Hebrews 11:7

By faith Noah, being warned of God,.... In the Greek text, Noah is called "Noe", and so the Septuagint interpreters of the Old Testament call him; but Josephus calls him "Noeos": or "having received an oracle from God"; in which he was admonished, how to make an ark, as Moses was, in like manner, how to make a tabernacle, Heb 8:

(3.) Hereby he became an heir of the righteousness which is by faith. [1.] He was possessed of a true justifying righteousness; he was heir to it: and, [2.] This his right of inheritance was through faith in Christ, as a member of Christ, a child of God, and, if a child, then an heir.

The advantages that we have in the gospel for the exercise of this grace above what those had who lived in the times of the Old Testament,

THE APOSTLE COULD NOT AVOID mentioning Noah; for in him faith shone forth eminently. He has placed him in due order of time after Abel and Enoch; but he had also another reason for the arrangement. These three ancient believers are declared in Holy Writ to have pleased God. Of Abel, it is said that God testified of his gifts. Enoch, before his translation, had this testimony, that he pleased God: and Noah "found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

Join "by faith" with "prepared an ark" (1Pe 3:20). by the which--faith. condemned the world--For since he believed and was saved, so might they have believed and been saved, so that their condemnation by God is by his case shown to be just. righteousness which is by faith--Greek, "according to faith." A Pauline thought.

THE APOSTLE COULD NOT AVOID mentioning Noah; for in him faith shone forth eminently. He has placed him in due order of time after Abel and Enoch; but he had also another reason for the arrangement. These three ancient believers are declared in Holy Writ to have pleased God. Of Abel, it is said that God testified of his gifts. Enoch, before his translation, had this testimony, that he pleased God: and Noah "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Again, it was meet that Noah should follow close upon Enoch, as one of two who are described as having "walked with God." "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him"; and we read in the sixth chapter of Genesis, verse eight, that Noah also "walked with God." These two spent their lives in such constant communion with the Most High that they could be fully described as walking with God. Oh, that we may, through almighty grace, be so pleasing unto the Lord that we may abide in fellowship with him! We may take pleasure in thinking of Noah as a kind of contrast to Enoch. Enoch was taken away from the evil to come: he saw not the flood, nor heard the wailing of those who were swept away by the waterfloods. His was a delightful deliverance from the harvest of wrath which followed the universal godlessness of the race. It was not his to fight the battle of righteousness to the bitter end; but by a secret rapture he avoided death, and escaped those evil days in which his grandson's lot was cast. Noah is the picture of one who is the Lord's witness during evil days, and lives through them faithfully, enduring unto the end. It was his to be delivered from death by death. The ark was, so to speak, a coffin to him: he entered it, and became a dead man to the old world; and within its enclosure he was floated into a new world, to become the founder and father of a new race.

By faith Noah - See the whole of this history, Gen 6:13. Warned of God - Χρηματισθεις. As we know from the history in Genesis that God did warn Noah, we see from this the real import of the verb χρηματιζω, as used in various parts of the New Testament; it signifies to utter oracles, to give Divine warning. Moved with fear - Ευλαβηθεις· Influenced by religious fear or reverence towards God. This is mentioned to show that he acted not from a fear of losing his life, but from the fear of God; and hence that fear is here properly attributed to faith. He condemned the world - He credited God, they did not; he walked in the way God had commanded, they did not; he repeatedly admonished them, 1Pe 3:20, they regarded it not; this aggravated their crimes while it exalted his faith and righteousness. “His faith and obedience condemned the world, i.e. the unbelievers, in the same sense in which every good man’s virtues and exhortations condemn such as will not attend to and imitate them.” Dodd. Became heir of the righteousness - He became entitled to that justification which is by faith; and his temporal deliverance was a pledge of the salvation of his soul.

By faith Noah - It is less difficult to see that Noah must have been influenced “by faith” than that Abel and Enoch were. Everything which Noah did in reference to the threatened deluge, was done in virtue of simple faith or belief of what God said.