After that, Noah descended the mountain along with the eighty persons who had been saved with him, and he found that not a house was left standing on the face of the earth. Noah built a town consisting of eighty houses,—a house apiece for all who had been saved with him.[199]
Fabricius, in his collection of apocrypha of the Old Testament, has published the prayer that Noah offered daily in the ark, beside the body of Adam, which he bore with him, to bury it on Golgotha.
“O Lord, Thou art excellent in truth, and nothing is great beside Thee; look upon us in mercy; deliver us from this deluge of water for the sake of the pangs of Adam, the first man whom Thou didst make; for the sake of the blood of Abel, the holy one; for the sake of just Seth, in whom Thou didst delight; number us not amongst those who have broken Thy commandments, but cover us with Thy protection, for Thou art our deliverer, and to Thee alone are due the praises uttered by the works of Thy hands from all eternity.” And all the children of Noah responded, “Amen, O Lord.”[200]
Noah is said to have left the ark on the tenth day of the first month of the Mussulman year, and to have instituted the fast which the Mahommedans observe on that day, to thank God for his deliverance.
According to the Book of Enoch, the water of the Flood was transformed by God into fire, which will consume the world and the ungodly, at the consummation of all things.[201]
The Targum of Palestine says that the dove plucked the leaf she brought to Noah from off a tree on the Mount of Olives.[202]
The Book Jasher supplies an omission in Genesis. In Genesis it is said of Lamech, on the birth of Noah, “He called his name Noah; saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed;”[203] but Noah signifies rest, not comfort. The Book Jasher says that the Methuselah called the child Noah, rest, because the land rested from the curse; but Lamech called him Menahem, comfort, for the reason given in the text of Genesis. The sacred writer has given one name with the signification of the other.[204]