Chapter Two/ Noah - "Go . . . Into the Ark"

Decades passed, and the ark gradually assumed its final shape.  As Noah neared his 600th year, he dealt with losses. His father, Lamech died. "Five years later, Lamech's father, Noah's grandfather Methuselah, died at the age of 969-ending the longest life in the Bible record.  (Genesis 5:27) Both Methuselah and Lamech had been contemporaries of the first man, Adam.

In his 600th year, the patriarch Noah received a new message from Jehovah God:  "Go, you and all your household, into the ark."  At the same time, God told Noah to take all the kinds of animals into the ark-by sevens in the case of the clean ones, fit for sacrificial use, and the rest by twos. - GENESIS 7:1-3.

 It must have been an unforgettable sight.  From the horizon they streamed in by the thousands-walking, flying, crawling, lumbering-all in an astonishing variety of sizes, shapes, and dispositions. We need not imagine poor Noah trying to corral, wrangle or somehow cajole all those wild animals into entering the confined space of the ark. The account says that "They went in . . . to Noah inside the ark." - GENESIS 7:9.

Next time: Chapter Two/ Noah - Continue with "Go . . . Into the Ark"

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