The Sacrifice of Noah, Francesco Fernandi (1679-1740), Stourhead, UK, National Trust Museum.
This article is Part 3 of the FAI Publishing series Seeds and Generations, a Biblical survey of the theology of “Seed” and “Generation” throughout redemptive history to the end of the age.
10 Generations, 1000 years
Adam took the body of his martyr-son and buried it in the cursed ground. In the wake of the first battle of the two seeds, the first parents mourned the first death in human history. Soon afterward, Eve would conceive again. Seth would be a son “appointed” to continue the hope of her Promised Seed.[1] And so the lineage continued through the first generations. Seth begat Enosh. Enosh fathered Kenan, then Mahalalel, then Jared, then Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech.[2] We know that the Spirit of the Seed of the Woman continued to survive through at least some of Seth’s offspring, as Enoch “walked with God”[3] and was commended as “one who pleased God”[4] before he was “taken” from the Earth sans death.
More than this, Jude expands on Enoch’s role in the antediluvian world, revealing that the seventh from Adam “prophesied, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all...’”[4] These words would be echoed millennia later by the ultimate Seed of the Woman regarding his “coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory.”[5] When Enoch’s grandson Lamech fathered a son, he named him Noah, for “out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us rest from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.”[6]
Therefore, we know that the Lord’s promise of the Seed who would crush the serpent’s head and reverse the curse was carefully preserved for 1,000 years through 10 generations. But as the Biblical narrative reaches the days of Noah, those who followed in Abel and Enoch’s footsteps had become few. More than this, the serpent would soon deploy a shocking strategy to further entrench his seed within the human race, and the hope of the Promised Seed would become faint.
SONS OF GOD, DAUGHTERS OF MEN
Besides Cain, Abel, and Seth, the Torah records that Adam and Eve bore “other sons and daughters” (according to tradition, 56 children in total).[7] Ten-fold lifespans allowed for the rapid multiplication of humans on the Earth, and according to the Spirit-inspired narrator, the rate of human pro-creation gave the serpent a foothold into the human race.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose…The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.[8]
The identity of these “sons of God” who took the beautiful “daughters of men” as wives and procreated with them is highly controversial. Some consider them to be human men, as angelic beings don’t marry or procreate.[9] However, the Hebrew Scriptures always use the phrase “sons of God” in reference to angelic beings, and ancient Jewish and Christian sources unanimously agree.[10] This means that other divine beings followed the serpent in his rebellion, and that they were somehow able to take on human bodies and pro-create with human women. Their offspring were notably tall (Nephilim can be loosely translated as giant) and were both renowned and feared by other humans. The result of angelic rebellion and human rebellion co-mingled together was the dramatic amplification of the serpent’s seed across the Earth.
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…Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.[11]
The world in which Noah lived was dominated by the seed of the serpent, full of wicked hearts and violent hands. And yet, the Creator was still King.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years”…And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.”[12]
As the enmity of the seed of the serpent grew exponentially, the Creator once again intervened. Unlike the generation around him, Noah was a “righteous…blameless” man like his ancestor Abel, a man who “walked with God” as a “preacher of righteousness” like his great-grandfather Enoch.[13] Noah stood as the witness of the Seed of the Woman in his day. And as the enmity of the serpent’s seed intensified, the Creator once again determined to confront it. The cursed ground would soon break open, and the deeps would burst forth to flood the Earth.
DEEP FOUNTAINS, HEAVENLY WINDOWS
The Lord warned Noah of the impending deluge. Such a catastrophic event was unthinkable, as it had never rained before. Yet during the intervening 120 years, Noah exhibits one of the key characteristics of the Seed of the Woman:
By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.[14]
Noah took God at his word, although he could not yet see the reality of God’s warning. Instead of taking for himself what could be seen with his eyes, as his forefather Adam had done, he looked instead to “things not yet seen.” In his labor, Noah displayed the “reverence” of obedient hands by “preparing” for his coming salvation. In doing so, he “condemned” a world dominated by the serpent’s seed and “became an heir” to the promise of the Seed of the Woman. Therefore, abiding in the word of God is the hallmark of the Seed of the Woman. Believing the lies of the serpent is the hallmark of his seed. Noah’s trust in God’s word resulted in obedient action, as “he did all that God commanded him.”[15]
For over a century, God’s “patience waited” while his good and faithful servant constructed the ark.[16] But in Noah’s six-hundreth year, just as the Lord had said, “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”[17] The seed of the serpent who dominated the Earth discovered too late that “the Lord is not slack concerning is promise.”[18] On the contrary:
Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose…”[19]
God knows the end from the beginning, for his sovereign purposes are sure. Through the Great Flood, the Earth was taught the ultimate destinies of the two seeds. The seed of the serpent is destined to judgment. The Seed of the Woman is destined to salvation, kept from judgment by an ark of deliverance. “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”[20]
Pleasing Sacrifice, Naked Wine
After the waters subsided, Noah and his family disembarked from their vessel. Noah’s first act upon the new-dry ground was to construct an altar and offer up “every clean animal and some of every clean bird” as a burnt offering.[21] Therefore, Noah proves to be the spiritual descendent of Abel, who offered up the choice meats from his flock to the Lord. Just as God “regarded” Abel’s offering, so the Creator received Noah’s sacrifice as a “pleasing aroma,” promising at that moment that he would “never again curse the ground because of man.”[22] And as one whose life was a “pleasing aroma” to the Lord, God inaugurates an accord with Noah.
Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you…”[23]
So covenant-making becomes the mode of God’s relationship with the seed of the woman, while the seed of the serpent is cut off. But the conflict is not over. The flood is a cataclysmic turn of events which allows for the righteous to inherit the Earth, but the serpent’s seed survives in Noah’s line:
Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.[24]
Despite walking with God, Noah would continue in some degree of compromise, which was exploited by his son Ham. The serpent still had a foothold in the human race, and after Noah awoke, he reiterated the cursed nature of the serpent’s way.
When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”[25]
The curse placed on the serpent and the Earth in the Garden was compounded by the curse against Ham's son Canaan, who would father the nations which occupied a Promised Land where the giant races would once again thrive.[26] And so Noah was not the ultimate Seed of the Woman who would give his father Lamech “rest” from the curse of the ground. The Great Flood was a great blow to the serpent, but it was not yet the crushing of his head. The enmity and the curse would continue on, as the days of Noah were only a foretaste of the “coming of the Son of Man.”[27]
Gabe Caligiuri is a regular contributor to THE WIRE publication and podcast, as well as an occasional contributor to other FAI digital content on the subjects of history and geopolitics as they relate to the Great Commission. Gabe and his family live in California.
[1] Seth is derived from the Hebrew word for “placed” or “appointed.”
[2] Adam’s line to Lamech is recounted in Genesis 5:1-25
[3] Genesis 5:24
[4] Jude 14
[5] Matthew 24:30b
[6] Matthew 5:29, Noah derives from the Hebrew word for rest
[7] Genesis 5:4, the number of Adam’s children is mentioned by Flavius Josephus as “the old tradition” in his work Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, Chapter 2, footnote for paragraph 3
[8] Genesis 6:1-2,4
[9] Proponents of the view that the “sons of God” are human descendants of Seth co-mingling with wicked daughters of Cain will often proof-text Matthew 22:30 in support of this interpretation. However, Jesus was referring to “angels in heaven” who don’t marry or pro-create, and Genesis 6:1-4 is obviously referring to fallen beings engaging in aberrant behavior. For more on this topic, read The Unseen Realm by Dr. Michael Heiser, Lexham Press, 2015.
[10] The Book of Job uses the phrase “sons of God” three times in obvious reference to angelic/divine beings. The Ugaritic and Septuagint translations of the Hebrew Bible render the phrase using words for divine beings as well. All ancient sources between the third century BC and the second century AD interpret the “sons of God” as angelic beings.
[11] Genesis 6:5, 11-12
[12] Genesis 6:3,13-14a
[13] Genesis 6:9, 2 Peter 2:5
[14] Hebrews 11:7
[15] Genesis 6:22
[16] 1 Peter 3:20
[17] Genesis 7:11-12
[18] 2 Peter 3:9
[19] Isaiah 46:8-10
[20] Psalm 1:6
[21] Genesis 8:21
[22] Genesis 8:20
[23] Genesis 9:8-9
[24] Genesis 9:21-22
[25] Genesis 9:24-25
[26] Numbers 13:33
[27] Matthew 24:37