Matthew Henry

Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out.

“God could have secured Noah by the ministration of angels, without putting him to any care, or pains, or trouble, himself; but he chose to employ him in making that which was to be the means of his preservation, both for the trial of his…”

But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

“Their parents' piety often procures them temporal salvation, as here; and it furthers them in the way to eternal salvation, if they improve the benefit of it.”

And you are to bring two of every living creature into the ark—male and female—to keep them alive with you.

“This was a great honour put upon him, that not only in him the race of mankind should be kept up, and that from him should proceed a new world, the church, the soul of the world, and Messiah, the head of that church, but…”

You are also to take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten and gather it as food for yourselves and for the animals.”

“Herein also he was a type of Christ, to whom it is owing that the world stands, by whom all things consist, and who preserves mankind from being totally cut off and ruined by sin; in him the holy seed is saved alive, and the…”

Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.

“(5.) This call to Noah was a type of the call which the gospel gives to poor sinners. Christ is an ark already prepared, in whom alone we can be safe when death and judgment come.”

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the…

“It was in the 600th year of Noah's life, which, by computation, appears to be 1656 years from the creation.”

And they entered, the male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

“There is much of our gospel duty and privilege to be seen in Noah's preservation in the ark. The apostle makes it a type of our baptism, that is, our Christianity, 1 Pet. iii.”

For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth.

“When God judges he will overcome. If he begin, he will make an end; his way is perfect, both in judgment and mercy.”

So the waters continued to surge and rise greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.

“That which to unbelievers is a savour of death unto death is to the faithful a savour of life unto life. The more the waters increased the higher the ark was lifted up towards heaven.”

And every living thing on the face of the earth was destroyed—man and livestock, crawling creatures and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth, and only…

“But he comforts himself with this, that he is in the way of duty and in the way of deliverance. And we are taught ( Jer. xlv.”

After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark

“That though Noah by faith expected his enlargement, and by patience waited for it, yet he was inquisitive concerning it, as one that thought it long to be thus confined.”

In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth.

“For behold, behold and wonder, the face of the ground was dry. Note, (1.) It is a great mercy to see ground about us. Noah was more sensible of it than we are; for mercies restored are much more affecting than mercies continued.”

By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was fully dry.

“We would go out of the ark before the ground is dried: and perhaps, if the door be shut, are ready to remove the covering, and to climb up some other way; but we should be satisfied that God's time of showing mercy is certainly…”

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.

“(3.) See here the antiquity of religion: the first thing we find done in the new world was an act of worship, Jer. vi.”

When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is…

“Herein he had an eye, not so much to Noah's sacrifice as to Christ's sacrifice of himself, which was typified and represented by it, and which was indeed an offering of a sweet-smelling savour, Eph. v. 2 .”

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”

“It is constant in this inconstancy. These seasons have never ceased, nor shall cease, while the sun continued such a steady measurer of time and the moon such a faithful witness in heaven.”

Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things.

“(2.) That every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, 1 Tim. iv. Afterwards some meats that were proper enough for food were prohibited by the ceremonial law; but from the beginning, it seems, it was not so, and therefore is not…”

And surely I will require the life of any man or beast by whose hand your lifeblood is shed.

“Our lives are not so our own as that we may quit them at our own pleasure, but they are God's and we must resign them at his pleasure; if we in any way hasten our own deaths, we are accountable to God for it.”

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind.

“Wilful murderers must be put to death. This is the sin which is here designed to be restrained by the terror of punishment (1.)”

But as for you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out across the earth and multiply upon it.”

“Now, (1.) God sets the whole earth before them, tells them it is all their own, while it remains, to them and their heirs. Note, The earth God has given to the children of men, for a possession and habitation, Ps. cxv.”

But when he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent.

“That the fairest copy that ever mere man wrote since the fall had its blots and false strokes. It was said of Noah that he was perfect in his generations ( ch. vi.”

Then Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it across their shoulders, and walking backward, they covered their father’s nakedness.

“There is a mantle of love to be thrown over the faults of all, 1 Pet. iv. Besides this, there is a robe of reverence to be thrown over the faults of parents and other superiors.”

he said, “Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”

“The Canaanites were under a curse of slavery, and yet, for a great while, had the dominion; for a family, a people, a person, may lie under the curse of God, and yet may long prosper in the world, till the measure of their iniquity…”

He also declared: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the servant of Shem.

“Observe, [1.] He calls the Lord the god of Shem; and happy, thrice happy, is that people whose God is the L ORD , Ps. cxliv. All blessings are included in this.”

May God expand the territory of Japheth; may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant.”

“And again, many dwell in large tents that do not dwell in God's tents, as Japheth did. Secondly, Shem has the blessing of heaven above: He shall (that is, God shall) dwell in the tents of Shem, that is "From his loins Christ shall come…”