Day 003 - Genesis 7-9

There's a lot of repetition today particularly in the first chapter when we're told about Noah going into the boat twice and the animals he would take with him three times. It's a very familiar story, but one that's easy to get slightly wrong unless we pay close attention to the text. We always think that, "the animals went in two by two, hurrah", because of the song and pictures of the event (even the illustration in my Bible has it like that). However Noah is commanded to take seven pairs of each ritual clean animal and one pair of each ritually unclean animal with him. You may think that this is unimportant (and to be honest in the grand scheme of things it isn't), but it does make sense to pay close attention to the text.

What this passage does throw up is the idea of 'clean' and 'unclean', which isn't really explained at this point. We'll get a detailed set of instructions later when we get to the law, but at this point you have to wonder where Noah got his knowledge about the cleanliness of animals from. One can only assume that there was an unrecorded conversation between him and God about the details.

The thing that strikes me about these early passages is the relationship that the characters have with God. God speaks clearly to people and they can choose to follow his guiding or not and they seem to know a way of living that will please God (e.g. sacrificing to him). At the same time there isn't rigourous law set out for them to follow and there's no scripture to refer to at this point. All Noah gets told in chapter 9 is to have loads of kids, to rule of the animal kingdom (making sure not to eat meat with blood in it) and that murder will bring punishment on the perpetrator.

We end today with one of those strange human events that compliment the universal scale of the rest of the narrative. Noah becomes the first drunk recorded in the Bible and his youngest son has a good laugh at his immodesty whilst his two older sons do their best to cover him up and preserve his honour. This event becomes prophetic in Noah's sober eyes and sets up future biblical events...