NUGGETS

“Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.”
(Genesis 6:14-16, bolding mine)

As I was re-reading the story of Noah recently, I pondered once again the age-old question of how God and Noah squeezed all those animals into the Ark, and how Noah managed the logistics of feeding and watering them, cleaning up after them, and so on. It is truly an incredible story, one surrounded not only by mystery, but also by the supernatural.

Then suddenly, I saw something new in the story.

What if, when Noah crossed the threshold of the door leading into the Ark, he stepped into a much bigger space than the outside structure of the Ark allowed for?

What if the door of the Ark was an opening—a portal or gateway—into a larger space, a realm that God supernaturally created to keep a remnant of humanity and all other creatures alive and flourishing during the flood?

Is there any Biblical evidence for that?

Much has been written about what the Ark might have looked like. The designers of the Ark Encounter in Kentucky have postulated a lot of theories about how Noah might have overcome endless hurdles to accomplish the task of not only housing the animals, but also feeding and watering them, circulating fresh air, lighting the lower floors, cleaning out cages, and so on. I have no intention of repeating those theories.

Rather, my question is, what clues can we find in the Hebrew text that point to a supernatural Ark encounter, not merely a physical, semi-evolutionary hypothesis of life within the confined space of the Ark?

Our first clue is Noah.

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9).

This is the first use of the Hebrew words tzaddiq (righteous) and tamim (blameless) in the Bible. God loved what He saw in Noah, and He chose to use Noah’s life as an example to illustrate what a righteous and blameless life might look like when surrounded by a culture of depravity and debauchery.

Genesis 6:5-6 is a devastating indictment: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”

The culture was so abominable that God was prepared to utterly extinguish it—except for Noah and his family.

Why?

Because Noah walked with God.

There is only one other man of whom it is said that he walked with God, and that man was Enoch, the man who miraculously transitioned from the physical world into the spiritual world without experiencing physical death (Genesis 5:24).

Enoch was the great great great great grandson of Adam. He walked with God so closely that somehow he stepped from the physical world into the spiritual realm without dying.

It is an unfathomable mystery how Enoch could have transitioned so seamlessly from the physical into the spiritual. And that mystery revolves around the word “walked.” It’s a simple Hebrew word that means exactly what it says. Every step Enoch took was done in the presence of God Almighty Himself. He walked with God, and then one day, he simply vanished from the face of the earth, and was no more. His physical body was transported into the spiritual realms of heaven.

And Noah was the great grandson of Enoch.

What generational memories were buried deep within Noah’s spirit?

What generational blessings did Noah carry that enabled him to be righteous and blameless in his generation?

What generational anointings were present in Noah that enabled him to transition seamlessly between the physical and the supernatural realms—if indeed that is what he did on the Ark?

How many times had Enoch crossed the boundary between the physical and the spiritual before that one last time when God finally decided not to release him to return to earth? It’s very possible that Enoch experienced countless moments where he transitioned from the earthly realm into the spiritual realms and back again.

And if that was so for Enoch, did Noah carry a generational anointing to transition seamlessly between earth and other realms or dimensions?

The Ark

How might the construction of the Ark give us a glimpse into the spiritual nature of the Ark?

First, the materials. Gopher wood and pitch.

On the surface, those things make physical sense. The Ark needed to be watertight, hence the pitch. And gopher wood (whatever that was) might have been the best wood for being impervious to water.

Perhaps.

But in Scripture we see a history of God insisting on certain types of wood for certain projects, the most significant being the building of the tabernacle.

Why?

What spiritual qualities do certain types of wood contain?

I don’t know, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that trees and the wood they are made of are spiritual in nature.

If you doubt this, read through the Bible taking note of every time trees or wood are mentioned, and noting what kind of wood is used for what purpose, or what tree is significant for what purpose.

Trees are hugely spiritual, and God knew exactly which kind of tree was needed to aid in the physical to spiritual transition within the Ark.

The “window” in the Ark

There are two different Hebrew words that are translated “window” in the Flood account in Genesis.

One is challon, the typical Hebrew word for “window.” This is the word used when Noah opened the window of the Ark to send out the raven to see if the water was dried up from the earth (Genesis 8:7).

But it is not the word God used when giving Noah instructions on how to build the Ark. That word is tzohar.

Elsewhere in the Bible, tzohar is male, and is translated using time-related words (“noon,” “midday,” etc.). But in this one instance, the word is female, and has been translated in a way that indicates that it was to be a structural component of the Ark, not merely a certain time of day.

I am fascinated by the fact that the Ark had a structural component at its top, that was female, and that might somehow have been connected to time, specifically to the time when the sun was highest in the sky.

We know that time and space are closely interconnected; in fact, they are so completely dependent upon one another that they are impossible to separate out. Space without time does not exist, and time without space does not exist.

So what?

If the Ark was to be the entrance to a safe realm while God destroyed the entire world, it is not surprising that God would place a spiritual time-related structure into the physical spatial structure of the Ark.

In reality, there is so little said about this “window” at the top of the Ark that we can only make assumptions as to what it looked like. But the issue here is not what it looked like. The issue is whether or not the window had a supernatural component to it.

From my perspective, the answer is a resounding “of course!” When we look at the Flood as a whole, it very obviously was a supernatural event. And the gathering of the animals into the Ark was clearly a supernatural event. The animals would come to Noah (Genesis 6:20), not need to be pursued and corralled by Noah. A supernatural event.

If the circumstances of the Flood and the gathering of the animals were to be supernatural events, why not the Ark itself?

Why would there not be spiritual structures embedded into the physical structure of the Ark?

Rooms or Nests?

“You shall make the ark with rooms” (Genesis 6:14).

The Hebrew word here is qen. Everywhere else in the Bible this word is translated as “nests,” so I have no idea why the translators in almost every version of the Bible have chosen to translate this word as “rooms”—especially when Noah’s job was to save not only himself and his family, but also a whole lot of animals and birds.

What does it mean to make the Ark with nests?

A nest is a safe place, sheltered from the weather and predators.

It is a place in which to raise up the next generation.

A nest is a nurturing environment, an environment of growth and transformation, an environment where the young look to their parents for protection and for all the necessities of life.

The infant birds or animals within the nest are usually not responsible for their own welfare. They are completely dependent upon their parents.

Can you see the parallels here?

God did not tell Noah to build rooms in the Ark, but to build nests.

Think about the difference between a nest and a cage. A nest is open, free, nurturing, and teaches responsibility (not to leave the nest before you can handle it, and so on). A nest provides freedom at an appropriate age and time, when the young ones are ready to leave it.

A cage is enclosed, restricted, promotes immobility, enforces rules rather than teaching responsibility, and ultimately creates emotional stress and distress.

God’s desire was not to cage up a whole generation of animals in order to keep them alive on the Ark, nor was it His desire to create an Ark full of chaos where animals and birds were stuffed into every crack and cranny, and where the workload was intense for Noah and his family—where every living creature had to be careful not to step on another creature, and where disorganization reigned.

God’s desire was to create a safe haven for the remnant that would later come out of the Ark—to create a place that would nurture and transform those who entered the Ark, so that when they left the Ark over a year later, they were stronger, more courageous, more intimately connected to Him as their Provider, and filled with memories of the beauty and peace of the inner realms of the Ark, rather than traumatized by the existential chaos that was occurring outside the Ark.

God desired for the remnant to be a new beginning, a beginning steeped in wonder and awe, not horror and fear.

The Ark was meant to transform and renew, not just keep safe.

And to do that, the interior of the Ark had to be different from the exterior.

And so, I wonder…

What if, when Noah’s family and the animals and birds stepped into the Ark, they entered into a dramatically larger, more beautiful realm than what Noah had originally constructed within the Ark?

What if Noah built a very functional, minimalistic interior composed of three levels with several safe spaces (nests) on each level, and then God Himself opened up spiritual portals into multiple realms that would safely and magnificently house the animals and birds for over a year?

Was each nest an entryway into an alternate realm specifically designed for certain kinds of animals or birds?

Or was each deck within the Ark an entryway into a different kind of habitat?

What if upon entering one level of the Ark you encountered a forest of trees, with a spring of fresh water in it, and multiple nests for different creatures?

What if another level of the Ark was green pastureland with grasses of all kinds, and a cool, clear creek running through it?

What if one of the levels of the Ark was an entryway into a realm with wide open spaces for eagles and other birds to fly through, and high crags for them to nest in?

What if each animal and bird was free to choose their own habitat, and to build their own nest or den according to their natural way within an environment closely resembling their natural one?