Verses 1-24
CHAPTER 7
Noah in the Ark and the Judgment by Water
1. Commanded to enter the ark (Genesis 7:1-4)
2. Noah’s obedience (Genesis 7:5-9)
3. The judgment by water (Genesis 7:10-24)
Noah is a type of the Lord Jesus. In the one, Noah, his house was saved. He carried them above and through the judgment waters. Noah is also a type of the Jewish remnant which will pass through the great tribulation and the judgments to come.
The ark of gopher wood, pitched inside and outside with pitch, is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ; Noah preparing the ark, the type of Christ, accomplishing salvation, having finished it.
The deluge is a type of the death of Christ. “All Thy billows and Thy waves have gone over Me” (Psalms 42:7). This was done when on the cross. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. As the earth was covered in the deluge, so the judgment passed over Him, in whom the end of all flesh has come.
“And Jehovah said unto Noah, ‘Come thou and all thy house into the ark.’“ After the ark was finished came the invitation to enter in. The invitation “come” still goes forth. “Come unto Me”--will it last forever?
The beasts, clean and unclean, taken into the ark, as well as the fowls of the air, give us the hint that creation will share the blessed effects of salvation. The subsequent prophetic word and Romans 8:19-23, tell us of a coming deliverance of groaning creation.
“And they that went in unto Noah, went in male and female of all flesh, as God (Elohim) had commanded him, and the Lord (Jehovah) shut him in” (Genesis 7:16). In this verse we have Elohim and Jehovah used. God, as Creator, had commanded Noah; Jehovah had announced the judgment, and the ark which had been preparing represented the patient and merciful Jehovah. And now as the hour of mercy was past, Jehovah shut the door. He who had given an open door shut it at last.
Noah and his house in the ark were saved and safe. And so are we in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“The rain was forty days and forty nights upon the earth” (Genesis 7:12). Here for the first time in the Word do we find the number forty. It is not the last time. Forty means endurance and testing. Moses was forty days on the mountain, his life was divided into three forties. Forty years Israel was in the wilderness. Elijah knew the forty days, and Ezekiel lay forty days on his right side, a typical action (Ezekiel 4). Jonah preached, “yet forty days and Ninevah shall be destroyed”; and Christ was forty days in the wilderness to be tested.