Recovering from a global disaster: Genesis 6–10

It can’t have been easy. After spending up to a century building the ark, only Noah’s wife and sons (and their wives) were interested in joining him. Noah was about 600 and his sons would have been slightly older than 100 years when they boarded the ark.

Afterwards, Noah stepped off the ark into a world that had, to use a cliche, ‘changed forever’. His all-too-human response? Plant a vineyard and taste the results. Keep tasting. Pass out. Maybe hope to forget everything that was lost from his old world. Or maybe it was just Noah’s first drink for a long time and he’d forgotten how much he could drink.

Ham’s response? Poke fun at the old man. Maybe that’s why the curse on Ham, via his son Canaan, was so harsh (it was the Canaanites who would be removed by the invading Hebrew army when Israel was established). Ham’s brothers showed a lot more love and respect to the man who listened to God enough to save their lives.

We also see God’s response to the whole flood and His promise that He won’t do it again:

²¹ “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things.

As for the ark? After a disaster of that magnitude, the ark would be a major source of building supplies for at least a few decades. It would be pretty surprising if any of it were left for the benefit of archeologists some thousands of years later.