Teaching Tuesday: First Family Feud - Genesis 4 Copy

At first glance, the flood narrative may seem like a simple tale of an ancient deluge or even God’s love for animal life. That was what I was taught growing up in the church. However, it’s so much more than that. When I studied the flood in seminary, I realized that the narrative is actually a depiction of what God did for the salvation of his beloved people. This new insight brought a renewed love for this story.

Several themes in the narrative are worthy of reflection, but this essay will focus on one: the ark itself. An analysis of its design indicates that the ark represents three things: a microcosm of creation, a temple-home, and an emblem of resurrection.

Let’s first clarify one common misconception: The ark wasn’t a boat, at least not the type of boat we’re accustomed to. According to Genesis 6–7, the architectural design was more like that of a house; it was organized into “rooms” (6:14); it had a “window” (correctly translated in NASB, KJV, and NLT) and a “door” (v. 16).

But the ark is more than a mere house—it represents creation itself. It had three floors, the location for the various species of birds, animals, and creeping things (6:20; 7:23; 8:17). These three levels correspond to the threefold levels of creation: the heavens, the earth, and under the earth (Ex. 20:4; Deut. 4:17–18). To further affirm this identification with creation, the “window” and “door” of the ark parallel the “windows of the heavens” above and the “fountains of the great deep” below (7:11), both of which opened to create the deluge.

The Genesis narrative presents the ark as a microcosm of creation, where the Creator dwelled with and ruled over his covenant people. The ark’s symbolic representation of creation may be one reason why the apostle Peter saw the days of Noah as the major event that divides human history (2 Pet. 3:6). If the “world that then existed” was devastated by a cataclysmic divine act of judgment, so will be the case with the “heavens and earth that now exist” (v. 7).

The Genesis narrative presents the ark as a microcosm of creation, where the Creator dwelled with and ruled over his covenant people.

The ark reminds us of God’s holiness. Within the ark, the animals were distinguished as clean or unclean (Gen. 7:2, 8; 8:20). This is the same categorization that was used during the Lord’s theocratic rule over the nation of Israel (Lev. 11), when the holy God sanctified and consecrated Israel as his beloved people into a bond of covenantal fellowship.

The distinction between clean and unclean in the ark informs us this was a holy dwelling place. It wasn’t only a microcosm of creation but also a holy temple.

This isn’t surprising since the initial creation was also a cosmic temple where Adam and Eve dwelled with God. During the flood, Noah and his family dwelt with the Lord in the ark, an indication of the “rest” that the Lord promised he’d give to Noah (Gen. 5:29). As meaningful as this rest was, it was only a shadowy reflection of the true rest, the “Sabbath” (Heb. 4:9), that the true Noah, Jesus Christ, would bring. What Adam looked forward to, and what Noah experienced in a lesser form, believers in Christ will experience fully in consummated glory.

The ark gives us a glimpse of the glorious resurrection. This is what Isaiah envisions in his reinterpretation of the ark:

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a dew of light,

and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you. (Isa. 26:19–20)

The bulk of Isaiah 26 is a vision of the judgment that will occur at the end of history. God, however, will shield his people from this divine retribution because the Lord instructs them to “shut” themselves into a “bedroom,” which, ironically, represents their death (v. 20, my translation).

Isaiah 26:20 is the Lord’s invitation to his people to enter this room, where he will “shut the doors behind them.” Isaiah’s use of bedchamber imagery suggests that the death of the Lord’s beloved people is like a restful slumber in a bedroom where they’re protected from divine wrath against a corrupt world.

Isaiah borrows this image from Genesis 7:16, where the Lord “shut” the doors of the ark behind Noah and his family. By this allusion, Isaiah interprets the enclosure of the Noahic family within the ark-house as their passage through the waters of death. In the flood narrative, God invites Noah to enter the burial chamber of the ark (v. 1). God fastens the door behind the occupants (v. 16), just as in Isaiah 26:20. The ark is a burial room of sorts that functions as a refuge until the time of wrath on the hostile world has passed.

Entering the ark, therefore, was a picture of the death experience. The ark was a floating coffin, a sanctuary in which God sealed his people. Once judgment had passed, their disembarkation was a picture of resurrection. Thus Isaiah declares, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!” (Isa. 26:19).

The ark was a floating coffin, a sanctuary in which God sealed his people.

We live in a world where we face death, both of ourselves and our loved ones. The ark is a powerful reminder that we can look squarely at death without fear and face it with hope, as for us it’s nothing more than deep slumber. We’ll be awakened from this sleep at our resurrection when we’ll dwell in the true ark of the new heavens and earth with the true Noah, who will give us a glorious Sabbath rest. Before the apostle Paul made such conclusions in 1 Corinthians 15:20, Moses was doing so in Genesis. Truly, the ark is more than a boat—much more!