The Flood and the Reversal of Creation

Genesis 6-9 and the undoing of Genesis 1. Almost.

This is the seventh part of our series examining the image of water in the Bible. Over the next months, we’ll be looking at these verses to follow the image of water as it flows from Genesis to Revelation. This time we’ll look at Genesis 6-9 and the story of the flood.

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The verses in focus this time span Genesis 6-9, so I’ll just quote a few key passages.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. So the Lord was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe out mankind whom I have created from the face of the land; mankind, and animals as well, and crawling things, and the birds of the sky. For I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:5-8)

“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 sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.” (Genesis 7:11, 12)

But God remembered Noah and all the animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of 150 days the water decreased. Then in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. (Genesis 8:1-4)

The Story Before the Story

After Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, things went on a downward spiral. Humanity multiplied and warlords arose. Cain killed his brother Abel. Cain’s descendants quickly grew into clans that spilled out into the land of Nod, east of Eden, further along in the direction of the exile.

Genesis 4 tells a story about one of Cain’s descendants, Lamech, who boasts (to his two wives) that though Cain killed one man, he has killed a man for merely wounding him. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold. The moral of the story is that things have gone from bad to worse and show no signs of stopping. All is not well in the new cities east of Eden; the curse of Genesis 3 is intensifying.

The text highlights this part of the story:

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5) and it grieved God “to his heart.” (Genesis 6:6)

Enter, the flood. 

The Waters of Uncreation

The narrative sets up a contrast between the events of the flood in Genesis 6-9 and the story of creation in Genesis 1-2 with striking parallels across the two passages.

The symphony of creation in Genesis 1 consisted of several movements. First, there was a watery wasteland and the Spirit of God hovered over the deep. Then there was light. Then the waters were parted vertically and God made the heavens. Next, God divided the waters again and dry land rose up out of the deep. Having cleared space amid the chaotic waters, God filled the good place he had made: first with vegetation, then the heavenly lights, followed by the fish and animals, and, finally, humanity. 

With the flood, God brings back the chaotic waters he cleared away in Genesis 1. It is the return of the earth to its initial state of watery chaos; the deep covers the dry land God has made and the chaotic waters sweep everything away.

The rain falls from above as the waters that had formerly been separated vertically fall from the “windows of the heavens” (Gen 7:11). The waters also rise up from below as “fountains of the deep burst forth” (Gen 7:11). With these two events, it is as if the door is closing on the second and third day of the creation story in Genesis 1. A key word from Genesis 1 for the deep (tehom) and the reference to the sky-dome (raquia) create links between the events of the two chapters.

As the door closes on the first two days of creation, it closes on all the others as well. The chaotic water that was separated on the second day of creation returns, bringing its chaos with it. As Genesis highlights: “And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind” (Gen 7:21).

The mountains are the last to go, and the text points out specifically that they are completely covered. The waters rise so high that even Eden, God’s high place established over and against the deep, is swallowed up. 

Essentially, what Genesis 1 built, the flood reverses and drowns. Almost.

The Meanings of the Waters

The floodwaters have many meanings. We have already looked at the general meaning as a symbol of chaos and a force that is the reversal of God’s life-giving order. In terms of the effect of the inundation of chaos, the text points out a  three-fold meaning to the waters: judgment, consequence, and cleansing. God saw that the “wickedness of mankind was great on the earth” and sent the flood as a judgment, an impediment to human wickedness that rose out of the grief of his heart (Gen 6:5-6). 

In the flood, God was also connecting humanity with the consequences of its pattern of life. The evil humanity made of the earth unmade the earth. Life flourishes in God’s goodness and order, his way. Sin and evil not only bring disorder, chaos, and death, they are death. Did God send the flood waters to cover the earth again? Yes. And in another sense, the people had already become chaos and death as they embodied and lived out a way of life that was against God’s way, as the text says, “every intention of man’s heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5)

The image of water in the Bible is a complex and rich one. The flood can be both judgment and the consequences of death and can be a force of cleansing at the same time. God puts a block in the way of humanity’s headlong slide into evil and carries his chosen remnant through the flood unharmed to start afresh in a world that has been returned to an innocent state. The momentum of human evil that was building as humanity grew in power and number is checked and the text makes clear connections between the Garden of Eden and what happens to Noah’s family after they leave the ark. It is a new beginning and a chance to have a different end. 

The Waters Recede

As the waters recede, we again see a reprisal of the creation story. When “God remembers Noah” he causes a “wind (ruach: wind, Spirit) to pass over the land” (Gen 8:1) and the waters subside. Suddenly we are back in Genesis 1:2. God’s spirit is hovering over the deep, poised for the work of creation to begin.

“The fountains of the deep (tehom) and the rain from the windows of the heavens was restrained” (Gen 8:2) and the waters go back to the place God assigned to them. When the rain stops and the sky clears, the water is again separated vertically as it was on the second day of creation. 

As the water recedes, we see a reprisal of the third day of creation too. The waters are again separated horizontally and dry land emerges. Think of how it would have looked from the ark's window to see the waters recede. First, the tips of the mountains would have become visible, then it would have appeared that they rose up out of the sea as the water drained away and the ark settled on dry land again. 

Next, the other days of creation are repeated as well. The animals emerge from the ark and plant life begins to flourish again. Noah leaves the ark as a new Adam, placed once again in a garden (Gen 9:20) on a high mountain paradise and given the calling to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 9:7).

God makes a covenant with Noah that he will never again cause the waters of chaos to destroy the earth (Gen 9:11). Of course, just as in Eden, instead of spreading God’s goodness, order, and peace, Noah and his family begin again to spread the disaster of human evil (Gen 9:18-29). Again, just as in Eden, the innocence of the renewed creation is shattered because of fruit, but that is another story.