Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #28 of Genesis, chapter 6 and we are going to be reading Genesis 6:21-22:

And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

These verses close the chapter. Here, we see in verse 21 that the Lord refers to the food: “And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.”

The English word “food” is found twice in the verse, but it is two different Hebrew words. This goes to show that it is very important for us to look at the original Hebrew or Greek because we would never know that from our English King James Bible. There is no distinction made between the words.

The first reference to food is Strong’s #3978 and it is the word that is found in Genesis 2:9:

And out of the ground made JEHOVAH God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Here, God says that he caused to be grown every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. It is the same word used in Genesis 6:21 where God is commanding the gathering of the food and in the next verse we see that Noah did all according to what God had commanded him. God was giving Noah a series of commands. He told Noah what His plans were to destroy the earth and He told Noah how he was to construct the ark: to build it of gopher wood; to make rooms in the ark; to pitch it within and without; the length, breadth and height; the fashion of the door; and the number of stories. He also told Noah who was to enter in, including the animals and now God is commanding Noah regarding the food to be gathered and eaten by Noah’s family and the animals. These are all commandments of God. Noah was not given a choice by God. He did not say, “Here is an ark I would like you to build, if it pleases you.” That is not how God speaks to His servants that are created in His image. We were created to serve God and God is King. God is the Almighty King and He commands His servants regarding the things He desires them to do.

Likewise, in our day God had given commandments prior to Judgment Day for His people to blow the trumpet and to warn the people, and so forth. God’s servants were obedient to those commands. Now after Judgment Day has come and we are in the midst of it, God commands His people, “Feed my sheep.” The Lord’s people can choose to obey or disobey, but if we disobey, it is sin and rebellion against God.

Again, God gave instruction concerning the “food,” and it is Strong’s #3978 and it is the same word used in Proverbs 6:6-8:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

The ant gathers her food and God told Noah that he was to gather food and have provisions placed on board the ship, so Noah had to do this before the rains came and the flood occurred. He could not do it afterwards because God “shut him in” the ark and the torrential downpour began, so there would be no gathering of food once the rain started. It was necessary for him to prepare food of all sorts. They did not have refrigeration at that time like we do today, so he would have had to dry some meats, fruits and vegetables. He could not do it 120 years before the flood, but he would have done it somewhere near the timeframe of the flood, perhaps as long as a couple of years before the flood. He would have stockpiled the necessary food to feed them over a prolonged period of time.

God’s plan in destroying the first world was not a judgment of single day. He caused it to rain forty days and forty nights. That is almost a month and a half of rain like had never been seen before (or since). It just kept raining and raining, as God opened up waters from below and from above. It prevailed on the earth for five months before the waters began to recede. For five months, the water increased and it was not until five months had passed that the waters began to decrease and recede. So they would have needed food for five months, but the abating of the water also took several months. It was not until after a full year that the earth was finally dry and they were able to come out of the ark, but even then you would not have found food right away. It would take some time for plant life to be restored and for things to grow, so there needed to be provision made on the ark for quite a long time – more than a year’s worth of food that would be needed to feed the eight people and a large number of animals.

By the way, we talked last time concerning how the animals were figures of those God saved, as God typifies His people as different types of animals, and the feeding of the animals could only be done by the eight people. The animals did not feed themselves, but there were eight souls on board the ark that fed the animals – they “fed the sheep.” Noah and his sons or their wives fed the sheep on board the ark, as well as all the other animals. These people were kept alive and utilized by God to feed the animals which kept the animals alive during the time of deliverance from the wrath of God all around them when everyone else in the world was being destroyed.

Of course, all of this relates to May 21, 2011, exactly 7,000 years from the flood when God shut the door of heaven. The people of God presently are “alive and remain” on the earth and we are going through the judgment. We are going through the period of the outpouring of God’s wrath and during this time what is God’s command to us? He tells us in John, chapter 21 after the great catch of fish. It says in John 21:11:

Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.

The great catch of fish typifies the great multitude that was saved out of Great Tribulation, but the Book of John does not end there. Jesus has a mysterious dinner with the disciples (not with the great catch of fish which typifies the great multitude) and He said to them in John 21:14-17:

This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead. So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

The sheep are a reference to the elect, typified by the great catch of fish, that great multitude that would be saved out in the world during the Great Tribulation. Christ has a relationship with His disciples that is different than His relationship with the great catch of fish or great multitude; that is, God taught His disciples so that they could later feed others: “Feed my sheep.”

Likewise, God has saved the great multitude in our day and they are all over the world, but primarily they are in India, China, Muslim countries, Africa, and so forth. They are places that do not have the resources or means to enjoy the Word of God, the Gospel, that others in the West have enjoyed. For example, believers in America have had the freedom and the resources available to them and they have been more closely identified with the true Gospel and the sending forth of that Gospel than were the hearers of the Gospel in faraway lands that God saved. Some of these people in other lands may not have Bibles or much of anything except salvation, which is everything, but their ability to feed sheep may not exist; they may be in a place that does not allow it or it could be just their current lack of understanding of the Word of God and the truths of the Bible. You know, understanding of the truths of the Bible does not just suddenly come to us because we have to be taught and we have to grow in the grace and knowledge of God.

So God typifies that great multitude as the great catch of fish or as sheep or as animals on the ark; they are animals that must be cared for and fed. There are certain ones that God commissioned and gave the task to feed His sheep. Noah, his sons and their wives were occupied with this task all the while after the door shut on the seventeenth day of the second month in Noah’s 600th year. They were not to be idle.

Can you imagine if they had been idle? What if they had said, “Well, all our work is done. We built the ark and we got everyone on board, including the animals, just as God commanded. And now we are going to relax. We are going to sit back, put up our feet and enjoy the ride.” Well, it would not be long before they would have had a hungry lion, a hungry elephant, a hungry giraffe, a hungry monkey, and so forth. All these animals had to be cared for and fed. They had to have nourishment. Let me read, again, about what God commanded Noah in regard to the food, in Genesis 6:21:

And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

Of course, we have always understood that Noah and his family had to eat, but God said the food was “for thee, and for them.” The animals, too, had to eat and that became Noah’s occupation, as well as the occupation of all the people in the ark. They were probably busy from morning to night. They had to feed one group of animals and then the next group of animals, and so forth. The species had different diets and you had to feed them in a certain way. Things had to be done decently and in order. By the time you got done, it may have been time to start feeding them again because they needed nourishment, day after day and month after month, for the prolonged period of the flood until they were able to come out of the ark. They were very busy feeding and caring for the animals.

It is interesting that they were doing basically the identical task that Christ gave to His disciples in John, chapter 21, and the timelines for both converge. Remember it was “night” and the disciples did not catch anything, which points to the first part of the Great Tribulation when virtually no one became saved. Then Jesus told them where to cast their net and they caught the great catch of fish, but the net did not break like it had done in an earlier fishing expedition (which identified with the church age). But the “great catch of fish” typified the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation and, therefore, when the disciples brought that net full of 153 fish to land it represented the end of the Great Tribulation period and their successful fishing expedition came to a close.

Here is where that ties in with the flood. The Great Tribulation period began on May 21, 1988 and it continued for 23 years until May 21, 2011 and May 21, 2011 had the underlying Hebrew calendar date of “the seventeenth day of the second month,” the very day that God shut the door of the ark. It says in Genesis 7:11:

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.

The day the flood began and the day God shut the door of the ark is the day that identifies with the end of the Great Tribulation and the completion of the “fishing expedition” that had brought in the great multitude. Then what did Jesus tell His disciples as he showed Himself to them the third time? It was His purpose, as demonstrated by the repetition of the number “three,” just as Christ asked Peter three times, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” Peter responded three times: “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.” There were three questions and three responses, then three concluding responses from Christ: “Feed my sheep.” It is a series of “threes” to stress in a powerful way that the purpose of God after the Tribulation and after the door is shut is to “feed sheep.” After the door of the ark was shut, Noah and his family had to feed the animals. There was no choice. They had no other “work” to do. They did not have to gather the animals any longer – there were no people to gather to bring into the ark. Their sole responsibility and their only task was to feed them.

Do you see how it parallels and comes together? God is making it crystal clear that once Judgment Day comes there will be a prolonged period of time. That is what we are seeing already in the Book of Genesis and its account of the flood; there will be a prolonged judgment for the wicked of the world and they will perish. For those that are “kept alive” and remain to go through that judgment they will be busy and actively involved with “feeding sheep” or feeding God’s elect.