Noah

This page includes depictions of biblical events including violence, warfare, and mature themes as described in the original biblical narrative.

When people on the earth had become very wicked, God was not happy.

Humans committed various forms of sins, which made God regret creating them, so he decided to destroy the earth and everything in it with a flood.

God told Noah of His intention to destroy earth. He commanded Noah to build an ark from gopher wood and stay inside with his three sons (Shem, Ham and Japheth), his wife and the wives of his three sons, alongside two of every kind of animal. Obeying God, Noah and his sons built the ark. It was 450 feet in length, 75 feet in width and a height of 45 feet. It had a window above it and was also sectioned to house the family alongside the animals and food that would last them during the period of the flood.

God shut the door of the ark. Then the flood started exactly seven days after the ark was completed and lasted for forty days and forty nights. Noah was 600 years old at the time the great flood started.

According to the scripture, ‘all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened’ and it rained heavily on earth. The flood reached the highest mountains, killing every creature on earth. It killed the fowls and birds, livestock, wild animals, animals that swarmed over the earth and mankind.

Noah’s ark stayed afloat on the surface of the water, while water covered the earth for 150 days.

God remembered Noah and every living animal with him and made a wind to blow, drying the lands. Noah sent a raven and a dove to check if the earth was completely dried, and the dove came back because it was still wet outside. Noah waited another seven days and sent the dove. This time it did not come back, meaning the lands were completely dried.

As soon as Noah and his sons came down from the ark, they built an altar to God. He selected animals and birds that were fit for this purpose. God, smelling the sweet fragrance, was pleased and said in His heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.’

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. He made a covenant with Noah, his sons and descendants, that He would never use flood to destroy earth again. God set the rainbow in the sky as a sign of the covenant with Him and Noah.

To this day, the rainbow reminds us of God’s promise not to destroy the earth with flood again.

Following the flood incident, Noah became a farmer, and he had a vineyard. One day, he drank wine till he got drunk and laid naked in his tent. Ham, who was the father of Canaan, saw his father Noah’s nakedness and decided to tell his other brothers (Shem and Japheth) instead of covering him up. Hearing what happened to their father, Shem and Japheth went inside, took a garment, and covered their father’s nakedness. As they covered their father, they looked the other way so they would not see their father’s nakedness.

When Noah woke up, he heard what his youngest son (Ham) did to him. He was very angry, and cursed Canaan (the son of Ham), saying Canaan and his descendants would be the lowest of slaves to the descendants of Shem and Japheth. Noah then went on to bless Shem and Japheth.