The ark was completed according to the instructions laid down in the
Book of Raziel. Noah's next task was gathering in the animals. No less
than thirty-two species of birds and three hundred and sixty-five of
reptiles he had to take along with him. But God ordered the animals to
repair to the ark, and they trooped thither, and Noah did not have to
do so much as stretch out a finger.[24] Indeed, more appeared than were
required to come, and God instructed him to sit at the door of the ark
and note which of the animals lay down as they reached the entrance and
which stood. The former belonged in the ark, but not the latter. Taking
up his post as he had been commanded, Noah observed a lioness with her
two cubs. All three beasts crouched. But the two young ones began to
struggle with the mother, and she arose and stood up next to them. Then
Noah led the two cubs into the ark. The wild beasts, and the cattle,
and the birds which were not accepted remained standing about the ark
all of seven days, for the assembling of the animals happened one week
before the flood began to descend. On the day whereon they came to the
ark, the sun was darkened, and the foundations of the earth trembled,
and lightning flashed, and the thunder boomed, as never before. And yet
the sinners remained impenitent. In naught did they change their wicked
doings during those last seven days.
When finally the flood broke loose, seven hundred thousand of the
children of men gathered around the ark, and implored Noah to grant
them protection. With a loud voice he replied, and said: "Are ye not
those who were rebellious toward God, saying, 'There is no God'?
Therefore He has brought ruin upon you, to annihilate you and destroy
you from the face of the earth. Have I not been prophesying this unto
you these hundred and twenty years, and you would not give heed unto
the voice of God? Yet now you desire to be kept alive!" Then the
sinners cried out: "So be it! We all are ready now to turn back to God,
if only thou wilt open the door of thy ark to receive us, that we may
live and not die." Noah made answer, and said: "That ye do now, when
your need presses hard upon you. Why did you not turn to God during all
the hundred and twenty years which the Lord appointed unto you as the
term of repentance? Now do ye come, and ye speak thus, because distress
besets your lives. Therefore God will not hearken unto you and give you
ear; naught will you accomplish!"
The crowd of sinners tried to take the entrance to the ark by storm,
but the wild beasts keeping watch around the ark set upon them, and
many were slain, while the rest escaped, only to meet death in the
waters of the flood.[25] The water alone could not have made an end of
them, for they were giants in stature and strength. When Noah
threatened them with the scourge of God, they would make reply: "If the
waters of the flood come from above, they will never reach up to our
necks; and if they come from below, the soles of our feet are large
enough to dam up the springs." But God bade each drop pass through
Gehenna before it fell to earth, and the hot rain scalded the skin of
the sinners. The punishment that overtook them was befitting their
crime. As their sensual desires had made them hot, and inflamed them to
immoral excesses, so they were chastised by means of heated water.[26]
Not even in the hour of the death struggle could the sinners suppress
their vile instincts. When the water began to stream up out of the
springs, they threw their little children into them, to choke the
flood.[27]
It was by the grace of God, not on account of his merits, that Noah
found shelter in the ark before the overwhelming force of the
waters.[28] Although he was better than his contemporaries, he was yet
not worthy of having wonders done for his sake. He had so little faith
that he did not enter the ark until the waters had risen to his knees.
With him his pious wife Naamah, the daughter of Enosh, escaped the
peril, and his three sons, and the wives of his three sons.
Noah had not married until he was four hundred and ninety-eight years
old. Then the Lord had bidden him to take a wife unto himself. He had
not desired to bring children into the world, seeing that they would
all have to perish in the flood, and he had only three sons, born unto
him shortly before the deluge came.[30] God had given him so small a
number of offspring that he might be spared the necessity of building
the ark on an overlarge scale in case they turned out to be pious. And
if not, if they, too, were depraved like the rest of their generation,
sorrow over their destruction would but be increased in proportion to
their number.[31]
As Noah and his family were the only ones not to have a share in the
corruptness of the age, so the animals received into the ark were such
as had led a natural life. For the animals of the time were as immoral
as the men: the dog united with the wolf, the cock with the pea-fowl,
and many others paid no heed to sexual purity. Those that were saved
were such as had kept themselves untainted.[32]
Before the flood the number of unclean animals had been greater than
the number of the clean. Afterward the ratio was reversed, because
while seven pairs of clean animals were preserved in the ark, but two
pairs of the unclean were preserved.[33]
One animal, the reem, Noah could not take into the ark. On account of
its huge size it could not find room therein. Noah therefore tied it to
the ark, and it ran on behind.[34] Also, he could not make space for
the giant Og, the king of Bashan. He sat on top of the ark securely,
and in this way escaped the flood of waters. Noah doled out his food to
him daily, through a hole, because Og had promised that he and his
descendants would serve him as slaves in perpetuity.[35]
Two creatures of a most peculiar kind also found refuge in the ark.
Among the beings that came to Noah there was Falsehood asking for
shelter. He was denied admission, because he had no companion, and Noah
was taking in the animals only by pairs. Falsehood went off to seek a
partner, and he met Misfortune, whom he associated with himself on the
condition that she might appropriate what Falsehood earned. The pair
were then accepted in the ark. When they left it, Falsehood noticed
that whatever he gathered together disappeared at once, and he betook
himself to his companion to seek an explanation, which she gave him in
the following words, "Did we not agree to the condition that I might
take what you earn?" and Falsehood had to depart empty-handed.