Bible Workbook

Lesson Three: Genesis 6-9 (truncated)

• People began to marry and multiply. There is a reference here to sons of God taking wives of the daughters of men. Different views on this passage exist because we just do not have enough evidence in the text to support a position. (Genesis 6:1-3)

• God explains that His spirit would not continue in men and that they should only live a maximum of 120 years. (Genesis 6:4)

• People did continue to live over 120 years after that. For example, we read Sarah lived to be 127 years old (Genesis 23:1), that Abraham lived to be 175 years old (Genesis 25:7), and that Jacob lived to be 147 years old (Genesis 47:28).

• The most common interpretation of what God meant was a prophesy of events to come which we will cover in this lesson. God will essentially wipe out humanity in about 120 years.

• The Bible tells us there were giants on the earth in those days, born to the sons of God and daughters of men and refers to them as “mighty men of old.” Different views on this passage exist because we just do not have enough evidence in the text to support a position. (Genesis 6:4)

• There was so much evil in the world that God was sorry that He made people in the first place and He determines the solution is to eliminate people. (Genesis 6:5-7)

• God finds one good person on the earth, the man named Noah. (Genesis 6:8-9)

• God tells Noah his plan to destroy the earth and gives him very specific instructions about how to build a very large boat. (Genesis 6:10-16)

• God tells him the reason: He will use a great flood which will cover the earth to destroy everything. (Genesis 6:17)

• God tells him the plan to save Noah and his family. He is to keep two of each kind of animal – one male and one female, and to take food with him. (Genesis 6:18-22)

• The way God uses a boat to save Noah from the sinful world is just as how we use baptism to be saved today. We are saved through the water just like Noah was. (I Peter 3:20-22)

• God tells Noah that he should take 7 pairs of certain kinds of animals which He refers to as “clean” animals. This is a good example of the fact that we just don’t have all details recorded because even though we do not read about God giving humans definitions of what animals are considered “clean” (ok to eat) and what are considered “unclean’ (not okay to eat), God clearly communicated that, at least to Noah. (Genesis 7:1-3)

• God provides a final notice to Noah that he needs to get this project going immediately because in one week God will start the rain, which will go on for forty straight days. (Genesis 7:4-5)

• Right up until the day it started to rain, people were continuing in evil. Jesus compares them not knowing they were going to be destroyed for their sin with the time he chooses to return. (Matthew 24:37-39)

• The very day it starts to rain, Noah and his wife, Noah’s three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, their three wives (total of 8 people) and all the animals get on the boat (ark) (Genesis 7:6-15)

• Noah was over 500 years old when he had his three sons (Genesis 6:32) and the rain started when he was a little over 600 (Genesis 7:11), and we know that at least (possibly more) 100 years pass from the time Noah gets the instruction from God and the time the rain starts. It also stands to reason that, at least until Noah’s sons were old enough to help, that Noah was building the ark by himself.

• Some argue that the 120 year figure in verse 4 of Genesis 7 is literal and reason that Noah might have received the instruction before he had his sons. Still others argue that this number is figurative and an estimate. Both of these points of view agree that verse 4 is a prophetic statement about the flood.

• After everyone is safely in the ark, God himself shuts the door to seal them in. (Genesis 7:16)

• This reminds us of the song “God Put in Rainbow in the Cloud” which starts out “when God shut Noah in the grand old ark...” (words and music by Andrew Jenkins, 1931, public domain).

• Everything on land and air, including people and animals, all die. (Genesis 7:17-23)

• Water covers the earth for 150 days. (Genesis 7:24 – 8:3)

Questions:

1. What do we read about people doing at the beginning of Genesis 6?

2. What does God probably mean when He says men should only live 120 years?

3. What were on the earth during this time?

4. What does God decide to do about all the evil in the world?

5. What is the name of the one man God does find that is good?

6. What does God tell Noah to build?

7. How does God say He will destroy the earth?

8. What does God tell Noah is his plan to save him?

9. What is the significance of the fact that God plans to save Noah through the waters?

10. How many “clean” animals was Noah to take? What does “clean” mean?

11. How much time passes between God’s final notice to Noah and when the rains start?

12. How many people were on the ark that Noah made? Who were they?

13. What is the time frame involved in the construction of the ark? How do we know that?

14. Who shuts the door to the ark?

15. Of what song does this remind us?

16. Who and what dies during the flood?