He inhaled deeply, forcing air back into his lungs, all the while pulling with his arms and legs against the rolling of the sea. In the distance, maybe eight furlongs from where he floated, the first of three mountaintops remained visible above the surface. Even in these rough waters, he felt confident he could make it to one of them. He set out for the closest mountain.
He swam to within three hundred cubits of safety when he stopped to drift again on top of the waters. He wasn’t tired. In fact, he was surprised at how much energy he still had left.
But something inside was telling him it was time to quit. In spite of his hopes, his daughters were in all likelihood gone already, or soon would be. So what was the purpose? Somehow, in the face of their loss and the destruction of the world, his instinct for survival just wasn’t that strong. And even if they were alive, he could never look them in the eyes and tell them about their mother.
His mind raced, making it difficult for him to focus on one thing. This is what happens to you when you’re about to die. He had time to think about the things he’d done wrong in his life. And the things he’d done right. His greatest regret was he hadn’t had the courage to kill his betrayer before the slaughter of the remnants of Eden on the mountainside. But then again, perhaps Malluch was right. It was better for them to have died by the edge of the sword than to have to endure this slow, inexorable death. Especially the children.
Thinking of them took him back to his own childhood, to a time when most of the citizens of Eden still believed in the God of Adam. And so had he. But he’d abandoned his faith as he got older, and completely renounced it when he became friends with Malluch. One of the elder’s teachings he remembered vividly was that God was slow to anger and eager to forgive. Could Shechem possibly be forgiven now, after all he’d done? Would his confession seem hollow because he was on the brink of death?
He cleared his mind of every thought and—for the first time since he was a young man—went to God.
When he finished praying, a sense of peace he hadn’t expected overcame him. Not like the peace he experienced when he was about to drop Malluch. This one seemed to envelop his whole body, as though the temperature of the sea surrounding him had risen. He treaded water for a few dozen parts before resigning himself to the inevitable. He was within reach of land when he cried out in a loud voice to all that was left of humanity. “Elisheva!”
He stopped struggling and allowed the waters to swallow him.
Chapter 69
Noah had kept an accurate count of the days, placing marks on a beam in his quarters: one hundred and ninety-seven days on the waters. Nearly seven months—six since Ariel had opened the ark to the sea—without another incident. Miryam’s plan had worked, she and the other wives rotated shifts to ensure Ariel was never left to walk the decks alone, day or night.
Although sheltered inside the ark, he and his family were keenly aware of events taking place on the outside. Forty days ago, the Lord had caused the rains to cease upon the earth. On the forty-first day, they all gathered at the window in the morning to fully open it for the first time since being shut in.
“What’s that yellow thing up there?” Ham said.
The whole family burst into laughter, except for Ariel. She stood with her head pressed against the left frame, letting the sun’s rays wash her face. Even when the others had returned to their chores, Shiphrah remained behind with Ariel so she could savor her first taste of freedom.
Noah’s family fasted the rest of the day until sunset, then held a feast to commemorate the Lord fulfilling His promise.
For the next one hundred and ten days, the ark floated upon the waters over mostly calm seas. It was a smooth ride compared to the first forty, when the wind and rains had churned the waters into thrashing swells.
On the one hundred and eleventh day, the wind returned, only it wasn’t the driving, destructive wind of before. This wind was brisk, but steady, and appeared to blow in a single direction, a condition that did not escape Noah’s attention. Whereas during the storm, the ark had been tossed about in an aimless manner, this wind seemed to be pushing the ark in a specific direction. North.
Where was the Lord taking them? And when would they arrive? Once again he dared to ask himself if today would be the day they would receive an answer.
He’d just finished marking the day on the beam when a vibration reverberated through the deck in his quarters. It was joined by a screeching sound coming from below that started at the prow and ran all the way to the stern. With startled faces, he and his family met on the deck outside their quarters.
“What in heaven’s name is that?” Elisheva said.
“Let’s find out.” Noah and the eight of them, along with the two lions, ran for the ramp leading down. When they reached the bottom, another loud screech came toward them from the prow. The deck beneath them trembled, increasing in intensity as the screeching drew closer, then decreasing after it passed.
“Something’s scraping against the keel,” Japheth said.
His father nodded.
“But what?” Ham said.
An elephant’s cry echoed throughout the lower deck, and the sound of the two hippos banging against their pen added to the tension.
“Like them, let’s hope it’s land.” Whatever it was, Noah could tell it had slowed the ark’s forward movement, leaving them to bob up and down in the water.
Following 180 parts of silence, together the family started up the ramp. Halfway there, the whole ark shuddered before striking something solid. The jolt sent everyone, including the two lions, toppling onto the ramp. The ark teetered a bit before settling down in a near upright position.
Dazed from the fall, Noah and his family rested in different states of recline along the ramp. Japheth broke the silence. “We’ve run aground.”
Expressions of shock turned to smiles and cheers rang out all around. After the men helped their wives regain footage, they all exchanged hugs and congratulated one another. Ham even hugged the lions. He was also the first to call for a celebration. “How about it, father? Some wine tonight?”
Miryam nodded.
“Why not?” he said. “But first, a word of thanks to He who delivered us.”
They joined hands and bowed their heads.
* * *
Noah sat with Shiphrah in the window of the ark near evening four months after striking land. “It’s getting dark,” she said. “You think she’ll be back?”
He peered out over the waters. A week ago he’d sent out a raven after the waters had receded to reveal the tops of the mountains. When the raven didn’t return, he sent out a dove, but the dove returned in only a short time. After seven days, he sent the dove out again and here he was waiting for her. He pointed to something flying toward them. “There’s your answer.”
Shiphrah leaned out the window for a better look. “It’s the dove.”
Noah stretched out his arm and the dove flew to his hand. He drew her in through the window.
“What’s that in her mouth?” Shiphrah said.
He removed a green leaf from her mouth, examining it in his palm. “An olive leaf.” He broke the leaf in half, exposing the vein. “Fresh.”
They embraced before running to tell the others.
Chapter 70
In the 601st year of Noah, in the seventh month, the twenty-seventh day of the month . . .
Two months later, Noah and his three sons remained kneeling with their faces to the ground long after the Lord had finished speaking. Before them, smoke rose from a burning altar upon which were laid the quartered pieces of a goat and a split turtle dove. Beyond that, the ark rested five hundred cubits up the mountain.
When the men rose to their feet, the women were leading the last of the large animals—the elephants, hippos, and rhinoceroses—down the ramp. At the bottom, the women stopped and pointed to the sky, then ran toward the altar.
In the clouds above, a ribbon of colors arched across the heavens in a bow that
stretched from one horizon to the other.
Elisheva arrived out of breath, just ahead of the others. “What does it mean, Father?”
“A promise,” he said.
“What kind of promise?”
“A promise from God to never again use the waters to destroy the earth.”
Noah’s family watched the sky for a few moments before Miryam broke the silence. “Did He say anything else?”
“To be fruitful and multiply,” Japheth said.
“You heard it?”
“We all heard it, Mother,” Ham said. He moved to his father, bowing his head. “Father, can you forgive my unbelief?”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I rejoice the Lord has opened your heart to the truth and that your doubt has left you.”
Ham gestured to the two lions standing beside them. “I stopped doubting the day these two showed up and didn’t try to eat me.” Everyone laughed, but quickly grew silent when Ham’s face became set. “But to have heard with my own ears the voice of YAH—speaking to me—” His voice cracked, and he couldn’t continue.
Noah pulled Ham to him and the two shared a long embrace.
It was Miryam who lightened the mood. “Be fruitful and multiply. Well, Shem, apparently you take well the Lord’s instruction.” Miryam reached over and touched Ariel’s rounded belly, proudly displaying a five-month pregnancy. Everyone laughed again but Elisheva and Shiphrah, who each put a hand to her own abdomen.
“Worry not, daughters” their father-in-law said. “The Lord will open your wombs soon enough.”
Miryam, who without moving her head, rolled her eyes to the corners looking down on the lions. Noah pivoted away from the altar to where the animals from the ark were descending along three separate passes two by two according to their kind.
Inside, he ached at the thought of what he had to do. He nodded to Miryam. She reached down and grabbed the male lion’s mane, but quickly let go. “I can’t do it. Son, would you take him for me?” she said to Japheth.
“Of course, Mother.” He took the lion’s mane and led him away toward the passes. When they got within a hundred cubits, he released his mane, turned and headed back. The lion appeared to understand his future and watched the animals move down the passage. He laid down where Japheth had released him to wait for his mate.
It wouldn’t be so easy for Noah. He and the lioness had been through too much. He walked the same path toward the passes, his feline shadow at his heels. When they reached the male lion, he stroked her head a final time. “Time for you to go as well, girl.” The lioness seemed to bore right through him.
He attempted to walk away, but the lioness stayed right with him. He pointed back to the male. “Go ahead. He’s waiting.” She stared at him again, but continued to follow when he tried once more to leave.
Noah dropped to one knee, taking the lioness’s head in his hands. “Look girl. You can’t stay here. You have a responsibility waiting for you out there, just like the rest of us.” The lioness pushed her head through his hands, rubbing it and the rest of her body against his chest. He stood and raised his arm toward the passes again. “Go on, girl.” The lioness slowly moved away with her head down.
Please, don’t look back. She did, pausing once more to look over her shoulder before continuing on. His eyes filled.
When she reached her mate, the two entered the flow of animals moving downhill.
Noah walked back blinking to clear his vision. He joined Miryam, who wiped her own tears and greeted him with a hug. “Are you all right, husband?”
His attention was drawn to where the rainbow continued to adorn the sky. “On a day like today, how could I not be?”
Man had been given another chance. The sinfulness that had begun with Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden had been washed away by a cleansing flood. Or had it? Noah and his family still carried the stain of that first sin. Would things be any different in another sixteen hundred years? Or five thousand? Would man choose the ways of God over the pleasures of sin? And what would God do if they didn’t, given the promise He had made? As Noah considered the beauty of the rainbow and what it represented, he pondered all these things in his heart.
Epilogue
But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark.
And did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Matthew 24:37-39
God’s Animal Army
For years I dreamed of telling a tale about the animals of Noah’s time rising up to defend the ark against an invading enemy. But it wasn’t until after I’d begun writing Army of God that I learned there existed in the archives of rabbinical literature a basis to support the theme of my story.
Several ancient Hebrew texts reference a confrontation where a group of people trying to break into the ark “were destroyed by the lions and other wild animals which also surrounded it.”1 And while the details of such a struggle are not recorded as part of the Biblical record, the Scriptures are rife with examples of how God called to service members of His animal kingdom. Students of the Bible will remember how He commanded armies of frogs, lice, and flies to afflict the Egyptians preceding the Exodus, shut the mouths of lions to spare His servant Daniel, and sent the great fish to keep Jonah from fleeing to Tarshish.
Now if the Lord could use those creatures, I didn’t consider it heresy to suggest that the animals identified in Genesis 6 could have been organized to form an army capable of protecting the ark.
Of course, all this is mere conjecture, offered as background to support the premise of a fictional story. On the other hand, I hope you will allow your imagination to consider the possibilities this story proposes, recognizing the awesome power of God and His ability to use the whole of His creation to help exercise His will.
Blessings,
Dennis
* * *
1 JewishEncyclopedia.com (Tanhuma, Noah, 10; Genesis Raba xxxii. 14;
“Sefer ha-Yashar,” l.c.)
About the Author
Dennis Bailey is a retired police detective, sex crimes investigator, and devoted researcher of the Word of God. His experience in the criminal justice system gives him a unique insight into the workings of the perverse criminal mind. Combined with his investigative and analytical skills, he uses this knowledge to search the Scriptures for personalities from which to create unforgettable characters and story lines.
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