January 21, 2010

A Reply to Michael Stallard and His Misuse of Noah and the Flood in Genesis 7:10

Dr. Michael Stallard writes:

"The floodwaters did not begin until Noah and his family were in the ark for a full week according to Genesis 7:10."

He is responding to the prewrath tenet that the same day that the rapture happens will be the same day that the Day of the Lord begins. We point out that Jesus cited the flood as an example to show this back-to-back nature of God's deliverance of his people and his pouring out of his wrath:

"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage--right up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:26-27).

Jesus is explicit that it was the very day Noah entered the ark, "right up to the day." What does "right up to the day" mean for Stallard? We are not told. He then appeals to a proof text of Genesis 7:10:

"And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth." (Gen 7:10).

That is all we are given by Stallard. There was no attempt to show how this verse supports his assertion. He is assuming that the seven days began after Noah and his family entered the ark. But that is not what the verse, nor the context, says.

The context is clear that the seven days refers to God's command to Noah to get animals into the ark before seven days come to pass. Here is the context:

"The LORD said to Noah, "Come into the ark, you and all your household, for I consider you godly among this generation. (2) You must take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, the male and its mate, two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate, (3) and also seven of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of the earth. (4) For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made." (5) And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. (6) Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters engulfed the earth. (7) Noah entered the ark along with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives because of the floodwaters. (8) Pairs of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground, (9) male and female, came into the ark to Noah, just as God had commanded him. (10) And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth." (Gen 7:1-10).

But that is not all! If one continues to read, they will see even a more explicit statement that it happened on the same day:

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month--on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. (12) And the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. (13) On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons' three wives. (14) They entered, along with every living creature after its kind, every animal after its kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, everything with wings. (15) Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life came into the ark to Noah. (16) Those that entered were male and female, just as God commanded him. Then the LORD shut him in. (17) The flood engulfed the earth for forty days. As the waters increased, they lifted the ark and raised it above the earth. (18) The waters completely overwhelmed the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters." (Gen 7:11-18).

So Jesus' use of the flood story is accurate and fitting: two events of deliverance and judgment, back-to-back, on the very same day.