TIME

Noah and the Flood – Bible Chronology of the Flood Account

An hourglass on a cloudy background.

In our first article, we saw that there is a cycle of time that can be kept track of, which is composed of knots of seven days. These knots form a sequence (a cycle) that is called The Solar Cycle. By using this Solar Cycle, we can begin to trace the dates of God’s Word.

First, we would like to give a brief summary of what we learned in the previous article. When we read about the first week of Creation in Genesis 1, we see seven literal days of Creation, with the seventh day being the Sabbath. From then on, we can begin to count off the Sabbaths, one after another. Thus on the first month since Creation, the Sabbaths fell on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of the month.

In his wisdom, God chose to use the moon as the governing body of time – for days, weeks, and months. This is the mechanism of keeping time. A Lunar month consists of 29 ½ days. So 12 months, or 354 days in total, make a Lunar Year. The ancients marked off their calendar by months of 30, 29, 30, 29 days, and so on, each year being 354 days. As they traced the Sabbaths through the Lunar year, they did so all the way to the end of the seventh year. At the end of the seventh Lunar year the Sabbath fell on the 29th day of the month or the last day of the year. Thus was completed a 7-year cycle of Lunar years of 354 days. After that, the cycle would repeat all over again.

There is something to note though. The Lunar year with its Sabbaths is going for 7 years and at the same time there are Solar years going, and there is an 11-day difference between a Lunar year (354 days) and a Solar year (365 days).

Solar years are just knots of time. From one given day in a Solar year to the same day in the next year, there are 365 days, no matter what day would be chosen to be the starting date. Inside of it, we have a Lunar year. Every year there is a difference of 11 days between the Solar and the Lunar year, and by the time we get to the end of the 7th year, there is a difference of 77 days.. Therefore, the ancients used to make an alignment, because if this was allowed to go on for four cycles (28 years), the seasons would go upside down. This is why they had to keep the months and years together, aligning them so that the beginning of each Antediluvian Solar Cycle both the Lunar and the Solar years would start on the same day. For this reason, 77 days were added, or 11 weeks (being called “intercalary” days), at the end of each 7-year cycle.

When we understand this, we can apply it and find out something really fascinating about the Flood. The Flood account proves that this is the way that the ancients kept track of time. In Genesis 5 we are given a genealogy. We may not have known why these genealogies have been given to us, but they have been recorded in the Bible for a specific purpose. They are timekeepers. Since we are told when the firstborns were born, we can trace the Solar years and (aligning them with the Antediluvian Solar Cycle) we can know any given date in the Bible.

1656 AM – Year of the Flood – Fifth year of the Antediluvian SOLAR CYCLE

To Adam and Eve were born Cain and Abel. Abel was righteous. When Cain killed Abel, the only representative of the righteous line was slain. Another child needed to be born in order to continue the righteous line of Adam’s descendants. That was Seth. When was Seth born to Adam? When Adam was 130 years old. Now we know how old Adam was when he had Seth. When Seth had Enos, he was 105 years old. We can begin to add up the years of the birth of the firstborn sons and calculate them to get to the year when the Flood occurred. Thus we learn that when Enos had Cainan, he was 90 years old. And when we go down through Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, we get to the Flood which occurred in the 600th year of Noah’s life.

Thus from the year 0 of Creation, by counting the genealogy of the descendants of Adam, starting with Seth, down to the 600th year of Noah’s life, we are brought to the year 1656 after Creation, when the Flood took place. This happened in the fifth year of the Antediluvian Solar Cycle.

How do we know that the Flood occurred in the fifth year of the 7-year Solar Cycle? Because this cycle repeats all over again. There is a very easy way to count this: Seven times 236 makes 1652, which would be the first year of the cycle. The remainder of 5 years up to 1656 shows us that the Flood occurred in the fifth year of the cycle.

So we can know that whatever dates we find in the Book of Genesis around the Flood, all of them occur in the fifth year, and we can trace them on this table.

Let us now go to the Book of Genesis and begin to read the Flood account in chapters 7 and 8, as we want to look at the dates around the Flood.

And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” Gen. 7:1.

When did the Lord call Noah into the ark? Seven days prior to the Flood.

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” Gen. 7:2-4.

So, they are all called into the ark, seven days before the Flood. We know that the Flood occurred in the second month, on the 17th day. Noah was 600 years old. It was in 1656, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, that the Flood began, and 7 days prior Noah and all his family had entered the ark. And notice that they had been sealed inside the ark by an angel who came down. This reminds us of Ezekiel where the Bible talks about the sealing angel having a writer’s inkhorn who was to put a sign on the foreheads of all them that were righteous (Ezekiel chapter 9).

If we go to Gen. 7:11, what do we read there?

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Gen. 7:11.

Here we have the fifth year, and then the second month, and then the 17th day of the month for the date of the Flood. On the Antediluvian Solar Cycle, we see that the Flood started on a Sabbath. Seven days prior, on the 10th day of the 2nd month, Noah and his family were sealed in the ark, on a Sabbath.

In this article, we are going to trace five Sabbaths in relation to the Flood. There are more, but here we will focus on these, in order to lay the foundation. We need to have a clear understanding of the Flood, as it relates to Bible time because this would become an immovable foundation, based on which we can examine other aspects of the astronomical phenomena in the Bible.

We already saw two Sabbaths – the day when Noah’s family entered into the ark and the day when the Flood began. Let us keep reading to see more. In verse 12 it tells us:

And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” Gen. 7:12.

To understand this, we will now go to Genesis chapter 8. The waters were prevailing upon the earth, and in Genesis 8 we read:

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.” Gen. 8:1-4.

We are given the date when the ark rested. We can trace it in the fifth year of the cycle, on the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month. Let us now look where it is on the Antediluvian Solar Cycle…

We see that the date when the ark rested was a Sabbath day. Now we have found three Sabbaths, relating to the Flood. If we go to verse 13, we will see another Sabbath day, and finding these first five Sabbaths, we will have undeniable proof that the 7-year Solar Cycle was the way in which the ancients kept time according to the Bible. We read:

And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.” Gen. 8:13.

When did Noah see that the ground was dry? In the 601st year of his life (which is the sixth year of the cycle), in the first month, on the first day of that month. We can trace this date on our chart, and here is what we find…

What day of the week was it when Noah removed the covering of the ark and saw that the waters were dried up? The first day of the first month of that year was a Sabbath. In verse 14 we read:

And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.” Gen. 8:14.

This is when Noah left the ark. Let us look at when this happened. Let us trace the 27th day of the second month, in the sixth year of the cycle…

The day when Noah left the ark was also a Sabbath. One solar year, one exact solar year of 365 days later, Noah left the ark, on a Sabbath day!
Right there we saw five Sabbaths:
1) Noah entered the ark on a Sabbath.
2) the Flood began on a Sabbath.
3) the ark rested on a Sabbath.
4) the dry ground appeared on a Sabbath.
5) Noah left the ark on a Sabbath.
There are four more Sabbaths in relation to the Flood that can be shown.
The magnificent exactness of these Sabbath days confirms that the Antediluvian Solar Cycle must be the way in which time was kept in ancient days.
We find it difficult to express our admiration for the Antediluvian Solar Cycle that was used in the early days of our world, and that is made known to us through the Bible. A Lunar year cannot be played with, as we play with our solar year.
A Solar year can start on any day. If we take any day, if we fix the sun at its position at noon, we can be sure that 365 days later the sun will be in the same position, relative to where we are standing.
The Lunar keeping of time does not work that way. Since the Lunar year is governed by the unalterable phases of the moon, we cannot mess with it. When new, the moon registers the beginning, and when full – the middle of the month, and so we cannot alter even a moment of time.
Time was instituted by God himself in Eden, and by breaking from the original keeping of time (the way the ancients kept track of it), we have involved ourselves in all sorts of troubles which only increase with the passing of time.
The 7-year Solar Cycle bears the stamp of its appointment by God. Like the number of days in a Lunar year, the Antediluvian Solar Cycle contained 354 Sabbath days. And when the intercalary days were added, the Sabbath days were 365, which brings it up to the number of days in the Solar Year (by adding these 77 intercalary days).
Noah’s detention in the ark was another symbol of this great astronomical fact. All of this is very important for us to understand how time works in the Bible.
As an unalterable period of time, the use of the Lunar year continued from the Creation to the destruction of Jerusalem. It bears the stamp and superscription of God. And as it is the beginning of time on earth, it is a chain that no man can sever without driving the heavenly bodies out of their courses. If we are honest students of the Bible, we cannot evade the truths of the first chapter of Genesis.

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