Genesis 8-11

It took about a year for the water to dry up (right on Noah's 601 b-day!). Noah and his family stayed on the ark the whole time. The term "boarding school" comes to my mind when i try picture Noah's three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And it's a real treat if you are on those people who are into cruise trips. You have the whole zoo on board with you.

Where did Noah get all his food? Fishing is a possibility... Cooking and starting a fire on a wooden ark isn't a great idea either. It must have been a strange time and very different lifestyle.

Afterward, God was merciful and made a covenant with the earth that He would not treat us with a "cruise trip" like this ever again. He made rainbow as a sign of this everlasting covenant.

God told Noah that he can have a chinese-style diet: "everything that lives and moves with be food..." (9:3) but he should make sure that it's clean before eating it: "... you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it" (9:4). God also set some expectations about being fruitful and people accounting. That's like the world's first HR apartment. Anyway, the point is every man is made "in the image of God" (9:6).

There was a little incident Noah had with his sons, which i didn't quite understand. Ham saw his father drunk and laying naked in his tent. For unknown motivation, he went out and told his brothers, Shem and Japtheth, who were kind enough to bring his father some clothing to cover him. Afterward, Noah was pretty mad and cursed, not Ham, but Canaan (Ham's son).

Chapter 10 is pretty much accounting of offsprings. The tower of Babel happened in the first half of Ch. 11. After reading the words closely, i found that i didn't understand God's reason for striking the tower, He said: "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them" (11:6). I think He was speaking of our "super" ego, or arrogance.

Chapter 11 went on and did more accounting, which also included the age when people gave birth. It seems like after Shem everyone was having baby early, like in their 30s. Before that the parenthood age was around 100. It gets younger too. Nahor, the 7th generation descendants of Shem, was the first to break 30, having kids at 29. Abram was the grandson of Nahor.