes have destroyed the boat since it landed there but there were many other discoveries that helped prove this to be a boat as well. Another big example is that there are three stones with engravings from Noah and his family on them that are spread throughout the land. These stones were the anchors to Noah’s boat and show the direction the boat was headed in before it landed in the Ararat mountains. So these anchors were cut off from the boat on their way into the mountains. Here’s a special on this discovery on youtube:

There are 5 parts to the special and here they are right here:

 

 

 

Sorry I know it was rather lengthy today!