May the mumbling commence!
It takes time for the floodwater to
recede. It’s the aftermath, when all the
destruction becomes tangible. Read from
Peterson’s The Message:
Then God turned his attention
to Noah
and all the wild animals and farm animals with him on the ship. God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters
began to go down. The underground springs were shut off, the windows of
Heaven closed and the rain quit.
Inch by
inch the water lowered. After 150 days
the worst was
over.
On the
seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range. The water kept going down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the
mountains came into view. After forty days
Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship.
He sent out a
raven; it flew back and forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up. Then he sent a dove to check on the flood conditions, but it couldn’t
even find a place to perch – water still covered the face of the
Earth. Noah reached out and caught it,
brought it back into the ship.
He waited seven
more days and sent out the dove again.
It came back in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its
beak. Noah knew that the flood was about
finished.
He waited
another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn’t come back. (Genesis 8:1-12)
Now read from the NIV translation:
But God remembered
Noah and all
the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a
wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the
heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of
the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh
month the ark came to rest on the mountains
of Ararat. The waters
continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the
tops of the mountains became visible.
After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in
the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the
water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the
surface of the ground. But the dove
could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the
surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his
hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove
from the ark. When the dove returned to
him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then
Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again,
but this time it did not return to him. (Genesis 8:1-12)
There are some differences between
Peterson’s work and the NIV translation.
I take issue with only a couple
of the differences. First, I do not like
the change from Noah and the animals being remembered to “turned his attention
to”. Maybe Peterson wants to intimate
that God’s attention was never turned from Noah and the members of the ark
during the flood. But I still think that
God remembering us in our trials is a powerful image… and it doesn’t mean that
God ever forgot us.
The second instance has a couple of
examples. I like the idea of rest coming
in the NIV translation. The ark rested
as opposed to simply landing on the mountains of Ararat… and the dove having no
place to set (or rest) its feet rather than a place to perch.
I do like the other differing
language of Peterson that draws attention to the devastation and the slow
recovery from the flood. It brings it
home to us over the centuries.
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
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