Noah’s Wife – the ultimate lock-down!
The next biblical woman I wanted to turn my thoughts towards is not named at all – not once! She is Noah’s wife.
Noah is such a well known bible individual – even the Wiggles have a song about “Uncle Noah’s Ark”, but Mrs Noah is mentioned only as “Noah’s wife”. Please note early on that I am NOT CROSS about this! God doesn’t make mistakes and the bible is His word. However, I am a pretty inquisitive person and I really enjoy researching things. I am a “wonderer” I suppose. I don’t see the people in the bible as “characters” as I wonder if this just makes them sound like storybook types. In my minds eye, I always envision them as real, living breathing, family and community people, which is exactly who they were. So I have spent some time wondering about Mrs Noah and all that she was along for the ride for.
The story of the great flood starts with possibly the saddest statement that we can read that God makes.
It is clear that at the beginning of Genesis chapter 6 that everything that God had once declared as “very good’ definitely wasn’t anymore.
Genesis 6 verse 7 says that “I (God) will destroy all human beings that I made on the earth. And I will destroy every animal and everything that crawls on the earth and the birds of the air, because I AM SORRY I HAVE MADE THEM”. (my emphasis).
Then we see that God sees a little glimmer of hope. Verse 8 “ But Noah pleased the Lord”.
Now, have you ever been in the situation where your hubby has come home and revealed a new great idea for the family? Maybe one you have never heard before?
I have!
I remember Phil my farmer coming home one day and announcing that God had told him to start looking for a farm “out west”. WHAT?????
Firstly, I had absolutely no idea where the heck “out west” was!!! We were doing ok. Phil finally had full time work, I was running our retail photography business and the girls were doing well in school. We were living on Phil’s parents farm in a caravan yes, but I loved it! We had no good reason for a disruption like this! I was not happy at all about this announcement. This out west place would take me away from my only sister that lived near by, a few more hours away from my parents and younger sister and away from the only town I had ever known.
Imagine Noah’s wife when he came on home and said “Love, we need to have a chat! Go and pop the kettle on and I’ll fill you in.”
From here, he goes on to fill her in on the conversation he and God have had. God in Genesis 6 v 13-21 outlines what is going to happen and how and what he has asked Noah to build.
First – is the announcement that God is going to destroy all the people on the earth. I can only imagine that poor old Noah got some very real butterflies right about then and his heart must have been saddened. God didn’t follow this first statement with the covenant promise to Noah and his family. He gave the very very detailed instructions of the ark build first!
I wonder if Noah’s mind was going a million miles an hour as he wrote down the measurements and requirements for the build.
Next, Noah gets to not only tell Mrs Noah that she will in fact get saved along with her sons and daughter-in-laws, and that Noah will be a liitle preoccupied for a while, he goes on to tell her that she will be sharing this vessel with a whole heap of 2 and 4 legged friends!
Birds, mammals, reptiles, insects – the works. I wonder if Noah’s wife was a cat or dog person!?!
Now, we know that Noah was obedient to God’s instructions because in verse 22 of chapter 6 it says “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”
There is no clear timeline on how long it took for Noah to build the ark, however the website Answers in Genesis have an estimate and explanation that is interesting to read.
This is where my thoughts turned back to Noah’s wife and what she may have been thinking about all of this. Please note, I will say again… I am not a theologian, I have not been to bible college. I am just a humble wonderer and my thoughts are just that – my thoughts.
We are not told in scriptures if Noah’s wife was as faithful to God as Noah was. Noah found favour with God and as a result, I believe his family joined in the blessings.
I considered Noah’s wife in comparison to say Lot’s wife further in the bible text.
Lot’s wife was given the chance to leave the destruction of Sodom, but she looked back and lost her life in a really dramatic way because of it.
Noah’s wife must have had emotional thoughts about all of what she was witnessing and hearing. I know I did after Phil’s big announcement. I know it took a lot of tears, a lot of farm inspections, some really tough times and a massive softening of my heart and spirit to eventually stand in prayer openly and honestly with my husband. I was a Christian, so that wasn’t the issue. The thing was, I hadn’t heard God tell me yet that He wanted me to move. Perhaps I felt left out, or maybe even that didn’t 100% believe God’s vision for my family.
I believe a few things for Noah’s wife:
· That she stood by Noah, regardless of her feelings when he got the word from God about the future
· That she stood when Noah outlined the instructions and plans for this build. This ark that had never before been designed or built
· She stood by through the many many years of the build. This was no small feat. This was potentially decades of construction. I can’t get my man to commit to screw down some loose deck boards! Noah must have been completely focussed. What did he do previously to this? What was his normal way to make ends meet? Perhaps God provided a way as He usually does.
· Noahs wife stood as I am sure the community wondered what was going on. Some of our biggest critics have been people we thought were friends. However, watch the change of relationships when you decide to do something a bit different from the ‘norm’. Imagine for a moment attempting to tell your friends and family about an upcoming time of devastation when no one had ever seen rain before and as we read earlier in the account, everyones hearts were turned to evil all the time. How difficult must this have been.
Perhaps a close relationship with God helped her through this time.
Noah’s wife would undoubtedly have lost other family members in the destruction. Her parents perhaps. Siblings, friends, nieces and nephews, people she traded with regularly, her favourite market shop owners.
Imagine living with the knowledge of the future and not seeing anyone turn their hearts and minds enough to change and be seen as favourable with God.
I wonder if she tried to warn them and was just lumped into the ‘crazy’ basket alongside her husband.
And so, onto the ark with all the immediate family and alllllll those animals they go! The first rain drops start falling after 7 days in the ark. Did Noah’s wife turn to look at her man with a new found respect and humbleness? Immediately, she perhaps realised just what she had been a part of all of these years.
Now, we all know or have heard stories of CoronaVirus lockdowns. Recently here in Australia, we have seen north Sydney suburbs endure a 2 week lockdown and the greater Brisbane area a massive 3 days of being shut in.
Well, I am sorry to say……this is NOTHING in comparison to the lockdown this group of last humans on earth faced.
The rain went for 40 days and 40 nights and covered the earth for 150 days.
Consider this:
· No Netflix
· No Uber eats
· No zoom meetings
· Actually, no one left to message even if she did have the ability to! They were ALL GONE!
She did however have a whole boat load of animals to keep her company/busy with. My poddy lambs keep me busy and boss the pants off me! I can only imagine what a massive boat full of hungry and pooping friends would be like.
After the time on board, we see the period of time where Noah sends out the birds to check for dry ground and again, the humans on board the ark waited on God’s instructions that included leacing the ark and building back up the population.
So, in fact Noah’s wife is mine (and yours) great great great great x(?) Grandmother!!!
Have you ever considered how if must have felt to walk off the ark? Besides the sea legs, I wonder what the atmosphere would have been like? Would it have smelled fresh? Like after the rain comes here?
Was it eerily quiet?
Think about this……no other people except the 7 others you were on the ark with. No villages. No transport. Not necessarily knowing if you had even landed somewhere you would be familiar with. The landscape potentially changed.
God did immediately make sure this family knew that they would be provided for.
In Genesis Chapter 9 verse 3 God tells them; “Everything that moves, everything that is alive is yours for food. Earlier, I gave you the green plants, but now I give you everything for food!” This gives me such a great feeling! These days we are bombarded by opinions that really go against the agriculture sector. That we shouldn’t be killing animals for food. That we are barbaric and that meat and milk and animal products should not be used, either for nutritional value or moral ones. Well, I am a part of an industry that is using products given to us by God. We will honour this by doing our absolute best to be farmers with integrity and great practises.
A whole new world and Noah’s wife was one of the first people ever to lay eyes on it.
It was daunting for me as a wife and mother to move a huge 3 hours drive away from my closest family member and the only landscape and town I had ever really known. I had to re-learn what the garden soil type was, how much water I could use, how long it would take me to get to different places. How to navigate my way around those places and meet new people everywhere I went!
I even had to learn 2 new ways to park my car! Can you believe it! In the small town the girls went to school at, they park reverse 45 degree angle to the curb. In the large centre, 75km north of us, they park 45 degree nose to curb!!!! I have grown up only doing parallel parks.
This may seem a small thing to some, but to me, it was huge.
Noah’s wife had a lot more to learn and come to terms with than that.
I am amazed by the first thing this new first family did on exiting the ark. They built an altar. We have a hill here where we often go to pray. We nicknamed it the Prayer Hill – very creative yes!
I love going there and especially listening to Phil the farmer pray to the God he loves and trusts and cries out to. I am sure that Noah’s wife would have been incredibly humbled by her experience and I can picture her on her knees as the sacrifices that were offered to the Lord were made, perhaps with tears glistening in her eyes.
Then…the most amazing thing of all.
The rainbow!
Never seen before and how beautiful must it have been???
You know that everyone stops to check out a rainbow!
Can you see Noah’s wife’s kitchen with a rainbow sun-catcher glistening in the sunshine!?
What an experience she had been a firsthand witness to. The stories told about the rogue animals on the boat. The way she saw Noah lean and trust the God he believed and had a heart towards since before the first word was spoken about the flood.
I am always humbled by the way my man loves to talk about God and His goodness. The way he has led my girls towards the Lord and the passion he has for his grandson to hear about the awesomeness of God.
Noah and his wife were relationship goals before we knew what that meant I think. She stood firm beside her man and because of that she saw some incredible things and experienced emotions and feelings like no other.
I am not worried that I don’t know her name.
I am grateful for the thoughts that she has placed in my head and the reminder that as long as my man is a man after God’s own heart, I can trust the ‘new’ that he might bring to the table – every single time!
xxx
Toni
FWFL
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