The Flood - Moses 8

8:1-3 - The city of Zion is so righteous that it, with Enoch, is taken up into heaven, and not just them but also those various righteous who live between the time of the city being taken up and the flood happening. You’d think that since Enoch was taken up too that all his family would as well, assuming they’d be just as righteous, but verse 1 specifically states that Methuselah, Enoch’s son, “was not taken.” The reason that we’re given is that Methuselah had to remain on the earth so that the promise God made with Enoch would be fulfilled, and that promise is that “Noah should be of the fruit of his loins.” Methuselah was apparently content with this reasoning, “and he took glory unto himself.” I don’t know if that means he was prideful in some sort of way or if it means that he took this reasoning as good enough for him and was happy to do God’s work, or something else entirely. A little note about Noah as a person, the IM says, “Many generations of prophets foresaw Noah as the prophet in the days of the cleansing of the earth by flood. Noah was ordained to the higher priesthood when ten years old by his grandfather Methuselah… Noah holds the keys of his dispensation and stands next to Adam in authority. Noah is the angel Gabriel… Noah also functions in the calling of an Elias, meaning one who prepared or restores. Through his various appearances, Noah has performed both of these functions.” 8:4-15 - As with so many other times throughout the scriptures, wickedness in the people was met with “a great famine into the land, and the Lord cursed the earth with a sore curse, and many of the inhabitants thereof died.” Methuselah begat Lamech, and Lamech begat Noah among other children, and Noah begat Japheth, Shem, and Ham. It specifies in verse 12 that Japheth and Shem had the same mother, which might mean that Ham had a different mother, assuming that polygamy was the standard way of living back then as has been speculated. Noah and his sons, “hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed, and they were called the sons of God.” There also are some daughters in the mix here, I’m not exactly sure what their deal is, if they were Noah’s daughters or just some random girls. The problem becomes when these daughters are beautiful and the men around them “took them wives.” The way that this is recorded has the Lord being angry with the women saying, “the daughters of thy sons have sold themselves; for behold mine anger is kindled against the sons of men, for they will not hearken to my voice.” It seems he’s blaming the women for the wickedness of the men. But let’s consider the level of women’s rights that were held in the ancient world, as far as I know, there were none. So yes, it’s possible that the women chose to marry non-believers and were the ones who encouraged wicked behavior among their husbands, but I’m going to go ahead and guess that this was not the case as much as it’s being portrayed here. 8:16-21 - Noah takes the Lord’s words to heart and preaches the gospel to the people, it doesn’t go well and the Lord tells Noah that if the people do not repent “I will send in the floods upon them.” The people do not appreciate Noah’s attempt to help them correct their behavior, and it seems that the “giants” are particularly displeased with him and “they sought Noah to take away his life,” but the Lord saved him through his power. Noah was given the priesthood by God and commanded to further “declare his Gospel unto the children of men, even as it was given unto Enoch.” Noah did as he was commanded and told the people to repent, but they did not listen to him. The interesting part here is that the people don’t recognize their wickedness, either truly or facetiously. They answer Noah “behold, we are the sons of God,” don’t we have families, “and are we nog eating and drinking?” which I assume means living riotously, which if they aren’t doing that, then it is possible to be so wicked that death is better for you spiritually than continuing to live, even if it is perceived that you are keeping the commandments. But this doesn’t make sense because the Lord also says that “the world is filled with violence,” so it can’t be that these people are living outwardly peaceful lives and are just insanely wicked on the inside. 8:22-27 – Even though all these people thought that they were doing ok spiritually, “God saw that they wickedness of men had become great in the earth… being only evil continually.” Noah continued to preach these words, and see just how similar these teachings are to the ones that we have today: “Believe and repent of your sins and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, even as our fathers, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost, that ye may have all things made manifest.” It’s short, but it’s exactly what we learn today and I love this because it shows the continuity of the gospel message throughout all of human history. The people don’t listen and “it repented Noah, and his heart was pained that the Lord had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his hearts.” According to the IM, “this verse is an important and inspired correction to Genesis 6:6, which reads: ‘And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.’ The Hebrew word used here, and translated repented in the Bible, nacham, which literally means ‘to sigh,’ ‘to breathe strongly,’ to be sorry,’ ‘to pity.’” Reading that God repented of making humans is a big blow to the concept of God’s omniscience, and it sows seeds of doubt in God’s abilities to make a good plan. It makes it seem like God’s playing catch up with everything here on earth just as much as the rest of us, and that is deeply undermining. It’s easy to see what this was such a big deal for Satan to edit in the Bible. The Lord agrees with Noah that the people are out of control and because ‘Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” God promises to “destroy man whom I have created, from the face of the earth, both man and beast.” I hadn’t considered that the animals all died too, I guess it makes sense especially with Noah taking all the animals on the ark, but it’s a pretty distressing thought, and sad that the wickedness of the people meant that the animals suffered too, but I guess that’s how it is today too. Noah and his sons found grace before God because “Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation; and he walked with God, as did also his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” I’ve always heard that Noah was a drunk and that he walked around naked, etc, and I always wondered what the sons had to do with anything, because I assumed, naturally, that they were douche bags and just got to survive because they stuck around with their dad. But the IM quotes Elder Mark E. Petersen as teaching, “Noah, who built the ark, was one of God’s greatest servants, chosen before he was born as were others of the prophets. He was no eccentric, as many have supposed. Neither was he a mythical figure created only in legend. Noah was read… Let no one downgrade the life and mission of this great prophet. Noah was so near perfect in his day that he literally walked and talked with God… Few men in any age were as great as Noah. In many respects he was like Adam, the first man. Both had served as ministering angels in the presence of God even after their mortal experience.” 8:28-30 – Regardless of Noah’s individual righteousness, the rest of the world, outside of his family “was corrupt before God, and it was filled with violence.” Seeing how the world was God promised Noah, “the end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence, and behold I will destroy all flesh from off the earth.” I’ve often wondered just how bad the people in Noah’s time were compared to our world today, because our world is pretty bad, how much worse could they be? The IM quotes President John Taylor as noting, “God destroyed the wicked of that generation with a flood. Why did He destroy them? He destroyed them for their benefit, if you can comprehend it.” That’s a pretty bad prognosis, when you are so evil that you’re best course of action for your spiritual survival is your physical death.