The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia

by Theophilus G. Pinches

It is apparently given as the result of these unions between the pious men and the daughters of the people that wickedness became rife in the earth, and man's imagination continually evil; and this was so to such an extent that the Almighty repented of having created man, and decided to destroy the wicked generation—both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air—dwelling upon the earth—all except Noah, who found favour in the eyes of Yahwah.

Having decided to destroy the life of the world by means of a flood, God communicated His intention and the reason thereof to the patriarch, and instructed him to build an ark in which he was to save both himself and his family from the impending destruction. The vessel is to be built of gopher-wood, to have rooms in it, and to be pitched within and without with pitch. The dimensions also are specified. Its length was to be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. He was to [pg 088] make the ark “with light” (צהר or רהצ), that is, with windows, and their length or height, apparently, was to be a cubit. The vessel was to have a door, and to be built with three stories, lower, second, and third. In accordance with God's covenant with the patriarch, he, his sons, and his sons' wives were to be saved, along with every living thing, male and female of each kind. For all this great multitude a sufficiency of food was directed to be provided.

Then comes the command (the ark having been duly built, and all the directions followed) to enter into the vessel, and further instructions are given with regard to the creatures that are to be saved, with a slight modification in the numbers, for the clean beasts are to be taken in “by sevens,” and all the rest, “the unclean,” by pairs. God then announces that in seven days' time He will cause rain to come upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. “All the fountains of the great deep” were broken up, and the Lord shut up those upon whom He had favour in the ark.

Then, as the rain continued, the waters “prevailed exceedingly” upon the earth, and the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered, the depth of the waters being “fifteen cubits and upwards.” Everything was destroyed, “Noah alone remained alive, and those who were with him in the ark.”

“And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.”

The “fountains of the deep” and “the windows of heaven” having been stopped, and the “rain from heaven” restrained, the waters abated, leaving the ark high and dry upon the mountains of Ararat; and after the tops of the mountains were seen, Noah looked out of the window that he had made. He then sent forth a raven and a dove, and the latter, not finding a resting-place, returned to him, to be sent forth again at the end of another week. The dove [pg 089] again returned bearing in her beak an olive-leaf. Seven days more passed, and the dove, having been sent out a third time, returned to him no more. Recognizing that the waters were now all returned into their old channels, and that the land was dry enough for him and his, Noah removed the covering of the vessel, and saw that his supposition was correct, and having received the command to come forth from the ark, which had been his abiding-place for so long, and to send forth the living creatures that were with him, the patriarch obeyed, and, when on dry land, built an altar to Yahwah, and offered burnt offerings thereon of every clean beast and every clean fowl.

“And the Lord smelled a sweet savour (lit. a savour of rest); 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.... While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Then comes, in the ninth chapter, the blessing of God, with a charge concerning the shedding of blood. He makes also a covenant with Noah, by the sign of the rainbow, declaring that a like calamity shall never again come upon the earth to destroy all life that is upon it.

Such is, in short, the Bible story of the great flood that destroyed, at a remote age of the world, all life upon the earth. It is a narrative circumstantially told, with day, month, and year all indicated, and it forms a good subject for comparison with the Babylonian account, with which it agrees so closely in all the main points, and from which it differs so much in many essential details.

As in the case of the Babylonian story of the Creation, it has been thought well not only to give a fairly full translation of the Babylonian story of the Flood, but also to indicate under what circumstances [pg 090] that story appears in the series of tablets in which it is found.