Tuesday Torah - Parshat Noach

(11) In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day
All the fountains of the great deep burst apart,
And the floodgates of the sky broke open.(12) (The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.)(13) That same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, went into the ark, with Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons—(14) they and all beasts of every kind, all cattle of every kind, all creatures of every kind that creep on the earth, and all birds of every kind, every bird, every winged thing.(15) They came to Noah into the ark, two each of all flesh in which there was breath of life.(16) Thus they that entered comprised male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him. And יהוה shut him in.(17) The Flood continued forty days on the earth, and the waters increased and raised the ark so that it rose above the earth.(18) The waters swelled and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark drifted upon the waters.(19) When the waters had swelled much more upon the earth, all the highest mountains everywhere under the sky were covered.(20) Fifteen cubits higher did the waters swell, as the mountains were covered.(21) And all flesh that stirred on earth perished—birds, cattle, beasts, and all the things that swarmed upon the earth, and all humankind.(22) All in whose nostrils was the merest breath of life, all that was on dry land, died.(23) All existence on earth was blotted out—humans, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

[AND THE LORD SHUT HIM IN.] The term shut him in in our verse has a positive connotation. It has to be so interpreted because being shut in at that time was preferable to not being shut in. However, elsewhere it has a negative implication. Thus we read, He shutteth up a man (Job 12:14), and And whom God hath hedged in (Job 3:23). That it has a negative connotation is obvious from the first half of the verse. Noah closed the door of the ark and God helped him in that no part of the ark cracked open, for had any part opened, then all would have immediately died. Why state, and the flood was forty days upon the earth (v. 17), after having said, And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights (v. 12)? The way to read the verse (v. 17) is as follows: After the flood was forty days upon the earth, the waters increased and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. This verse shows that for the first forty days the ark did not move.

The verse is telling us that God protected Noah and his family from any violence that the dangerous animals he had brought with him might have inflicted.

By this point Noah had done everything that God had commanded him to do. Nevertheless, such obedience did not guarantee that he would be saved from the deluge. Even though Noah had done everything he was commanded to do, it says here that it was God's will to retain a remnant of the world for the future that closed Noah up in the ark to protect him.