Why Was Noah Spared the Flood?

Note: This post was first published on ROOTSS on Tuesday, 8th May 2007

Imagine that you pick up the New Paper one day to read the following headline

FATHER OF THREE FOUND NAKED BY SONS IN DRUNKEN STUPOR.
FATHER WAKES UP AND CURSES HIS YOUNGEST SON FOR EXPOSING HIM.

What impression would you form about this father and his son?

Now read Gen 9:20-27...

One of the most familiar stories in the Bible is regarding Noah and the flood.

What may not have been expounded in detail, however, was the event leading up to the flood (as well as the above event that happened after the flood).

I remember my Sunday School teachers telling us very simplistically that Noah was spared from God's judgement because the entire world was wicked and evil, whereas only he, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives were good and upright.

Yet we read in Gen 9 about how Noah got drunk one day and lay naked, and his youngest son Ham ratted on him. When Noah woke up, he placed a curse on the descendants of Ham.

Sure doesn't seem like the behaviour of persons who were good and upright.

So why did God spare him and his family, yet everyone else perished in the flood?

For that, we need to read the account leading up to the flood.

In Gen 6:9, Noah was described as a "perfect man". The original Hebrew word is tamiym (Strong's 08549), which means "without blemish" or "unadulterated". This same word is used to describe the condition of animals that were acceptable to be offered unto the Lord under the Levitical customs.

Earlier in the same chapter, we also read about "unholy unions" between fallen angels and humans.

Gen 6:1-3 (Contemporary English Version)
More and more people were born, until finally they spread all over the earth. Some of their daughters were so beautiful that supernatural beings came down and married the ones they wanted.

What resulted from those unholy unions were gigantic freaks (or what some versions refer to as Nephilim).

Now why would these fallen angels want to do that?

Remember that prophesy that took place in the Garden of Eden in Gen 3:15?

Satan was now summoning his followers to corrupt the seed of Eve, hoping that it would prevent that prophesy from coming to pass!

But thankfully, God was again one step ahead of the evil one. Noah and his family were the only ones left who remained unblemished. He was asked to build the ark and take one pair of each kind of animal with him. The workings of the devil in trying to corrupt the seed of Eve came to an abrupt end when all the products of the unholy unions perished in the flood.

Noah was spared not because he was without sin, but because he was the only unblemished specimen of mankind left on earth!

The genealogy of Jesus was thus preserved. The lineage from Noah to Abraham as recorded in Gen 11:10-32 is as follows:

Noah
Shem
Arphaxad
Cainan
Shelah
Eber
Peleg
Reu
Serug
Nahor
Terah
Abraham

There is not much mentioned about the partriachs between Shem and Abraham.

However, Abraham was told specifically by God that he would become a father of many nations. The devil heard this and hence began his dirty deeds in earnest again.

I will blog about what he tried to do to Abraham and Sarah to prevent the first prophesy from happening, and how God continued to outsmart him.  So stay tuned.