This week’s Torah portion is called Noach and it covers Genesis 6:9–11:32. The portion brings us into a world that has devolved into chaos and corruption, just a few generations after the fall of Adam. The opening line is jarring: “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. And the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” This is a truly painful verse, revealing a God who is grieved by the state of his creation. Amidst this despair, however, we find a single glimmer of hope: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (6:5–6)
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Noah is described as a righteous man, “perfect in his generations” (6:9). He is not perfect in a sinless sense, but rather he is wholehearted and complete in his devotion to God in a world that had completely turned away. Unlike Abraham, who would later debate with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah is silent. He simply trusts and obeys. He builds a massive ark and gathers the animals, preparing for a cataclysm that seems completely impossible. His faith is a quiet act of submission to a God whose plan he does not fully understand.
The Flood: A De-Creation and a New Beginning
The flood narrative is more than a story about a punishing rainstorm. From a theological perspective, it’s a de-creation. It’s an undoing of the world back to its primordial state of watery chaos, echoing the formless and empty earth of Genesis 1. God is essentially hitting the reset button on His creation. The waters cover the earth, and all life is swept away, leaving only Noah and his family. The ark becomes a symbol of God’s redemptive power, saving a remnant to start over. The take-home message is that sin leads to cosmic chaos and death, but God, in His mercy, always provides a way for a remnant to survive.
After the flood, the Bible says God remembers Noah and the waters recede. As Noah’s family and the animals step back onto dry land, they walk into a new creation. Noah immediately builds an altar and offers a sacrifice. This act of worship marks the new beginning. God’s response is gracious. He smells the pleasing aroma and promises in His heart never again to curse the ground on account of humans, even though “the inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (8:21).
The Covenant of the Rainbow
To seal this promise, God gives a sign: the rainbow. He said, “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (9:13). This is an important moment. It’s not a covenant with a specific nation; it’s a universal covenant with all living creatures, a unilateral promise from God never again to destroy the world. The rainbow is a symbol of God’s grace and His unwavering commitment to His creation. For Jewish tradition, the rainbow is a reminder of God’s mercy and a sign that we, as humanity, must be vigilant in living righteously. For Christians, the rainbow is a beautiful foreshadowing of God’s ultimate commitment to all humanity, a grace that culminates in Christ, the ultimate assurance of God’s promise.
Epic of Gilgamesh
Much has been made about the similarities between the ancient myth called the Epic of Gilgamesh and the biblical story of Noah’s flood. And for good reason. In 1870, George Smith, a British Assyriologist, was studying cuneiform tablets from Nineveh when he came across a fragment describing a great flood. The more he deciphered, the more he realized he had found a story quite like the biblical account but also entirely different. Since that time, almost 100 fragments of the Epic of Gilgamesh have been found at sites across Mesopotamia.
The overall structure of both narratives is super close. They both have a divine decision to flood the earth, the selection of a righteous individual to build an ark, the gathering of animals, the flood itself, the sending out of birds to test if the waters have receded, the ark landing on a mountain, and a subsequent sacrifice. These parallels scream that there was a common Mesopotamian tradition of a great flood.
However, the differences between the two stories are also where the Bible truly shines. Nahum Sarna in his book Understanding Genesis emphasizes that the Bible’s global flood story has a strong moral imperative, something totally lacking in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the flood is triggered by the gods’ annoyance at the noise of humanity. It’s a capricious act, lacking any sense of justice or purpose. In contrast, the Bible presents the flood as a direct consequence of human wickedness and moral corruption. God, in his righteousness, acts to cleanse the earth of violence and injustice, offering a chance for a new beginning with Noah and his family.
After the flood, God establishes a covenant with Noah, promising never again to destroy all life with a flood. The rainbow serves as a symbol of this everlasting covenant. This element is absent in the Epic of Gilgamesh. No goodness or divine promise comes from the flood waters withdrawal.
Finally, the Bible’s monotheistic perspective transforms the narrative. Unlike the polytheistic Epic of Gilgamesh, where the gods bicker and act out of selfish motives, the God of the Bible is sovereign, just, and compassionate. The flood is not an arbitrary act but a deliberate response to human sin, ultimately paving the way for a renewed relationship between God and humanity based on the principles of divine mercy and grace.
The Failure of a New Beginning
In Chapter 11, the author of Genesis pivots from Noah’s flood to the incident of the Tower of Babel. This story describes how the descendants of Noah, speaking a single language, settled in the land of Shinar and decided to build a city with a tower that would reach the heavens. Their goal was to make a name for themselves and avoid being scattered across the earth. However, God saw their actions as a challenge to His authority and intervened by confusing their language.
The Bible’s description of the Tower of Babel is strikingly similar to the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, particularly those found in Babylon—massive, stepped pyramids that were the focal points of their cities and symbolized the link between heaven and earth. In fact, the very purpose of these ziggurats was to create a connection between the earthly and divine realms, a physical representation of humanity’s attempt to reach the heavens and commune with the gods. The biblical text also notes that they used brick for stone and bitumen for mortar, a sophisticated construction technique in ancient Mesopotamia.
According to rabbinic commentary, their sin was not just pride, but a direct rebellion against God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” This command, first given to Adam and Eve, was a divine blessing and a call to fill the world with life. Yet, the people of Shinar, in their desire for centralized power and a singular identity, actively resisted this mandate. God, in His mercy, didn’t destroy them. Instead, he confused their language and scatters them across the globe, fulfilling His original command. The lesson of Babel is that human unity, when it’s built on arrogance and rebellion against God, is a dangerous and fragile thing.
The story of Noah shows that a new world, a fresh start, isn’t enough to fix the human heart. Sin continues to be a problem, like the selfish ambitions of the nations in the plains of Shinar. This is where the story of humanity reaches a turning point. With Noah and the promise of the rainbow, God’s relationship with all of humanity is a general one. But after Babel’s failure, God changes His strategy. The stage is set for the next Torah portion, where God will no longer deal with all of humanity in general, but will choose one man, Abraham, to be the father of a people who will bless all the nations. That’s it for this week. Join me next week in reading Genesis 12:1-17:27, the portion on Abraham which is called Lech Lecha.
Shabbat Shalom and Am Yisrael Chai.