Sabbath study, viii: the Genesis Flood Chiasm (Gen. 6:9-9:29)

A study’s deluge of information.

Prologue: chiasmus overview

Throughout every biblical text, practically every at-large section (i.e. entailing a whole book, or a significant portion of a whole book book) is subdivided into a chiastic literary structure of a sevenfold A-B-C-D-C’-B’-A’ formation representing the shape of the Temple menorah, like so:

At the level of an at-large chiasm encompassing the entirety of—how shall one put it—a macro-narrative, any one of the three chiastic branch layers can be split into three chiastic layers, i.e. A/A’ → A.i-A.ii-A.iii // A’.iii’-A’.ii’-A’.i’ (and likewise for the B/B’ and C/C’ correspondences), and the D branch can be split into a centrally embedded menorah a.k.a. D → D.a-D.b-D.c-D.d-D.c’-D.b’-D.a’. While not represented in the simple diagram above, this further at-large layer subdivision is reflective of the 22-almond-bud formation on the menorah (for instance, see here) as given in the Exodus sanctuary details.¹ When a branch is chiastically subdivided at the at-large level into three sub-branch almonds, this means that the textual pericope is—in symbolic terms—not only illuminated by the light of the candlestick itself, but directly connects or otherwise is attached to the refined gold of the candlestick. The fuller implications are too much to assess this very moment, as this overview is merely an abridged introductory preface to the specific chiastic study for this sabbath.

As far as my own unearthed findings are concerned at the very moment, there likely appears (I could very well possibly be wrong on this, as it’s just a provisional theory) to be only four at-large chiastic structures throughout the entire Bible where every at-large branch unit (and their accompanying correspondences) is fully subdivided, a.k.a. all four of the baseline correspondences of the branches (a.k.a. A/A’, B/B’, C/C’, and D) are maximized into an A.i-A.ii-A.iii-B.i-B.ii-B.iii-C.i-C.ii-C.iii-D.a-D.b-D.c-D.d-D.c’-D.b’-D.a’-C’.iii’-C’.ii’-C’.i’-B’.iii’-B’.ii’-B’.i’-A’.iii’-A’.ii’-A’.i’ structure where every almond bud is directly corresponded/attached to the text at hand. These four texts are:

1. the Genesis Flood narrative (Gen. 6:9-9:29)

2. the three longer Johannine books of the New Testament:

   1. Book of Revelation

   2. First Epistle of John

   3. Gospel according to John

Considering the writings of the apostle John were almost certainly written last to finish the biblical canon, this would make the Five Books of John the tav to the aleph that is the Books of Moses (though more specifically speaking, Genesis would be the biblical canon’s aleph and the Fourth Gospel the tav). As to whether the entirety of the Bible can be succinctly proven to be a Grand Unified Chiasm, such a mystery can be solved to its absolute conclusion by no one single mortal human alone, and this author is only here to contribute to the edifying of God’s people as a body of believers called unto holiness,² not to presumptuously lay claim to proprietary esoteric “gnosis” over it. Perhaps this little Grand Unified Chiasm theory will be worth a study to be compiled for introductory overview another time. :)

In any case, what is indicatively evident here is that both the beginning and conclusion of Jehovah’s inspired scriptures convey the representation of fully restored harmony through the fullness of chiastic subdivision. This is because in every other at-large chiastic sequence (at least from what I unearthed and concluded after studying some other >2 dozen books), there is never manifested an absolute full almond-reached subdivision of the chiasm, as at most up to any three out of the four can be subdivided down to the almond layers (for instance, in the case of the first at-large chiasm in the Book of Zechariah spanning chs. 1-8, the A/A’, C/C’, and D units are subdivided, although B/B’ remains a single chiastic layer), but not all four total in any particular single at-large chiasm.

For one to understand the latter glory, there is necessitated a comprehension of the former typifying the latter. It is hinted in the scriptures, after all, that the destruction of the antediluvian world served as a type/shadow for the ultimate obliteration by fire to consume the wicked in the very end:³

This, now, beloved, a second letter to you I write, in both which I stir up your pure mind in reminding [you], to be mindful of the sayings said before by the holy prophets, and of the command of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour;

this first knowing, that there shall come in the latter end of the days scoffers, according to their own desires going on, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his presence? for since the fathers did fall asleep, all things so remain from the beginning of the creation!’

For this is unobserved by them willingly, that the heavens were of old, and the earth out of water and through water standing together by the word of God, through which the then world, by water having been deluged, was destroyed; and the present heavens and the earth, by the same word are treasured, for fire being kept to a day of judgment and destruction of the impious men.

To grasp the antitype that is to come, let’s first understand the type.

Chiasmus details

The baseline sevenfold branch division of the Genesis Flood Chiasm is thus:

• A (6:9-13): God’s covenantal promise to Noah of a near-future literal watering unto destruction

  • B (6:14-7:5): last antediluvian events

    • C (7:6-17a): accumulation of the deluge

      • D (7:17b-8:5): floodwaters cover the whole earth

    • C’ (8:6-14): evaporation of the deluge

  • B’ (8:15-9:11): first postdiluvian events

• A’ (9:12-29): God’s covenantal promise to Noah and his three sons of a far-future spiritual watering unto redemption

Pericopal units

Within an at-large chiasm, there are usually pericopal chiasms defining the maximum possible division boundaries which any parallel correspondences within an at-large chiastic layer always conforms to. The recurring pattern of pericopal chiasms is that their boundaries must firmly define that of at-large branch and sub-branch almond units cleanly:

• a pericopal chiasm can at most define the entirety of a single at-large branch, but never protruding into another branch, i.e. it can encompass all of the B branch, but cannot extend into C

• a pericopal chiasms can encompass part of a branch, or an entire branch (whether subdivided into three almond units or not), or part of an almond unit, or an entire almond, or two out of three almond units within a branch, but can never partially protrude into another almond unit—for instance, a pericopal chiasm can define C’.iii’-ii’ but cannot encompass all of C’.iii’ only to partially envelope C’.ii’

• any sub-parallel units of a pericopal chiasm branch is almost certainly the maximum possible subdivision in a text

In the Genesis Flood narrative, there are seven pericopal chiasms.

A.iii (6:11-13)

• a (6:11a): “And the earth is corrupt before God,”

  • b (6:11b): “and the earth is filled [with] violence.”

    • c (6:12a): “And God seeth the earth, and lo, it hath been corrupted,”

      • d (6:12b): “for all flesh hath corrupted its way on the earth.”

    • c’ (6:13a): “And God said to Noah, ‘An end of all flesh hath come before Me,”

  • b’ (6:13b): “for the earth hath been full of violence from their presence;”

• a’ (6:13c): “and lo, I am destroying them with the earth.”

A.iii pericopal explanation

• a/a’: the first branch asserts that the earth became corrupt in the sight of God, and the last branch explains what is the resulting consequence

• b/b’: repeated mention of the earth becoming filled with violence

• c/c’: as a consequence of the earth becoming corrupted indeed, all corrupted flesh meet their end

• d: central observation—all flesh corrupted their way upon the planet in the late-stage antediluvian era

C.i-iii (7:6-17a)

• a (7:6): “and Noah [is] a son of six hundred years, and the deluge of waters hath been upon the earth.”

  • b.I (7:7): “And Noah goeth in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, unto the ark, from the presence of the waters of the deluge;”

  • b.II (7:8): “of the clean beasts and of the beasts that [are] not clean, and of the fowl, and of every thing that is creeping upon the ground,”

  • b.III (7:9): “two by two they have come in unto Noah, unto the ark, a male and a female, as God hath commanded Noah.”

    • c (7:10): “And it cometh to pass, after the seventh of the days, that waters of the deluge have been on the earth.”

      • d (7:11): “In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, in the seventeenth day of the month, in this day have been broken up all fountains of the great deep, and the net-work of the heavens hath been opened,”

    • c’ (7:12): “and the shower is on the earth forty days and forty nights.”

  • b’.I (7:13): “In this self-same day went in Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, sons of Noah, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, unto the ark;”

  • b’.II (7:14): “they, and every living creature after its kind, and every beast after its kind, and every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth after its kind, and every fowl after its kind, every bird—every wing.”

  • b’.III (7:15-16): “And they come in unto Noah, unto the ark, two by two of all the flesh in which [is] a living spirit; and they that are coming in, male and female of all flesh, have come in as God hath commanded him, and Jehovah doth close [it] for him.”

• a’ (7:17a): “And the deluge is forty days on the earth,”

C.i-iii pericopal explanation

• a/a’: repeated mention of the deluge’s presence on the earth

• b.I/b’.I: Noah, his three sons, his wife, and his three daughters-in-law

• b.II/b’.II: all animals, clean and unclean

• b.III/b’.III: all flesh come two by two unto Noah to head into the Ark

• c/c’: waters of the deluge accumulate on the earth

• d: the exact day when the floodwaters started accumulating

D (7:17b-8:5)

• a (7:17b-20): “and the waters multiply, and lift up the ark, and it is raised up from off the earth; and the waters are mighty, and multiply exceedingly upon the earth; and the ark goeth on the face of the waters. And the waters have been very very mighty on the earth, and covered are all the high mountains which [are] under the whole heavens; fifteen cubits upwards have the waters become mighty, and the mountains are covered;”

  • b (7:21-23): “and expire doth all flesh that is moving on the earth, among fowl, and among cattle, and among beasts, and among all the teeming things which are teeming on the earth, and all mankind; all in whose nostrils [is] breath of a living spirit—of all that [is] in the dry land—have died. And wiped away is all the substance that is on the face of the ground, from man unto beast, unto creeping thing, and unto fowl of the heavens; yea, they are wiped away from the earth, and only Noah is left, and those who [are] with him in the ark;”

    • c (7:24): “and the waters are mighty on the earth a hundred and fifty days.”

      • d (8:1a): “And God remembereth Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle which [are] with him in the ark,”

    • c’ (8:1b-3): “and God causeth a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subside, and closed are the fountains of the deep and the net-work of the heavens, and restrained is the shower from the heavens. And turn back do the waters from off the earth, going on and returning; and the waters are lacking at the end of a hundred and fifty days.”

  • b’ (8:4-5a): “And the ark resteth, in the seventh month, in the seventeenth day of the month, on mountains of Ararat; and the waters have been going and becoming lacking till the tenth month;”

• a’ (8:5b): “in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, appeared the heads of the mountains.”

D pericopal explanation

• a/a’: visibility of the mountaintops

• b/b’: preservation of all living flesh in the Ark alone

• c/c’: 150 days

• d: thematic centrality of the entire at-large chiasm—Jehovah remembers Noah and all living flesh with him in the Ark

C’.iii’-i’ (8:6-14)

• a (8:6-7): “And it cometh to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah openeth the window of the ark which he made, and he sendeth forth the raven, and it goeth out, going out and turning back till the drying of the waters from off the earth.”

  • b (8:8-9): “And he sendeth forth the dove from him to see whether the waters have been lightened from off the face of the ground, and the dove hath not found rest for the sole of her foot, and she turneth back unto him, unto the ark, for waters [are] on the face of all the earth, and he putteth out his hand, and taketh her, and bringeth her in unto him, unto the ark.”

    • c (8:10-11a): “And he stayeth yet other seven days, and addeth to send forth the dove from the ark; and the dove cometh in unto him at even-time, and lo, an olive leaf torn off in her mouth;”

      • d (8:11b): “and Noah knoweth that the waters have been lightened from off the earth.”

    • c’ (8:12): “And he stayeth yet other seven days, and sendeth forth the dove, and it added not to turn back unto him any more.”

  • b’ (8:13): “And it cometh to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first [month], in the first of the month, the waters have been dried from off the earth; and Noah turneth aside the covering of the ark, and looketh, and lo, the face of the ground hath been dried.”

• a’ (8:14): “And in the second month, in the seven and twentieth day of the month, the earth hath become dry.”

C’.iii’-i’ pericopal explanation

• a/a’: abating of the waters from the earth

• b/b’: abating of the waters from the face of the ground

• c/c’: Noah stays seven days and sends forth the dove from the Ark

• d: recession of floodwaters from the earth

B’.i’.I (9:1-7)

• a (9:1): “And God blesseth Noah, and his sons, and saith to them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth;”

  • b (9:2): “and your fear and your dread is on every beast of the earth, and on every fowl of the heavens, on all that creepeth on the ground, and on all fishes of the sea—into your hand they have been given.”

    • c (9:3): “Every creeping thing that is alive, to you it is for food; as the green herb I have given to you the whole;”

      • d (9:4): “only flesh in its life—its blood—ye do not eat.”

    • c’ (9:5): “And only your blood for your lives do I require; from the hand of every living thing I require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother I require the life of man;”

  • b’ (9:6): “whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man is his blood shed: for in the image of God hath He made man.”

• a’ (9:7): “And ye, be fruitful and multiply, teem in the earth, and multiply in it.’”

B’.i’.I pericopal explanation

• a/a’: twice-stated divine command to the eight human survivors of the Great Flood, telling them to repopulate the earth

• b/b’: complimentary mercy and justice respectively—just as man is bestowed the great privilege of dominion over all the animals of the earth, so too he must be held accountable for transgression against fellow man

• c/c’: likewise, complimentary mercy and justice respectively

• d: central anchor—universal rule against consumption of blood

A’.iii’ (9:12-17)

• a (9:12): “And God saith, ‘This is a token of the covenant which I am giving between Me and you, and every living creature that [is] with you, to generations age-during;”

  • b (9:13): “My bow I have given in the cloud, and it hath been for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth;”

    • c (9:14): “and it hath come to pass (in My sending a cloud over the earth) that the bow hath been seen in the cloud,”

      • d (9:15a): “and I have remembered My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living creature among all flesh,”

    • c’ (9:15b): “and the waters become no more a deluge to destroy all flesh;”

  • b’ (9:16): “and the bow hath been in the cloud, and I have seen it—to remember the covenant age-during between God and every living creature among all flesh which [is] on the earth.’”

• a’ (9:17): “And God saith unto Noah, ‘This [is] a token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth.’”

A’.iii’ pericopal explanation

• a/a’: token of the covenant between Jehovah and all flesh on the earth

• b/b’: God’s rainbow in the cloud

• c/c’: complimentary action-and-result—God will send a cloud over the earth, which pours out the latter rain

• d: central emphasis as a wondrously beautiful microcosm of the centrality of the at-large chiasm—just as God remembered Noah in type when sending a literal deluge unto destruction, so too He will remember the Noahic Covenant in antitype to send out a spiritual deluge unto everlasting salvation

A’.ii’ (9:18-27)

• a (9:18-19): “And the sons of Noah who are going out of the ark are Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is father of Canaan. These three [are] sons of Noah, and from these hath all the earth been overspread.”

  • b.I (9:20-21): “And Noah remaineth a man of the ground, and planteth a vineyard, and drinketh of the wine, and is drunken, and uncovereth himself in the midst of the tent.”

  • b.II (9:22): “And Ham, father of Canaan, seeth the nakedness of his father, and declareth to his two brethren without.”

    • c (9:23a): “And Shem taketh—Japheth also—the garment, and they place on the shoulder of them both, and go backward,”

      • d (9:23b): “and cover the nakedness of their father;”

    • c’ (9:23c): “and their faces [are] backward, and their father's nakedness they have not seen.”

  • b’.I (9:24a): “And Noah awaketh from his wine,”

  • b’.II (9:24b-25): “and knoweth that which his young son hath done to him, and saith: ‘Cursed [is] Canaan, Servant of servants he is to his brethren.’”

• a’ (9:26-27): “And he saith: ‘Blessed of Jehovah my God [is] Shem, And Canaan is servant to him. God doth give beauty to Japheth, And he dwelleth in tents of Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.’”

A’.ii’ pericopal explanation

• a/a’: Noah, Shem, Japheth, and Canaan son of Ham

• b.I/b’.I: Noah’s drunken stupor from his wine

• b.II/b’.II: Ham’s transgression against his father

• c/c’: Shem and Japheth face backward to avoid seeing their father’s nakedness

• d: the shame of Noah’s nakedness covered by his two righteous sons

At-large correspondence

• A.i (6:9)/A’.i’ (9:28-29): the generations of Noah

• A.ii (6:10)/A’.ii’ (9:18-27): Noah’s three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth

• A.iii.I (6:11)/A’.iii’.I (9:12-13): the earth before God

• A.iii.II (6:12)/A’.iii’.II (9:14-16): all flesh upon the earth

• A.iii.III (6:13)/A’.iii’.III (9:17): God’s confirmation to Noah

• B.i.I (6:14-16)/B’.i’.I (9:1-7): God’s instructions to Noah

• B.i.II (6:17-18)/B’.i’.II (9:8-11): God’s covenant with Noah

• B.ii (6:19-22)/B’.ii’ (8:20-22): Noah’s faithful worship of Jehovah

• B.iii.I (7:1-4)/B’.iii’.I (8:15-17): Noah, his house, and all flesh

• B.iii.II (7:5)/B’.iii’.II (8:18-19): Noah obeys all of God’s commandments

• C.i (7:6-9)/C’.i’ (8:13-14): waters upon the earth

• C.ii (7:10-12)/C’.ii’ (8:10-12): 7 days

• C.iii (7:13-17a)/C’.iii’ (8:6-9): 40 days

• D.a (7:17b-20)/D.a’ (8:5b): visibility of the mountaintops

• D.b (7:21-23)/D.b’ (8:4-5a): preservation of all living flesh in the Ark alone

• D.c (7:24)/D.c’ (8:1b-3): 150 days

• D.d (8:1a): Jehovah remembers Noah and all living flesh with him in the Ark

Read and check for yourself.

Epilogue: what is the Noahic Covenant’s fulfillment?

It is explained in the New Testament that the Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled in the author of the New Covenant, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,⁴ and that the Mosaic Covenant passed away into oblivion in 70 A.D.,⁵ although the Noahic Covenant’s remains something of a… mystery.

(no, the biblical definition of the Noahic Covenant has absolutely nothing to do with modern-day sensationalistically presumptuous speculation over some “Noahide Laws” theory about nonexistent Talmudic Jewish world control, so that diversionary focal angle is a non-starter—don’t even bother bringing this up unless you actually need additional clarification on why that obsession is a bonkers psyop distraction)

Let’s first off recall what waters mean in the sense of freshwaters from the standpoint of biblical symbolism. Obviously, from what is literally plain, freshwaters accumulate from rainfall when clouds form in the sky and send down their precipitation. The prophet Moses relayed of God’s oracles in Deuteronomy:⁶

Give ear, O heavens, and I speak; And thou dost hear, O earth, sayings of my mouth!

Drop as rain doth My doctrine; Flow as dew doth My sayings; As storms on the tender grass, And as showers on the herb, For the Name of Jehovah I proclaim, Ascribe ye greatness to our God!

The Rock!—perfect [is] His work, For all His ways [are] just; God of stedfastness, and without iniquity: Righteous and upright [is] He.

Freshwaters in prophecy, therefore, are symbolic for doctrines. And as for grass?⁷

A voice is saying, ‘Call,’ And he said, ‘What do I call?’ All flesh [is] grass, and all its goodliness [is] As a flower of the field:

Withered hath grass, faded the flower, For the Spirit of Jehovah blew upon it, Surely the people [is] grass;

Withered hath grass, faded the flower, But a word of our God riseth for ever.

IOWs:

• biblically symbolic freshwaters/rain = literal doctrines

• biblically symbolic grass = literal flesh

One reads in the Book of Zechariah:⁸

They asked of Jehovah rain in a time of latter rain, Jehovah is making lightnings, And rain [in] showers He doth give to them. To each—the herb in the field. Because the teraphim did speak iniquity, And the diviners have seen a falsehood, And dreams of the vanity they speak, [With] vanity they give comfort, Therefore they have journeyed as a flock, They are afflicted, for there is no shepherd.

Against the shepherds did Mine anger burn, And against the he-goats I lay a charge, For inspected hath Jehovah of Hosts His flock, the house of Judah, And set them as His beauteous horse in battle.

This concisely summarizes the far-future fulfillment of the Noahic Covenant: Jehovah’s faithful body of believers in Jesus Christ will pray for the outpouring of the latter rain, and God will bring about an unprecedented outpouring of His holy doctrinal truth to be preached unto the entire world that will gather every heartfelt-penitent seeker of God’s righteousness into a unified body of believers purged of all dross and sanctified in the fire that is God.

It is no wonder then that Jesus’s conclusion to His Sermon on the Mount is thus:⁹

Therefore, every one who doth hear of me these words, and doth do them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain did descend, and the streams came, and the winds blew, and they beat on that house, and it fell not, for it had been founded on the rock.

And every one who is hearing of me these words, and is not doing them, shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain did descend, and the streams came, and the winds blew, and they beat on that house, and it fell, and its fall was great.

Did Jesus use these symbolic descriptors as an analogy for no particular reason? Obviously not—these exact symbols were asserted precisely because it encapsulates the final separation between the wheat and tares: a wise person is one who upon the Rock of salvation (a.k.a. Jesus Christ¹⁰) builds a shelter that withstands the tempest and shakings to accompany the latter rain outpouring of God’s doctrinal truths, whereas the foolish person is one who builds their spiritual shelter upon a foundation apart from the truth, the way, and the life, which means their tabernacle fails to withstand the scrutiny of divine truth’s implications.

You—yes, you who are reading this—have an ultimate choice to make: will you seek after the righteousness of God unto everlasting salvation, or will you reject it unto shame and everlasting contempt? Each and every cognitively capable person who is alive in the final era will have to make this individual decision for himself/herself.

1. Ex. 25:31-40, 37:17-24.

2. Cf. Rom. 12:3-8; I Cor. 12:14-31; Eph. 4:11-14; Col. 1:24.

3. II Pet. 3:1-7.

4. Cf. Rom. 4; Gal. 3:8-9, 28-29; Jas. 2:21.

5. Cf. Acts 13:40-41; Heb. 8:8-13.

6. Deut. 32:1-4.

7. Isa. 40:6-8; cf. I Pet. 1:24-25.

8. Zech. 10:1-3.

9. Matt. 7:24-27.

10. I Cor. 10:1-4.