Commentary on Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13

The biblical story of The Flood recounts the undoing of God’s original created order and a reorientation of human relationships with God, the earth, animals, and each other.

The ancient context

Babylonian stories of a primordial flood are found in the prebiblical myths of Atrahasis and Gilgamesh, among other ancient texts. These stories depict the capriciousness of the gods who unleash the deluge with little forethought of its devastating effects on the world. After earlier attempts at population reduction were unsuccessful, the deities’ intent is to exterminate their noisy creatures so they can sleep without disruption (contrast Psalm 121:4). 

Only the gracious trickery of one god (Enki) saves one man (Utnapishtim), his family, and his livestock from death by building a boat to survive the coming flood. Their eventual survival and ritual sacrifices come as a great relief to the hungry and thirsty gods, who had forgotten that their human servants brewed their beer and baked their bread!

In contrast with these ironic Babylonian myths, the book of Genesis carefully lays out God’s rationale in sending the flood. Genesis 6:5 explains that “the wickedness of humankind was great” and that “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” Verse 11 redundantly insists, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence … for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth.” Then, as now, human sinfulness brings ecological disaster, and all forms of life suffer. 

The reference to “all flesh” may even suggest that animals, like humans, had departed from God’s intended plan or that “fallen angels” had come to earth and contaminated human DNA by begetting offspring with human women (see 6:1–4). This tradition of the Nephilim, named in 6:4, is expanded in the noncanonical book of 1 Enoch. First Peter 3:18–22 and Jude 6 similarly allude to this tradition, with 1 Peter further connecting the waters of the flood with the waters of Christian baptism as a means of salvation. 

Undoing creation

Children’s Bibles routinely depict the image of Noah and his ark full of happy animals, rather than imagining the catastrophic nature of the biblical account. Darren Aronofsky’s 2014 film Noah brilliantly captures the violence and apocalyptic destruction inherent in this story, even as he takes great creative liberties with the details of the narrative. 

Genesis 7 subtly relates the deluge to the Bible’s opening account of creation. Genesis 1:20 provides a liturgical description of the proper ordering of creation out of its original chaotic waters and sweeping winds. Genesis 1:6–7 describes God’s masterful separation of the primordial waters above the dome of the sky from the waters beneath the earth.

The flood narrative erases this original cosmic structure as “the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” (7:11). The rushing of the primordial waters into the world acts as a radical reversal of the orderly structure of creation in Genesis 1. 

Once the flood has accomplished its deadly purpose, Genesis 8:1–2 specifically notes that the “fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed” as God sent “a wind to blow over the earth” (see also 1:2) as a form of re-creation. 

Grace after the flood

After Noah’s family has departed from the ark and offered a pleasing sacrifice, God admits that the flood did not accomplish its intended task of cleansing humanity of its depravity and the evil “inclination of the human heart” (8:21). God affirms, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind … ; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature” (8:21). 

God promises a regular seasonal pattern and blesses the remaining humans with fertility to replenish the world’s population and fill the re-created earth (9:1). God also institutes a new law of responsibility for the sacredness of all human life in 9:5–6. 

The Hebrew Bible’s first reference to a divine “covenant” (berith) is found in God’s words to Noah in Genesis 6:18, and our lectionary text recounts the establishment of this covenant after the flood (9:8–13). Often called the Noahic covenant, this promise from God is in fact addressed to humans—“every living creature” (9:10)—and the earth itself (9:13). As an act of unmerited grace rather than a reciprocal agreement, God binds Godself by this “everlasting covenant” (9:16) that does not require anything on the part of Noah, humans, animals, or the earth. 

God states, “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (9:13). In the Babylonian myth of creation, Enuma Elish, the warrior god Marduk hangs his battle bow in the heavens as a constellation to celebrate his victory over the primordial forces of chaos. Here God offers a weapon of warfare as a sign of comfort among the clouds to remind us of God’s rejection of hostility toward creation and its renewed ecological and moral order. 

Genesis shows concern for animal welfare as God instills a new fear of humans into the world’s animals (9:2). God now allows the originally vegetarian humans, animals, birds, and creeping things (see 1:29–30) to consume meat of all kinds: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything” (9:3). As the book of Psalms celebrates in 104:10–30 and 147:9, God sustains all creation and provides food and drink for all creatures—humans, domesticated and wild animals, and the birds of the sky—as part of this ecological revisioning. 

Reflection

The imagined darkness within the ark as the flood rages outside may provide an appropriate parallel for those observing Holy Saturday’s dark time of mourning and lament during the Easter Vigil. As the rainbow symbolizes God’s renewed care for the world in Genesis, so Christians may anticipate the Good News of Easter’s first light.