Day 1: Noach/Genesis 6:9-7:16
The Covenant narrative continues as Elohim informs His servant Noach/Noah of the impending destruction of all flesh. Like Adam before him, Noach would be entrusted with the Seed that would travel through him and into future generations. There would be no one else left alive to mix themselves with as Noach and his family would be the only people left on earth. Unlike Adam, Noach had already been tried and tested for five hundred years prior to being called to this particular service of preparation of saving his family and animals from absolute destruction.
Similar to Adam, Noach had a wife and children. While it is not specified if Ham, Shem, and Yapheth were his only children, Torah is specific that these were the three born to him at/by age five hundred. These would also be saved along with their wives and Noach’s wife. In total, eight people would continue on after the flood would take away all other human and land-animal life. It would be from this number that a new beginning would take place and the perpetual Covenant of Elohim would endure. It is by way of an ark that a handful of individuals would survive in order to live for Elohim as His people, who were called, literally separated, out from all others.
What the Father required of Noach was to build a vessel that would hold all that was untainted and set apart in order to sustain life so that His creation would not be completely wiped out. This was a fulfillment of the futuristic promise made to Adam regarding the Righteous Seed Who was yet to come and crush the serpent’s head. However, at this point in time, the Creator was willing to destroy all flesh due to their impertinence and corruption.
What Adam and Chavah had caused by way of rejection of Truth culminated to a point of worldwide annihilation. The original position of justification and purity had already been abandoned. With that choice came an expulsion from the first ark known as the Garden. This place of paradise was set apart from all other places on earth that Elohim had originally created. It was to house that which was most precious to Elohim—man’s heart for His own dwelling place.
In a similar way, Noach was to build an elaborate vessel that would encapsulate all that was still wholesome and blameless. Due to Noach’s blamelessness, his whole family would endure within this vessel, even though Ham’s lineage would turn out to be marked as corrupt in the end. With this knowledge, Elohim still saved Noach’s family for the sake of Noach’s righteousness (and the Father’s enduring mercy and grace). The ark was what they entered into for salvation. This large vessel was the embodiment of the Covenant that Elohim had established with man/Adam. Within the ark, was the remnant of eight individuals and animals who dwelt in the sanctuary YHVH’s Covenant established and sealed for safekeeping until the destruction of all other life was complete.
Later, YHVH would sanction a much smaller container to be overlaid with gold, topped with a propitiation seat (representing the throne of YHVH), and carried by poles upon the shoulders of men of whom would never touch the ark or they would die. It would seem that the Covenant Maker continued to diminish the ability of men to remain in the care of His Covenant by His grace alone and would require that His Covenant be carried from place to place and observed from afar rather than man being allowed to physically exist within it so literally. From the Creator’s point-of-view, the scale of His ark for separation did not matter as the much larger place of Paradise had been rejected and, now, the barge of salvation, sustained upon a flood, would only contain eight humans. YHVH needed man to understand, with sound wisdom from His own Ruach/Spirit, that the Ark man needed was the very heart of the Creator Himself. In turn, the ark that YHVH desired to dwell within was the heart of man. Both arks exhibit the opposite extremes to one another in regard to size, content, and righteousness.
What men, after the Sinai experience, would carry upon their shoulders was the ease by which the Father desired men to carry Him within their own hearts. Yes, there is a struggle in carrying what is to be separate from the world. Yes, there is a burden to bear in the battle of keeping Covenant and rebellion. However, it is the Ark of Yeshua that the Father has revealed as the Vessel of Salvation for mankind. Moreover, He instructs us to take Yeshua’s yoke, a burden of little consequence, upon ourselves. In turn, Messiah guides us to the safe harbor of redemption, salvation, deliverance, justification, and, eventually, Paradise.
Looking back, it is clear to see that the Garden contained a Tree that, by definition, is wooden in structure. Later, Noach was to make an ark of wood to ferry the righteous to safety. Scripture reveals the promise was kept to Adam by a shoot of Jesse. David would be the Messianic bloodline for Yeshua to issue forth and bear much fruit. Like wood, He was hewn down by man for their own benefit; yet, He has survived the ordeal of being trodden upon and was raised from a tree of a curse to the resurrected Tree of Life. We are to be grafted into Messiah, as His branches, as He delivers us as our Ark. He is baring us from this fleeting life into His eternal place of the heart—Paradise.
2 Timothy 2:19-21, “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of YHVH stands, having this seal, ‘YHVH knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Everyone who names the name of YHVH is to abstain from wickedness.’ Now in a large house, there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.”
