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Noah

biblical prophet, son of Lamech, major figure in the Book of Genesis

Noah [also Noé or Noach, Hebrew:נֹחַנוֹחַ, Syriac:ܢܘܚ, Arabic:نُوح], in the Abrahamic religions was the tenth and last of the pre-flood Patriarchs. The story of Noah's Ark is told in the Torah in the Genesis flood narrative, and is followed by the story of the Curse of Canaan. Besides the Book of Genesis, Noah is also mentioned in 1st Chronicles, Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach, Isaiah, Ezekiel, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, the Epistle to the Hebrews, 1st Peter and the 2nd Peter; Noah is also featured prominently in the Quran and in Bahai.

[A] just man and perfect in his generations... ~ Genesis Rabbah 34.4
Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japeth. Genesis 5:31-32
"I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. ~ Genesis 6:7-8
And God went on to bless blessed Noah and his sons, and to say to them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. ~ Genesis 9:1
Foolish shepherd! Now you implore My clemency. Had you done so when I announced to you the Flood, it would not have come to pass. You knew that you would be rescued, and therefore did not care for others; now you pray. ~ Zohar hadash
Noah, seeing a he-goat eat sour grapes and become intoxicated so that it began to frisk, took the root of that vine-branch and, after having washed it with the blood of a lion, a hog, a sheep, and an ape, planted it and it bore sweet grapes. ~ Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah
And, indeed, [in times long past] We sent forth Noah unto his people, and he dwelt among them a thousand years bar fifty; and then the floods overwhelmed them while they were still lost in evildoing. ~ Quran 29:14
Peace and salutation to Noah among the nations!" Quran 37:75–79

Quotes - That Noah created

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Do not blaspheme God.
Do not murder.
Do not engage in incest, adultery, pederasty or bestiality.
Do not steal.
Do not eat of a live animal.
Establish courts/legal system to ensure obedience to the law.
  • When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.
    • Genesis 9:24-25 (NIV)
  • "O my people, worship Allah; you have no deity other than Him. Indeed, I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous Day!"[22]
    • Qur'an 7:59
  • "Lord of the world, You are merciful; why have You not pitied Your children?" God answered him: "Foolish shepherd! Now you implore My clemency. Had you done so when I announced to you the Flood, it would not have come to pass. You knew that you would be rescued, and therefore did not care for others; now you pray."
    • Zohar hadash p. 43a

Quotes about Noah

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  • Recent scholarship has immensely enriched our knowledge of medieval European stereotypes of the supposedly black-skinned serfs and peasants (who were darkened by dirt and by abor in the sun); of early Arab stereotypes of black African slaves (millions of whom were transported from East Africa to the Near East); and of the story of the biblical Noah, whose curse subjected all the descendants of Canaan, the son of Noah’s own misbehaving son Ham, to the lowliest form of eternal bondage. This confusing biblical passage became for many centuries a major justification for black slavery. But my discussion of antiblack prejudice also considers the very ambivalent messages conveyed by European art and sculpture and culminates with the “modern” forms of antiblack racism that appear in the writings of such figures of the Enlightenment as David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, and Immanuel Kant and then reach a symbolic climax in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
    • David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the Americas (2006)
  • So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died. Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japeth.
    • Genesis 5:31-32 (NIV)
  • When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
    The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
    The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
  • Genesis 6:1-8 (NIV)
  • For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
    • Genesis 7:7-24 (NIV)
  • And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;
    The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
    And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
    And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
    And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
    And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:
    And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
    Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
    But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
    And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
    And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
    And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.
    And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
    • Genesis 8:1-13 (KJV)
  • And God went on to bless blessed Noah and his sons, and to say to them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
    • Genesis 9:1
  • The deluge in the time of Noah was by no means the only flood with which this earth was visited. The first flood did its work of destruction as far as Jaffé, and the one of Noah's days extended to Barbary.
    • Genesis Rabbah 23
  • “a just man and perfect in his generations”
    • Genesis Rabbah 34.4; Midrash Agadat Bereshit, in Jellinek, "B. H." iv. 11
  • Rabbi Zadok said: For twelve months all the creatures were in the ark; and Noah stood and prayed before the Holy One, blessed be He, saying before Him: Sovereign of all worlds ! Bring me forth from this prison, for my soul is faint, because of the stench of lions. Through me will all the righteous crown Thee with a crown of sovereignty, because Thou hast brought me forth from this prison, as it is said, "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks unto thy name: for the righteous shall crown me, when thou wilt have dealt bountifully with me" (Ps. 142:7).
    • Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer, 23:10
  • Noah found a vine which was lying there, which had come out of the garden of Eden. It had its clusters with it, and he took of its fruit and ate, and rejoiced in his heart, as it is said, "My wine, which cheereth God and man" (Judg. 9:13). He planted a vineyard with it. On the selfsame day it produced and became ripe with its fruits, as it is said, "In the day of thy planting thou dost make it grow, and in the morning thou makest thy seed to blossom" (Isa. 17:11). He drank wine thereof, and he became exposed in the midst of the tent, as it is said, "And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent" (Gen. 9:21). Canaan entered and saw the nakedness of Noah, and he bound a thread (where the mark of) the Covenant was, and emasculated him. He went forth and told his brethren. Ham entered and saw his nakedness. He did not take to heart the duty of honouring (one's father). But he told his two brothers in the market, making sport of his father. His two brothers rebuked him. What did they do? They took the curtain of the east with them, and they went backwards and covered the nakedness of their father, as it is said, "And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness" (Gen. 9:23).
  • Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what the younger son of Ham had done unto him, and he cursed him, as it is said, "And he said, Cursed be Canaan" (Gen. 9:25). Noah sat and mused in his heart, saying: The Holy One, blessed be He, delivered me || from the waters of the Flood, and brought me forth from that prison, and am I not obliged to bring before Thee a sacrifice and burnt offerings? What did Noah do? He took from the clean animals an ox and a sheep, and from all the clean birds, a turtle-dove and pigeons; and he built up the first altar upon which Cain and Abel had brought offerings, and he brought four burnt offerings, as it is said, "And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar" (Gen. 8:20). It is written here only, "and he offered burnt offerings on the altar," and the sweet savour ascended before the Holy One, blessed be He, and it was pleasing to Him, as it is said, "And the Lord smelled the sweet savour" (Gen. 8:21). What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He put forth His right hand, and swore to Noah that He would not bring the waters of the Flood upon the earth, as it is said, "For this is as the waters of Noah unto me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth" (Isa. 54:9). And He gave a sign in the rainbow as a sign of the covenant of the oath between Himself and the people, as it is said, "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant" (Gen. 9:13).
    • Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer, 23:13
  • And thus our sages instituted that they should (mention) the oath to Noah every day, as it is said, "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, upon the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens above the earth" (Deut. 11:21).
    • Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer, 23:14
  • Yet for all this reverence, the Bible is one long celebration of violence. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God took one of Adam’s ribs, and made he a woman. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. With a world population of exactly four, that works out to a homicide rate of 25 percent, which is about a thousand times higher than the equivalent rates in Western countries today. No sooner do men and women begin to multiply than God decides they are sinful and that the suitable punishment is genocide. (In Bill Cosby’s comedy sketch, a neighbor begs Noah for a hint as to why he is building an ark. Noah replies, “How long can you tread water?”) When the flood recedes, God instructs Noah in its moral lesson, namely the code of vendetta: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
  • The Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. People enslave, rape, and murder members of their immediate families. Warlords slaughter civilians indiscriminately, including the children. Women are bought, sold, and plundered like sex toys. And Yahweh tortures and massacres people by the hundreds of thousands for trivial disobedience or for no reason at all. These atrocities are neither isolated nor obscure. They implicate all the major characters of the Old Testament, the ones that Sunday-school children draw with crayons. And they fall into a continuous plotline that stretches for millennia, from Adam and Eve through Noah, the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Saul, David, Solomon, and beyond. According to the biblical scholar Raymund Schwager, the Hebrew Bible “contains over six hundred passages that explicitly talk about nations, kings, or individuals attacking, destroying, and killing others. . . . Aside from the approximately one thousand verses in which Yahweh himself appears as the direct executioner of violent punishments, and the many texts in which the Lord delivers the criminal to the punisher’s sword, in over one hundred other passages Yahweh expressly gives the command to kill people.” Matthew White, a self-described atrocitologist who keeps a database with the estimated death tolls of history’s major wars, massacres, and genocides, counts about 1.2 million deaths from mass killing that are specifically enumerated in the Bible. (He excludes the half million casualties in the war between Judah and Israel described in 2 Chronicles 13 because he considers the body count historically implausible.) The victims of the Noachian flood would add another 20 million or so to the total. The good news, of course, is that most of it never happened. Not only is there no evidence that Yahweh inundated the planet and incinerated its cities, but the patriarchs, exodus, conquest, and Jewish empire are almost certainly fictions. Historians have found no mention in Egyptian writings of the departure of a million slaves (which could hardly have escaped the Egyptians’ notice); nor have archaeologists found evidence in the ruins of Jericho or neighboring cities of a sacking around 1200 BCE. And if there was a Davidic empire stretching from the Euphrates to the Red Sea around the turn of the 1st millennium BCE, no one else at the time seemed to have noticed it.
  • And, indeed, [in times long past] We sent forth Noah unto his people, and he dwelt among them a thousand years bar fifty; and then the floods overwhelmed them while they were still lost in evildoing.
  • (In the days of old), Noah cried to Us, and We are the best to hear prayer.
    And We delivered him and his people from the Great Calamity,
    And made his progeny to endure (on this earth);
    And We left (this blessing) for him among generations to come in later times:
    "Peace and salutation to Noah among the nations!"
    •  Qur'an sura 37 (As-Saaffat) ayat 75-79, Quran 37:75–79
  • Allah sets forth, for an example to the Unbelievers, the wife of Noah and the wife of Lut: they were (respectively) under two of our righteous servants, but they were false to their (husbands), and they profited nothing before Allah on their account, but were told: "Enter ye the Fire along with (others) that enter!
    •  Qur'an, sura 66, translated by Yusuf Ali)
  • And the sentence of Noah was also sealed; he was going to die with the rest of the generation of the flood, as it is stated: Nor shall there be No’aḥ for them. The Gemara interprets the term spelled nun, heh, in the aforementioned verse, as if it were spelled nun, ḥet. The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: The sentence of Noah was also decided; but he was spared through the kindness of God due to the fact that he found favor in the eyes of God, as it is stated: “For I regret that I have made them. And Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:7–8). The juxtaposition of the term “and Noah” to the phrase “for I regret that I have made them” indicates that Noah should have been killed as well.
  • With regard to the verse: “These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man, and wholehearted in his generations” (Genesis 6:9), Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Relative to the other people of his generation he was righteous and wholehearted, but not relative to those of other generations. And Reish Lakish says: In his generation he was righteous and wholehearted despite being surrounded by bad influences; all the more so would he have been considered righteous and wholehearted in other generations.
  • Rav Ḥana bar Bizna says: Eliezer, servant of Abraham, said to Shem the Great, son of Noah: It is written: “After their kinds, they emerged from the ark,” indicating that the different types of animals were not intermingled while in the ark. Where were you and what did you do to care for them while they were in the ark? Shem said to him: We experienced great suffering in the ark caring for the animals. Where there was a creature that one typically feeds during the day, we fed it during the day, and where there was a creature that one typically feeds at night, we fed it at night. With regard to that chameleon, my father did not know what it eats. One day, my father was sitting and peeling a pomegranate. A worm fell from it and the chameleon ate it. From that point forward my father would knead bran with water, and when it became overrun with worms, the chameleon would eat it.
  • With regard to the lion, a fever sustained it, since when it suffered from a fever, it did not need to eat; as Rav said: For no fewer than six days and no more than twelve days, fever sustains a person; he need not eat and is sustained from his own fats. Shem continued: With regard to the phoenix [avarshina], my father found it lying in its compartment on the side of the ark. He said to the bird: Do you not want food? The bird said to him: I saw that you were busy, and I said I would not trouble you by requesting food. Noah said to the bird: May it be God’s will that you shall not die, and through that bird the verse was fulfilled, as it is stated: “And I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the phoenix” (Job 29:18).
  • "Noah, seeing a he-goat eat sour grapes and become intoxicated so that it began to frisk, took the root of that vine-branch and, after having washed it with the blood of a lion, a hog, a sheep, and an ape, planted it and it bore sweet grapes.
    • Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah, p. 75a, Amsterdam, 1697
  • Come and see all who preceded Noah. They were begetting at seventy, eighty, and a hundred years of age; but Noah begat at give hundred years. And why so? Noah had reflected on the children of Adam who would ride and provoke the Holy One. So he said: Why should I join in intercourse for fruitfulness and multiplying? Therefore, he did not beget until he was five hundred years old; but after that he said: Is this person to die without children? Now the Holy One has commanded Adam about fruitfulness and multiplying, as stated (in Gen. 1:28): THEN GOD BLESSED THEM, [AND GOD SAID TO THEM: BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY]; yet I am dying without children. What did Noah do? He joined in intercourse for fruitfulness and multiplying after five hundred years. Thus it is stated (in Gen. 5:32): AND NOAH WAS FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD; [AND NOAH BEGAT SHEM, HAM AND JAPHETH].
  • (Gen. 8:16:) GO FORTH FROM THE ARK. This text is related (to Ps. 142:8 [7]): BRING MY SOUL OUT OF PRISON. <The verse> is speaking about Noah when he was in the ark. Noah said to the Holy One: BRING MY SOUL OUT OF PRISON; for he had been imprisoned there. R. Levi said: The whole twelve months that Noah was in the ark, neither he nor his children tasted a bit of sleep because they were responsible for feeding the cattle and the wild aniamls. R. Abba bar Kahana said: He brought branches for the elephants and glass for the ostriches into the ark to feed the cattle and the wild animals. Now some of them ate in the second hour of the night, and some of them ate in the third hour of the day. Hence you yourself know that Noah did not taste a bit of sleep. R. Johanan said in the name of R. Eleazer b. R. Jose the Galilean: One time, when Noah was late infeeding the lion, the lion bit him, and he went away limping. Thus it is stated (in Gen. 7:23): AND NOAH ONLY [SURVIVED]
  • More and more, as the organic world was observed, the vast multitude of petty animals, winged creatures, and "creeping things" was felt to be a strain upon the sacred narrative. More and more it became difficult to reconcile the dignity of the Almighty with his work in bringing each of these creatures before Adam to be named; or to reconcile the human limitations of Adam with his work in naming "every living creature"; or to reconcile the dimensions of Noah's ark with the space required for preserving all of them, and the food of all sorts necessary for their sustenance. ...Origen had dealt with it by suggesting that the cubit was six times greater than had been supposed. Bede explained Noah's ability to complete so large a vessel by supposing that he worked upon it during a hundred years.

See also

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  •   Encyclopedic article on Noah on Wikipedia
  •   The dictionary definition of noah on Wiktionary
  •   Media related to Noah on Wikimedia Commons
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