Noah - Noah in Genesis

Noah in Genesis

Noah was the tenth of the pre-Flood Patriarchs. His father Lamech named him nûaḥ (the final ḥ is a more guttural sound than the English h), saying, "This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh from the ground which the LORD hath cursed." This connects the future patriarch's name with nāḥam, "comfort", but it seems better related to the word nûaḥ, meaning "rest", and is more a play on words than a true etymology.

In his five hundredth year Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. In his six hundredth year God, saddened at the wickedness of mankind, sent a great deluge to destroy all life, but because Noah was "righteous in his generation" God instructed him to build an ark and save a remnant of life. After the Flood Noah offered a sacrifice and entered into a covenant with God regulating the shedding of blood (i.e., mankind's permission to kill under regulated circumstances). As a sign and witness of this covenant, the rainbow was adopted and set apart by God as a sure pledge that never again would the earth be destroyed by a flood. (Genesis 9:12 - 15) After this, Noah became an Husbandman, "the first tiller of the soil", and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and was uncovered within his tent. Noah's son Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his brethren and Noah cursed Ham's son Canaan.

Noah died 350 years after the Flood, at the age of 950, the last of the immensely long-lived antediluvian Patriarchs. The maximum human lifespan, as depicted by the Bible, diminishes rapidly thereafter, from almost 1,000 years to the 120 years of Moses.