The single most "child-friendly" story in the Bible, there is so much more for adults to understand about Noah than the mere "boat full of cute animals", and new layers keep popping to mind every time I read this. A wonderful story, it really is. It speaks of baptism, of extending the covenant to make of God's people a family, not just a marriage, of hope during disaster.
The way Noah is described makes him a beacon of singular hope. He is a good man, which coming from the inspired writer of this text means quite a lot. He is "blameless in this age", even stronger language to convey his utter morality among the immoral hordes. He, furthermore, "walked with God," now the third party in the Bible to do so. He is faithful to the previous covenant, which is kind of a flickering candle at this point. Noah is a rock star of faith, an island of pure awesome in a sea of greyish purple blended evil-and-good. He is an indication that, despite how things seem, all it takes is one truly on-fire person in a bunch of lukewarm and ice-cold people, that God will never leave us forsaken, without a single shred of hope. God's anger at our unfaithfulness is exaggeratedly described, making it seem like He wants to write off, not just humanity but all of creation...a way to indicate just how ugly and awful every sin is to Him. It was time for judgement to be unleashed.
I notice that the places and buildings where God and man come together in these covenant meetings are all described in painful detail. It seems that pointing out every dimension, every aspect of how a place or thing is built (or in the case of Eden, what He built there) is a way of poking us in the chest and saying "Slow down! This place matters! You need to know what it looked and felt like because I met you here!" I'm beaten over the head by a 2x4 with comparisons to the regulations the Catholic Church has for church architecture and the liturgy that goes on there. "Say the Black and do the Red!" is the rallying cry of liturgical traditionalists, and there is often vocal disappointment expressed when churches are "built wrong", with altar, ambo, and tabernacle in the wrong places. Why? Because it matters! God cares deeply about the spaces and ways in which we meet Him. There is great symbolism and power in them, as well as practicality. Thus, I, as a reader in the 21st century who will never build the Ark myself, still need to know how big it was and where the windows were.
Calling it the Ark totally makes sense to me too. An ark in the Bible always bears humanity's salvation, always bears the sign we have of our covenant with God. In the first covenant, the ark was a day...the Sabbath...and a place, the Garden. The second Ark was a boat carrying the seeds of a new creation. Later, there will be the Ark of the Covenant itself, a box. I'm not sure what the "ark" will become when David covenants with God, but I know in the end...the last and most amazing covenant of all will be borne by an Ark of flesh...my Blessed Mother.
These covenants are always hinged, too, on exceptionally obedient people. People who agree to what plans God has in mind. Adam, at least to start, said "sure, I'll stay away from that tree". Now Noah "does what God commands him". There's a lot of sevens in it, the covenant number, the perfect number. There are eight people in the ark, the "next step after covenant", the renewal of covenant after the judgement and breakdown of the old. And these eight people are a family, sons, daughters, parents. God covenants here with an entire family, making humanity His family, not just His spouse.
I also think of what hardship it must have been for them all while in the process of making this covenant happen. The first covenant was born with very little suffering on the part of humanity. It just kind of happened. Suffering and hardship only entered the picture after the first Fall. But this new covenant came about through sitting around on a smelly, noisy boat full of animals for weeks, losing everyone and everything they ever knew or cared about. The sons' wives lost their families, for example. But they gladly went through it because they were obedient. The third covenant, with Abraham, is sure to involve suffering and pain as well. I know enough to believe I know how that is going to happen, but I'll wait to see if I'm right.
The Flood is often considered sort of a baptism for the earth, all creation dying in water and rising out of it again to a new era, a new life. The death of the old and the recreation in a newer, more beautiful way. But where my reading ends today, that process is still happening.
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