I’ve been amazed that in this first week’s chapters, comprised of stories I’ve heard my whole life, I’ve found so many surprising details and numerous facts opposite what I previously thought I knew.

I thought Noah took two of every animal, but apparently he took an extra six pairs of clean animals and birds. That’s a pretty big detail I had wrong. I had also imagined a flood that was immediate and killed the rest of humanity (at least nearly) instantaneously. But all we know is that it rained for 40 straight days, the waters slowly rising higher, and that at the end everyone was dead. Perhaps they did all die immediately, but it seems a reasonable assumption that instead they drowned here and there as the entire human race sped for higher ground. It’s a far more somber tale.

I also missed the detail that God shut the door to the ark. I’d always imagined Noah reluctantly closing it up and being torn about wanted to let his neighbors in. Now I’m wondering if God shut it because Noah wouldn’t, or perhaps so that Noah couldn’t.

The previously chapters have each held similar revelations. Perhaps I’m noticing for the first time because this is a newer translation, or perhaps the additional time it takes to write the Word down it allows for the text to steep more fully. But I’m certain that this pattern of new revelation will continue and I can’t help but wonder what else I’ve missed.

If the 40 days weren’t hard enough for Noah and company, I wonder how they faired during the 150. Was that a time of mourning? Of anger? Or were they too busy tending to the species of the world to do much more than scoop poop, lay out feed and sleep.

I also loved the detail that Noah had a final warning. He had 7 days to say his good byes and too reflect on the annihilation of his species.

This all happened 5 years after Lamech, Noah’s father, died. I wonder if had an inklings about what his world and his family would go through.

If you have any thoughts, feedback or questions about Genesis 7 let me know.

The fourth book of Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quintet, Many Waters, is an amazing look at what the rest of the story of the flood could have been. The quintet is best know for A Wrinkle in Time, but in many ways I think Many Waters is the most remarkable, just for the sense of Biblical wonder L’Engle breeds.
The book is written for children, and it’s a quick read, so you may want to pick a copy up while this story is fresh in your mind.

Giants? Global destruction?
Post Genesis 6 thoughts, feedback or question in the comments.

Enoch simply not there any more? People living 900 years?
Post thoughts, feedback or question in the comments.

Today was Genesis 4. I couldn’t help but see flashes of my 3-year-old’s avoidance and petulance in Cain’s response “Am I his babysitter” to God’s query about where the just-slain Abel was.