Here we have all the times in the Old Testament where this phrase, "breath of life," or "breath of the spirit of life," is found. It is very clear when put side by side, that what God means by the breath of life is physical, animal life—organisms that breathe air to maintain their existence. It is creature-life we might say. It is the life of created organisms that must have air to breathe. It is the life of material, fleshly things.
Then we saw that those things that have the breath of life died in the Flood. In verse 21 it identifies them as birds, cattle and beasts, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. It is a very broad category of creatures.
In this case it was all land-based creatures. Sea creatures live in the water. They did not necessarily die unless some perished in the sloshing and watery turmoil, but basically this event was to cause all creatures on the dry land to perish. And then God would start over with Noah and his family, and the creatures preserved in the ark.
We see that it is animal life—whatever died in the Flood had the breath of life—except for those eight human beings and the animals with them in the ark.
Now the breath of life does not include any immortal soul. We can tell that by the verses we quoted. But, if it did include an immortal soul, then we would have to admit that animals, birds, and insects all have immortal souls also. Are you willing to go that far? It is actually patently ridiculous. Otherwise, we would all be Hindu, and we would all avoid stepping on the ants, and we would let the cows wander the streets.
Here God selected a man, Noah, who was not a shipbuilder. Noah was about 500 years old and, like I said, from the profession a shipbuilder he was not. Yet God trusted him to do what he was told. He had faith in Noah.
The dimensions of the ark on the 18-inch cubit would have been four hundred fifty feet in length, seventy-five feet wide, forty-five feet in height. If they used the larger cubit of 22 1/2 inches, the ark would have been six hundred feet in length, one hundred feet wide, and sixty feet high. Here is a man who had never built a boat.
As one comparison we use, the battleship Oregon was three hundred forty-eight feet in length. The Titanic was eight hundred twenty-five feet in length, ninety-three feet high, and weighed 46,000 tons. Using the smaller cubit with the square ends on the ark, it would almost be of the cube of the size of the Titanic. And this is the ship that Noah was asked to build. Yet, God had faith in Noah to accomplish what He asked of him and it was a tremendous job and it was an important job because He was going to save mankind from destruction.
The top population estimates at that time were somewhere around 11 billion people. What kind of ridicule did Noah suffer? What kind of laughter? What kind of catcalls? It was Noah and his sons and the wives, and I am sure he hired some help, but they built the ark. Yet he honored God's trust in him and with God&39;s help he finished the job. You see, God had faith in Noah to do what he was called to do.
The Flood was not a natural occurrence. He brought it. It just did not come because uniform laws were working. God was responding to the sinfulness of man, and the whole earth was getting ready to upchuck everybody in it, except for Noah and his family—the most violent example of the reaction of the land to sin.
But the inanimate land and the laws that regulate weather and so forth—they were manipulated by the great God who was overruling everything. Does God govern the inanimate aspects of his creation? Oh yes, He does! Add to these things what the Bible says about His involvement in the plagues of Egypt.
Here we have very clear evidence of an escape that was originated, planned and engineered by God. It required the cooperative preparation of those who were escaping, because Noah and his sons had to prepare by building the place in which they were going to escape. They were surrounded by worldwide trouble that they could not completely flee from, and so God gathered them into one place while the devastation was going on.
They were prepared both physically in making the ark and spiritually in being righteous before God. The two were working together, the physical and the spiritual.
