The story of Noah's ark
When the earth was filled with violence, God judged it with a flood but saved Noah, his family and the animals in an ark He told Noah to build. Afterwards God promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood and gave the rainbow as the sign of that covenant. The story shows both God’s judgment on sin and His grace to those who trust Him.
For many people Noah’s ark is a children’s story about animals going in two by two. In Genesis it is a much weightier account of a corrupt world, a God who judges sin and a grace that rescues one family. It fills four chapters, from Genesis 6 to Genesis 9.
A corrupt world and a man who found grace
The account opens with God’s verdict on the world.
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
Gen 6:5–8 · King James Version (1769)
John MacArthur calls verse 5 one of the clearest statements in Scripture of the sinfulness of human nature: sin begins in the thoughts of the heart. When the text says God repented and was grieved, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain that God does not change like a man. The language is fitted to our understanding and means that He was about to turn from long patience to judgment.
Then comes the turning point: Noah found grace. Commentators weigh this differently. Matthew Henry says God’s goodwill toward Noah produced the good in him, and JFB adds that Noah was not spared for any merit of his own. The New Geneva Study Bible, on the other hand, links the favor to Noah’s righteousness described in the next verse (Genesis 6:9). MacArthur holds the two together: Noah was a man of faith who humbly sought God’s grace and then obeyed.
God tells Noah what is coming and how to build the ark (Genesis 6:13–22). MacArthur notes that the Hebrew word means a box made to float, the same word used for the basket of the infant Moses. It was not built for beauty or speed. With a cubit of about 18 inches, it was some 450 feet (about 137 meters) long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high, with three decks: a shape that would be very hard to capsize. God also promises to make His covenant with Noah (Genesis 6:18), the first time the word “covenant” appears in Scripture.
Noah’s response is told in one sentence.
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
Gen 6:22 · King James Version (1769)
The New Testament holds this up as an example of faith.
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
Heb 11:7 · King James Version (1769)
MacArthur points out that the world had never seen anything like the coming flood, yet Noah took God’s warning seriously, and his faith showed itself in obedience.
The flood, the dove and the rainbow
God tells Noah to take clean animals by sevens and the others by two (Genesis 7:1–5). Here too interpreters differ. JFB reports that Calvin and Delitzsch understood seven animals, while others, like John Gill, read seven pairs. Noah, his family and the animals go in, and the Lord shuts the door (Genesis 7:16). Henry sees in this God’s care: Noah’s safety was in God’s hands, not his own. Then the waters come.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Gen 7:11–12 · King James Version (1769)
The water rises until it covers the high mountains, and everything outside the ark perishes (Genesis 7:17–24). Then comes the turning point of the story.
And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;
Gen 8:1 · King James Version (1769)
The New Geneva Study Bible explains that “remembered” in Hebrew means acting on an earlier commitment, not recalling something forgotten. The ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4), in the region the ancients called Urartu, later Armenia. Noah sends out a raven and then a dove, until the dove no longer returns (Genesis 8:6–12). Adam Clarke reckons that Noah spent about a year in the ark.
Noah’s first act on dry ground is worship.
And Noah built an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Gen 8:20–22 · King James Version (1769)
God gives as His reason that the human heart is still evil from youth. Henry puts it plainly: “The flood washed away the race of wicked men, but it did not remove sin from man’s nature.” JFB explains that God therefore chose to bear with mankind under a lasting order of grace rather than destroy the world again. He then makes a covenant with every living creature (Genesis 9:8–11) and gives it a sign.
And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
Gen 9:12–16 · King James Version (1769)
MacArthur notes that when God says He will remember, this is His pledge to keep the promise. The Dallas Theological Seminary commentary adds that the Hebrew word for the rainbow also means a war bow: hung in the clouds, it signals that the storm of judgment is over.