How long did it take Noah to build the ark?

While Noah built the ark, he was a "Preacher of Righteousness". With his hand he was driving a nail, but with his mouth he was saying: "Judgment is coming. God will destroy the world with a flood. All will be drowned. Come, come quickly into the ark." But they did not believe. "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:27) Did they not know? It was not a few days or months that Noak took to build the ark: but 120 years. I think that he built it on dry land. Did not the people walking past see it? Noah preached and warned. Did not the neighbours hear? "Everything is ready. The ark is big and strong, with plenty of room and food. You have no need to do anything but come. All are welcome! Everybody, come into the ark; so that all may be saved!" Perhaps they said, "No, Noah, you have said this for many years. The flood has never come: we are not afraid." Or "Today we cannot go in. Wait. We will not get ready yet. Maybe tomorrow."

Noah obeyed God, and preached to men. The men of the world were heedless and disobedient. God's Spirit began to strive quietly. He is doing the same now. No one saw it then. No one sees it now. Take care lest you resist that Spirit once too often. Well, Noah began to preach righteousness. What did the people say? "We do not believe in that." But what was the next thing? He began to build the ark. And here is where the power, wisdom, and triumph of faith came in. Hundreds of miles away from a lake or the sea, this man begins to build this ark. What mean you by this, Noah? There is judgment coming — is his reply. What is this for? An ark of salvation. I do not suppose the men of the world thought it was built on right lines. But he did not care one bit for that. God had given him the lines on which to build (vers. 14-16), so he cared not how they criticised his ark.

Every time his hammer gave a blow, and drove a trenail, do you know what that blow said? Judgment is coming. And so he went on. How long? Till people said, What an idiot to build a ship and no water to float it in within hundreds of miles. But on he went with his building and preaching. And by-and-by this immense vessel is reared. Doubtless curiosity took many people to see it. Perhaps the lad of ten, the father of fifty, and the grandfather of one hundred and more years saw it together. "What is that?" says the little boy. "That is Noah's ark," says the grandfather, "that he has been building away at for about one hundred and twenty years. When I was young he was at it then, and he has always been talking about judgment coming. One hundred and twenty years have cone by, and nothing has happened. Was there ever such a fool?"

The passage in question is limited to those who lived while Noah was preparing the ark, which seems to have occupied about one hundred years. Before the flood some fifteen centuries rolled their course; after it, till Peter wrote the words we are examining, some twenty-five centuries passed, in all some four thousand years since the creation of man. Does it not seem absurd to explain a verse in such a manner as to make it necessary to say that the people, who lived just at that particular period of just one hundred years, should have had a second chance. What about the people who lived during the other thirty-nine centuries?

Verse 32 speaks of Noah being 500 years old, then of his three sons being born, which seems to indicate that his sons were born during the time of the building of the ark, for it seems likely that Noah was told to build the ark 120 years before the flood took place (Genesis 6:3), which would be 20 years before he became 500, since he was 600 when the flood came.

It is very establishing to the heart to notice this. It lets us understand how exactly the revelation made to us puts us into possession of the divine mind, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" says the Lord, on another occasion, when He was, as here, speaking to Himself. And a fulness, as well as exactness, I may say, distinguishes these revelations. Jesus says to His disciples, "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" — with, however, one exception. The Lord God had fixed 120 years as the term of His long-suffering. Noah's preaching, as well as ark-building, was to be for that period. Such was the purpose of God. But Noah was told nothing of this predestinated interval. The Lord kept back all mention of the 120 years. Noah knew, indeed, that the waters could not prevail till he and his were safe in the ark, but how long that might be preparing, or whether or not, after it was finished, any time should pass ere the waters should begin to rise, he knew not. This part of the divine counsel the Father kept in His own power; this was the exception to the fulness of the communication. Events were to take place, signs were to precede "the day of the Lord" — such, at least, as the finishing and filling of the ark. In the language of the prophet, the bud was to become tender, and to put forth its leaves. Had any one talked to Noah about the waters rising ere the ark was ready, Noah would not have been shaken in mind, or in anywise troubled. That could not be. "The time draweth nigh" would have been deceit then, as it will be by-and-by, when the earthly remnant, or election, are, like Noah, waiting for redemption. Luke 21:8. But still, the period itself, the term of the divine long-suffering, was put in the Father's power, and no one knew the day nor the hour. So rich and full are those harmonies in earlier and latter days, in typical and closing actions of God's hand. Noah was at this time an earthly man — that is an elect one destined for inheritance in the earth, as the nation of Israel, by-and-by, will be; and both of them, in their several days, are provided, by divine instructions, against the deceits which might alarm them, or the promises which might seduce them; but the day and hour of their deliverance are not told.

The ark, in the size, fashion, and material of it, is entirely the prescription of God. Noah has but to make it — the Lord plans it as well as appoints it. The making of it is only the trial and the proof of faith — "by faith Noah, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house." Israel fashioning the sanctuary, in after days, was a like act of faith. They had to make it, and make it they did, with willing hearts and ready service, yielding their brass, and their silver, and their gold, their fine linen, badgers' skins, shittim-wood, oil, spices, and precious stones. But in this was only the obedience of faith to the way of deliverance and peace, which God Himself had planned and revealed. They made the sanctuary as Noah made the ark; but neither was his act nor their act anything more than faith in the provisions of God. And what is the gospel, and faith in the gospel, to this hour, but such a revelation of the provisions of grace, and such obedience to that revelation? The religion of the elect has ever been the same — "It is of faith, that it might be by grace." Faith in God's sovereign provisions was Adam's religion at the beginning, then it was Noah's, afterwards it was the religion of Abraham, and of every true Israelite; and so at this day it is ours. We all, as well as Adam, come forth from our shame, and fear, and confusion of conscience, at the tidings of the bruised and bruising Seed of the woman. We all, as well as Noah, prepare an ark for salvation, and become heirs of the righteousness which is by faith; we all as well as Israel, betake us from the fiery hill to the sanctuary of enthroned mercy — and Jesus, Jesus, is the name borne along the line, from one end of it to the other, of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and saints, Gentile and Jewish, small and great, in the deep-toned melody that is to charm the eternity of heaven.

Shem was 98 when the Flood came; and it is likely these three sons were born after Noah was 500 years old, certainly all but Japheth. Probably none are named but those who escaped - born when apart from the world; he may have had, probably had, many others, unless he lived alone all his life till then. Twenty years before this he received the revelation of the end of all flesh; the direction for the ark was later, chapter 6:14-16.

Next the apostle speaks of Noah with his family of seven preserved when God spared not the ancient world. For this is important in his account of God's government. If His hand brought a flood on a world of the ungodly, He took care to guard the safety of Noah's house for the sake of its faithful head. And he draws attention to the interesting fact that Noah was not only a righteous man but "a preacher of righteousness." The hundred and twenty years of which Jehovah spoke was the space of the preparation of the ark and of Noah's preaching. It has nothing to do with the duration of human life, as some have fancied, but of divine patience before "the flood came and took all away." To the same time refers the mention of Noah and his preaching also in 1 Peter 3:19-20 where we are told of their spirits, disobedient as they were to the word of his testimony, and therefore in prison awaiting a judgment still more terrible than aught of a temporal nature, however vast and exceptional

The contrast of God's ways with men today is very remarkable. Now it is "to him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:5). What did God do in Noah's day? He judged the ungodly. Today, because of the death of Jesus, He can justify the ungodly. In that day, however, "My spirit shall not always strive with man" (Gen. 6:3), was the first intimation from God that judgment was at hand. Then in long-suffering goodness He adds, "Yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Was there not long patience in that? Was not the opportunity for repentance abundant? Can I promise you one hundred and twenty years of grace now? You have no such promise. "The coming of the Lord draws nigh."

God gave men then space to repent during an hundred and twenty years, and at the same time bade Noah build the ark. The point was this, judgment was coming, but there was time given in which to build that ark. And Noah built it. And now observe what goes on all that while. The Spirit of God was striving with men, who were living carelessly, while Noah was preaching and building at the same time. He was a preacher of righteousness. He was in the truth that he preached. He was a saint, and he stood a witness for God. "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house" (Heb. 11:7).

What is often said of Noah's carpentry is man's imagination. Yet if he had plenty to do, he had plenty of time. But let us bear in mind that, as to preparing the ark, it is not necessary to suppose that he and his sons did it all by themselves. Such things are not much if no doctrine be founded upon them.

Few there are who have been so greatly honoured as Noah. Like his great-grandfather, it is recorded of him that he walked with God. He, by faith, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. His grandfather's name and presence must have been a daily reminder of the judgment that was daily drawing nearer. We can well believe that those last five years between the death of his father and grandfather, years in which the ark was nearing completion, must also have been years of very earnest testifying, by that ancient "preacher of righteousness". And then came that death which opened the way for the flood. And then the flood itself, with the utter destruction of friends, acquaintances, and all the world they knew. Noah's three sons and their wives passed through these solemn and terrible years. Those years should have left an imprint of solemnity on all that little family. But what is almost the first spectacle on which we gaze after freedom from the long confinement of the ark? We see Noah drunk in his tent, uncovered, and his son Ham mocking him. And one of those three favoured sons, delivered through the waters of the flood, now falls under a curse which lasts to the present day.