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Genesis

About this book

The Flood

Chapter 7

1 The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark,⁠ you and all your household, for I consider you godly among this generation.⁠ 2 You must take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, the male and its mate, two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate,⁠ 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of the entire earth.⁠ 4 For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”⁠ 5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. 6 Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters engulfed the earth. 7 Noah entered the ark along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives because of the floodwaters. 8 Pairs of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground,⁠ 9 male and female, came into the ark to Noah, just as God had commanded him. 10 And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth.⁠ 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month—on⁠ that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.⁠ 12 And the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. 13 On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons’ three wives.⁠ 14 They entered, along with every living creature after its kind, every animal after its kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life came into the ark to Noah. 16 Those that entered were male and female, just as God commanded him. Then the Lord shut him in.⁠ 17 The flood engulfed the earth for 40 days.⁠ As the waters increased, they lifted the ark and raised it above the earth. 18 The waters completely overwhelmed the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.⁠ 19 The waters completely inundated the earth so that even all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered.⁠ 20 The waters rose more than 20 feet above the mountains. 21 And all living things that moved on the earth died, including the birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all humankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 So the Lord destroyed every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived.⁠ 24 The waters prevailed over the earth for 150 days.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 7:13 and Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 138.1

Hebrew Bible · Early Christian

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Summary

In Genesis, Noah enters the ark with his wife, three sons, and their wives as the flood begins. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin interprets these eight survivors as a picture of the eighth day, when Jesus rose from the dead.

Passages

Genesis 7:13

Hebrew Bible
7 Noah entered the ark along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives because of the floodwaters. 8 Pairs of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground, 9 male and female, came into the ark to Noah, just as God had commanded him. 10 And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month—on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. 13 On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons’ three wives.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 138.1

Early Christian
1 “You know, then, sirs,” I said, “that in Isaiah God said to Jerusalem, ‘I saved you in the flood of Noah.’ What God meant by this is that the mystery of saved humanity took place in the flood. For righteous Noah, along with the others at the flood, that is, his wife, his three sons, and his sons’ wives, eight in number, were a symbol of the day that is eighth in number, on which our Christ appeared when He rose from the dead, though in power it is always the first. 2 For Christ, being the firstborn of all creation, also became the beginning of another race, the one reborn through Him by water, faith, and wood, which holds the mystery of the cross, just as Noah was saved by wood, riding on the waters with his household. So when the prophet says, ‘I saved you in the time of Noah,’ as I said before, he is speaking to the people who are likewise faithful to God and have these symbols. For Moses too led your people through the sea with a rod in his hand. 3 But you think He was speaking to your nation alone, or to the land. Yet since the whole earth, as the Scripture says, was flooded, and the water rose fifteen cubits above all the mountains, it is evident that God was not speaking to the land but to the people who obey Him, for whom He also prepared a place of rest in Jerusalem beforehand, as was shown earlier through all the symbols of the flood. I mean that by water, faith, and wood, those who prepare themselves beforehand and repent of the sins they have committed will escape the judgment of God that is coming.
155–160 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho

References

“... (3) Christians observe Sunday because being the eighth day it “pos- sesses a certain mysterious import, which the seventhday did not possess.56 For instance, Justin claims that circumcision was performed on the eighth day because it was a “type of the true circumcision by which we are circum- cised from error and wickedness through our Lord Jesus Christ who arose from the dead on the first day of the week.”57 Further, the eight persons saved from the flood at the time of Noah “were a figure of that eighth day (which is, however, always first in power) on which our Lord appeared as risenfrom the dead.”58 ...”
Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1977), 226.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 7:13 and Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 138.1

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