Today’s Passage: Genesis 7
In the last chapter God told Noah to build, and Noah did it; here God tells him to go inside, and seven days later the rain begins. The great deep breaks open, and the water does exactly what God said it would do. You are not watching a storm that slipped out of His hands, you are watching Him keep His word. And when you look at the door, the last hand you see is not Noah’s, for the LORD Himself shut him in.
As you read, hold this: God does what He said. He is the one who shuts the door.
Context The world of Genesis 7
Noah is six hundred years old, and the day is set down like an entry in a record, the seventeenth day of the second month. On that day the fountains of the great deep burst and the floodgates of the heavens were opened, and the rain fell for forty days and forty nights while the waters prevailed a hundred and fifty days. The text tells us that the high mountains under all the heavens were covered, and that everything on dry land with the breath of life in it died.
The clean animals come in sevens and the unclean in pairs, so that their offspring will be kept alive on the earth, and the animals come to Noah of their own accord. Even in the middle of the judgment, God is still gathering the creatures He means to keep.
Jesus said long after that the days of Noah were ordinary right up until the flood came and swept them all away. People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, and then the water was simply there. God had spoken, and His word came true.
Genesis 7:1–10 (BSB)
¹ Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. ² You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; ³ and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. ⁴ For seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living thing I have made.” ⁵ And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him. ⁶ Now Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. ⁷ And Noah and his wife, with his sons and their wives, entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ The clean and unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls along the ground ⁹ came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰ And after seven days the floodwaters came upon the earth.
“Go in,” God says, and gives a week’s warning, and once again Noah does all that the LORD commanded him. Eight people walk into a wooden house for no reason anyone could see except that God had said the rain was coming, and that is what faith looked like while the sky was still clear. God had told him when it would come and what it would be, and here you are watching a man move simply because the word was enough.
Genesis 7:11–16 (BSB)
¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. ¹³ On that very day Noah entered the ark, along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and his wife, and the three wives of his sons— ¹⁴ they and every kind of wild animal, livestock, crawling creature, bird, and winged creature. ¹⁵ They came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two of every creature with the breath of life. ¹⁶ And they entered, the male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
Water came from below and water came from above, and for forty days it fell; the family went in, and then the LORD sagar, pronounced sah-GAR. Strong's H5462, to shut, close, seal. Noah built the ark and Noah entered it, but Noah did not close the door, for the LORD shut him in, and that is the hinge on which the whole chapter turns. The same hand that opened the deep is the hand that sealed the family safely inside. Those outside cannot open what God has shut, and those inside are not clinging to a latch of their own making. They are simply kept. him in.
You are watching God’s word, God’s gathering, and God’s hand on the door.
Genesis 7:17–24 (BSB)
¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸ So the waters continued to surge and rise greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. ¹⁹ Finally, the waters completely prevailed upon the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered. ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountaintops to a depth of fifteen cubits. ²¹ And every living thing that moved upon the earth perished—birds, livestock, animals, every creature that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind. ²² Of all that was on dry land, everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. ²³ And every living thing on the face of the earth was destroyed—man and livestock, crawling creatures and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those with him in the ark remained. ²⁴ And the waters prevailed upon the earth for 150 days.
As the waters rise, the ark is lifted with them, and that is the one mercy in all that rising. Then you hear the loss said three ways over: every living thing perished, everything died, all of it was blotted out, and only Noah and those with him remained. The God who once called the world very good will not let its violence go on forever, and the cost of that, here, is almost everything.
Jesus set these very days inside a sermon about the day of the Son of Man: people were living their ordinary lives, and then the flood came. God does what He said.
Study notes Going deeper
The water was real, and it was terrible; the door was real, and God is the one who closed it. In the next chapter God will remember Noah, but here you are simply asked to believe that God meant what He said, and that the hand on the door was His own.
God does what He said, and He is the one who shuts the door. Thank Him that the family inside was never left holding the latch.