corruption prevailed, and at length the Deluge of Noah was sent by God to prevent the final triumph of evil (4:16-17).
Eve gave birth to Seth and from his loins eventually came Noah, son of Lamech. His lineage also included Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel and Jared. Jared became the father of Enoch. The scriptures say of Enoch: “Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Gen 5:21-24). Enoch was the first human taken by god before he died in the typical way. Elijah was the second we know about from the Bible.
Genesis 5 includes the etymology of the name of Noah (v. 29), whose life would be the dominant force in the sections to follow. Lamech named his son Noah, hoping he would bring rest to them from the curse (Noah means “rest” v. 29; from the “painful toil” and the “ground’s curse”, Gen 3:17). Thus a second glimmer of hope appears in this chapter of death. Enoch escaped the curse of death, and Noah would give rest those under the curse.
The Flood of Noah &Evil Offspring
Noah was an unmistakable type of Christ. In his time the earth became exceedingly corrupt. Satanic beings were coming down from heaven and having sex with the women in the earth and producing offspring called the Nephilim. Nephilim were an unholy combination of women and Satan and some translations call them “giants” (KJAV). Scripture says: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those offspring were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown” (Gen 6:4). Some believe the Nephilim were the heroes of the Greek, Canaanite and Roman myths. The parenthetical/explanatory clause uses the word בֹּרִים (haggibborim) to describe these Nephilim. The word means “Fallen ones”. The appositional statement further explains that they were “men of renown” whose reputations lived on to become Greek and Roman gods and myths of great men The text refers to superhuman beings who held the world in their power and who lived on in ancient lore outside the Bible such as Hercules, Zeus, the Titans and Olympian gods and other mythological men of the Greek and Roman worlds. With their eternal natures inherited from Satan they could not be left to wreck havoc on the world, and had to be destroyed.
The Lord considered only Noah as righteous and so used him as a deliverer of humankind. Noah built an ark to withstand the coming great flood. His function and the ark was likened to the church, as a bridge to the Kingdom of God. The church in Greek is ekklesia meaning “those called out”. Noah and his family were “called out” to save the earth and its people. Today, the ekklesia or church is the Body of Christ is the vehicle to transport God’s people, destined to manifest the Kingdom of God on the earth, from the church age to the age of the Kingdom.. As Noah, his family and the ark meant a new start for mankind so the ekklesia or spiritual Body of Christ is meant as the means to the end—the ending of one age and the beginning of a New Age.
Unfortunately the flood, which was designed to eliminate the wickedness and more specifically the Nephilim spirit, did not completely fulfill its purpose. The Nephilim spirit, the human mixed with the satanic, came through the flood in a member of Noah’s family. After the flood waters receded the following occurred: “Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said,
“Cursed be Canaan;
A servant of servants [the lowest of servants]
He shall be to his brothers.”
He also said,
“Blessed be the Lord,
The God of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant.
“May God enlarge Japheth,
And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant” (Gen 9:18-27).
It’s not clear why what seems like a trivial act caused such consternation. There are various theories proposed such as a homosexual act committed by Ham but the Hebrew words used do not indicate this. To the ancients, however, even seeing one’s father naked was a breach of family ethic. The sanctity of the family was destroyed and the strength of the father was made a mockery. Ham apparently stumbled on this accidentally, but went out and exultingly told his two brothers, as if he had triumphed over his father. Whatever the act, it showed that the natures of his three sons would be perpetuated in their descendants.
In the case of Ham and Canaan it showed that their reprehensible natures would also be duplicated. Noah tried to prevent this by blessing his other sons and making Canaan their servants but it never worked out that way, at least in the coming ages. What really did happen was that Canaan’s descendents became the evil Canaanites who populated Mesopotamia, the coming Promised Land, until they were mostly wiped out by Joshua in his conquest. They inherited the Nephilim spirit that God had sought to eliminate by the flood. All the enemies that later withstood Israel (Canaanites, Hittites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians etc.) were directly or indirectly created from this sin of Ham and the continuing sin, wickedness and idolatry of his descendants. In other words Satan, after the flood, was alive and well and has worked through these descendants until the present day.
To prove this consider Ham’s, Cush’s and Canaan’s lineage: “The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan. Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter [of souls] before the Lord; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Nimrod started the religion of Mystery Babylon which continued through the Babylonians, to Rome and later through the Roman church. “The beginning of his kingdom was Babel [Babylon] and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh [both evil cities] and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. Mizraim became the father of Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim and Pathrusim and Casluhim (from which came the Philistines) and Caphtorim. Canaan became the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth and the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite and the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite and the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite; [all nations which became enemies of Israel] and afterward the families of the Canaanite were spread abroad. The territory of the Canaanite extended from Sidon as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha [they populated the Promised land and beyond]. These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations” (Gen 10:6-20). So the world was then again populated by evil just as it had been before the flood.
Nimrod, one of Cush’ sons was also responsible for the building of the Tower of Babel and its evil purpose. “Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there”. The Plain of, Shinar (shīʹnahr), was a district of Babylonia in southern Iraq. According to Gen. 10:10, the Plain of Shinar included Babel (Babylon), Erech (Warka), and Accad or Akkade (Akkadia) in central Mesopotamia close to Baghdad. It is said that the ancient Summerans settled there and