This word means righteous. Just. Lawful.
We know it as the opposite of “wickedness,” but when it is shown to us first, it is shown in contrast to a word that means something different: Violence. Cruelty. Injustice.
So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
Genesis 6:14-16 (NIV)
Everything we know about the construction of the Ark is in Genesis 6:14-16.
Later, God gives very precise measurements for other construction projects.
In Exodus 40, Moses completes construction of the Tabernacle, and God’s glory falls in smoke and fire.
In 2 Chronicles 7, Solomon completes construction of the Temple, and God’s glory falls in smoke and fire.
In Genesis 6, Noah completes construction of the Ark, and I bet there was smoke and fire aboard.
Let there be Light.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Genesis 6:8 (NIV)But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.
Genesis 6:18 (NIV)
Genesis 6 clearly states that the world was entirely wicked, full of violence, every thought and intent was evil… except for Noah.
But God also saves Noah’s entire family: his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives, despite them falling into the “entirely wicked” category.
What does this tell us?
Now Jared lived 162 years, and fathered Enoch…
Now Enoch lived sixty-five years, and fathered Methuselah…
Now Methuselah lived 187 years, and fathered Lamech…
Genesis 5:18, 21, 25 (NASB)Now Lamech lived 182 years, and fathered a son. And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us comfort from our work and from the hard labor of our hands caused by the ground which the Lord has cursed.”
Genesis 5:28-29 (NASB)
For the Rabbis, 7 is “perfection,” and 10 is “completion.”
Tenth from Adam, we have another oddity. It’s the first time the name of the son is not immediately shown. Everywhere else, it would have said, “and fathered Noah.” Instead, it pauses. So we, too, must pause.
There is reason for this. They look here:
Pharaoh asked him, “How old are you?”
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.”
Genesis 47:8-9 (NIV)
And [Lamech] named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us comfort from our work and from the hard labor of our hands caused by the ground which the Lord has cursed.
Genesis 5:29 (NASB)
The last generation listed before Noah is born is through Lamech, who says this perplexing thing about comfort from the toil from the cursed ground.
If you follow the timing of the births and deaths of the line from Adam until Lamech, you’ll see that Adam has only recently died, so perhaps the whole world sees that the consequenced laid out in Genesis 2 and 3 has come to fruition. Maybe the world weeps. Death is reality.
So Lamech names his son “Noah,” which means comfort, and it points to a future where God provides a way out of death, symbolized by a certain boat that rises above the all-consuming flood.
Lamech said to his wives,
“Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for injuring me.
If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
Genesis 4:23-24 (NIV)
Seventh from Cain, we have Lamech boasting a 7-fold to 77-fold vengeance. I mentioned previously that Jesus flips this with this a 7-fold to 77-fold forgiveness.
When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
Genesis 5:28-31
Eighth down the line from Seth in Genesis 5, we have a different Lamech, tied to the number 777.
Lamech’s son is Noah: Comfort.
In Hebrew numerology, 7 means completion. Perfection. But 8 symbolizes new creation. A new order.
It’s so fascinating. It’s like the numbers tell us about God creating a new order, undoing vengeance and overcoming it with forgiveness to bring us comfort.
Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Genesis 5:24 (NIV)
Some believe in the “Rapture,” a future event where God will simply whoosh Christian believers away into heaven before the “Great Tribulation,” where God’s judgement is poured out like liquid from a bowl that floods the world in God’s wrath.
They look at Enoch as an example, who is also taken up.
This does make some of us wonder why Noah, who was called “righteous in his generation” was not taken into heaven like Enoch.