The Ark, the Waters, and the Bow

Genesis introduces the flood with a judgment that the earth is filled with violence and that every inclination of the human heart is only evil continually, and with a single exception. Noah is given measurements in cubits, a specification of pitch inside and out, three decks and a single door, and instructions on what to bring: pairs of every kind, and by one of the two threads running through the chapters, seven pairs of the clean animals against the sacrifice that will be needed afterward. The waters are not only rain. The fountains of the great deep burst open and the windows of the heavens are opened, which is the ordered separation of the first creation account being let go, and the world returns for a hundred and fifty days to the state it was in before the second day.

The receding is told with the same care for dates. The ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat; a raven is sent out and goes to and fro; a dove is sent three times and returns first with nothing, then with a fresh olive leaf, and finally not at all. Noah builds an altar, and God resolves never again to strike down every living thing, setting the bow in the cloud as the sign of that promise. The bow is a weapon hung up rather than a decoration, and the covenant is made not with Noah alone but with every living creature and with the earth itself, which is why the passage carries the weight it does in later Jewish and Christian reflection on obligations to the natural world.