Today I read Genesis 7 where Noah has finished the ark and all the animals have come to Noah and the rains come. Through the years, my understanding has increased. When I was a child, I thought that Noah and his family were the only righteous people on the entire face of the entire planet. I have since come to understand that this is not he case. For one thing, Noah's father, Lamech, was a righteous man. Surely the Lord would not cause him to die in the flood with all the wicked. But why wasn't he on the ark?
I don't remember where I heard this, but the theory I have always liked is that those who were on the earth who were righteous or who converted through the preaching of the Gospel were translated and brought to the city of Enoch. I really don't know if this is true or not but I like the idea that not every single person on the planet besides Noah and his family were wicked and in need of destruction. Although, at times the Lord has allowed the righteous to perish to testify against the wicked. So I guess it is possible that Lamech and anyone else who was actually righteous could have perished in the flood, we are not told specifically. And if they did perish, we know that they died in the Lord and just as the Nephites who were slain by the wicked, we know that the Lord would have received them unto Himself. I guess we will find out someday.
I was also thinking about the sheer logistics of what this endeavor would entail as I was reading and the idea of it is just staggering. I mean it's hard enough to build an ark that can house at least 2 of every kind of animal on the planet plus 8 people for a year. But they also had to have a way to store a years worth of food, not just for the people but for the animals as well. They also had to have a way to clean the ark. I mean eight people alone going to the bathroom each day for a year would make a lot of mess, I can't even imagine the mess that having every animal on the planet would cause. Poor Noah and his family must have been busy from sunup to past sundown just trying to keep the ark habitable each day. Maybe the Lord helped them out somehow, I don't know. I just think of the times that God asks His servants to do something and from sheer logistics it seems impossible, but with God all things are possible. We just have to trust in Him. He will prepare a way. Until tomorrow.
According to Cleon Skousen in The First 2,000 Years, Lamech died five years before the flood. He uses the years listed in the Pearl of Great Price for calculating this. Along with your reading of Genesis I highly recommend reading the PofGP as it fills in so much that was taken out of Genesis.
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