6. “Noah…Prepared an Ark to the Saving of His House”

6

“Noah…Prepared an Ark to the Saving of His House”

While the scriptures give evidence of human sin and God’s judgement in the history of Noah, they also portray God bridging the gap between himself and humans for the righteous, drawing them into his presence, as both Enoch and Noah walked with God.

The LDS Story of Enoch as the Culminating Episode of a Temple Text, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, BYU Studies, Vol. 53, no. 1
The first eleven chapters of the Bible (including Gen. 6-9, focusing on Noah) have two themes. The first, the aspirations of humans to divine status which is denied them, is shown in the transgressions of Adam and Eve, Cain, Lamech, and the Tower of Babel. But a significant and opposite theme is that within these same chapters God is also portrayed as having sought to erase the divine-human boundary for a righteous few, drawing them in his very presence: Enoch and Noah both “walk with God.”

“‘All Things Denote There is a God’: Seeing Christ in the Creation,” Bruce A. Roundy and Robert J. Norman, Religious Educator
A major theme of the history of the covenant people is the spiritual bondage of sin which leads to physical bondage. That which destroys sin in the sinner or destroys the sinner who will not repent also purifies and saves the repentant. Therefore, the eight souls of Noah’s family are spoken of as being “saved by water” (1 Peter 3:20), which water also destroyed the wicked who “hearkened not” (Moses 8:20) to Noah. God told Noah that the arch of a rainbow represented His remembrance of the everlasting covenant that He made with Enoch.

“Jared and His Brother,” Thomas R. Valletta, Fourth Nephi, From Zion to Destruction
Examines the typological correspondences between the pattern of exodus (found in the histories of Noah, the Jaredites, the Israelites, and Lehi) and the eternal plan of redemption. Compares the Jaredite vessels to Noah’s ark: both were directed by God, were made tight, and were symbols of exodus from wickedness.

“Major Doctrinal Contributions of the JST,” Robert J. Matthews, The Joseph Smith Translation: The Restoration of Plain and Precious Truths
The KJV mentions a covenant with Noah but does not say what the covenant was. In the Joseph Smith Translation, the statement is clarified to show that it is the same covenant that was given to Enoch, which was the same as was given to Adam, and so forth. Let us read from JST Genesis the instructions from the Lord to Noah:

And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I will establish my covenant with, which I made unto your father Enoch, concerning your seed after you.

And I will establish my covenant with you, which I made unto Enoch, concerning the remnants of hour posterity.

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant, which I made unto they father Enoch; that, when men should keep al my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself.

And this is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy;

And the general assembly of the church of the first-born shall come down out of heaven, and possess the earth, and shall have place until the end come. And this mine everlasting covenant, which I made with thy father Enoch. (JST Genesis 9:15, 17, 21–23).

“Insights into the Book of Genesis,” George A. Horton Jr., The Joseph Smith Translation: The Restoration of Plain and Precious Truths
The Joseph Smith Translation has much to teach us about Noah. The JST clearly provides the reason why Noah, his sons, and their wives boarded the boat and were saved, while the rest of their family, friends, and neighbors all went to a watery grave. The JST says: “And Noah and his sons hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed, and they were called the sons of God” (JST, Genesis 8:1/Moses 8:13). This also explains why the Lord was grieved when Noah’s daughters accepted marriage proposals from the sons of men (i.e., those who would not hearken) (JST, Genesis 8:3/Moses 8:15.)

Genesis 6:6 (JST, Genesis 8:15; Moses 8:25). It was Noah, not the Lord, who was sorry (repented) that the Lord had made man.