by Caryl McAdoo
Hattimas, looking even younger than when he married her, grinned and ran toward him. His father and mother, and Grandfather Methuselah. The crowd parted, and a man he’d didn’t recognize stepped forward. His wife spoke to him without moving her mouth. “Father Adam.”
The first man reached him. “Welcome to Paradise, Noah.” He put his arms around him and hugged him as though he might never let go. “We are all so proud of you.”
The folks began clapping, a thunderous noise that warmed his heart. The winged men released their grip, and his knees gave way, but Adam swung him into his arms. “Enter into His rest, my Son. You have earned it.”
Then over the crowd, a voice sounded, strong and clear. The voice he knew and loved so dearly.
WELL DONE GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT
The End
Search the Scriptures
Scriptures quoted are all from the King James Version. ‘Search the Scriptures’ is an offering of a few of the Biblical clues that guided this work of fiction. Portions may be repeated information offered in A Little Lower Than the Angels and Then the Deluge Comes, for those who have not read that first volume of The Generations.
The tradition of brothers marrying sisters runs through this series might bother some folks today…
With Adam and Eve, the case is almost mute because Eve was pronounced the mother of all the living, so it can only be that Adam’s and her sons married their daughters. If this is what the first generation had done, wouldn’t it be logical the second would? They wouldn’t think it strange at all, but perfectly normal.
It’s my assumption that as the generations multiplied, men from one family and women from another were attracted to each other and fell in love. Today, the Jewish want their sons to marry within their people, same with Muslims, but it too is changing as children declare independence from parents.
But in those days marrying outside the family would have been as strange them as what we would consider such a union is today for us. So that young couple would have left Adam’s Valley and the traditions of their parents…just as young people have since time began.
Those who rebelled and moved away filled the evil cities of the land east of Eden, Nod, growing more and more evil in all their ways until God was so disappointed, He sent the flood, starting over again with Noah who He saw had walked righteous.
Genesis 6:5-8 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Noah’s wife was the first not to bear many children. Of the older generations, Scripture reports they all had the Sons mentioned and other sons and daughters. Until Noah. He has the three sons, triplets, in his 500th year, and no more are mentioned, so his sons needed wives. Lamech, Noah’s father went to find three girls for Japheth, Ham, and Shem (in Then the Deluge Comes)
But we know that the practice of marrying sisters continued through Abram. Genesis 12:13 (Don’t miss Children of Eber coming in November)
A side note:
One reason why I don’t believe people were mocking Noah while he built the ark and then clamoring, screaming to be let aboard when the rains came (as so many think because of movies that took too many liberties with God’s Holy Word) is because I believe only the righteous were left there in Adam’s Valley and that all but Methuselah, Noah and his family were gone by the time the flood began. Nothing of the sort is mentioned in the Word.
Names are so important, here’s what a few of these Bible names meant.
Methuselah means his death brings it, or when he dies, God sends it, and we know what came in the very year of his death though it isn’t mentioned. The math is easy enough, the flood came when he died. When he dies, then the deluge comes. And how sweet of our longsuffering God to lengthen Methuselah’s life so that he was the longest living man. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
Noah. And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed. Genesis 5:29 He bought rest and comfort for all of his righteous ancestors went into Paradise, as some surely did who dwelled in Nod.
We know that there were children born of unholy unions between the ‘Sons of God’ and ‘daughters of men’ before the flood. But only Noah and his sons and their wives came through the flood…so where did Goliath and his four brothers—clearly born after the flood—come from? The seed of the giants had to be on the ark, little Myelin was my explanation.
Genesis 6:1-2, And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. Verse four says, There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Verse four speaks of the giants in the land and how these children from the unholy unions were mighty men.
As we saw in Volume One, A Little Lower Than the Angels, the angels in this volume are called again for the Changing of the Watch, my imagined event for the angels’ recurring procession before God’s Throne.
Job 2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. So the ‘Again’ at the start of that verse tells us this ‘presentation’ happens more than once. In movies and on the television, we’ve all watched all the pomp and circumstance of earthly kings with their divisions marching in precision and in costume (uniforms).
I can only imagine how glorious such a presentation must be passing Heaven’s Throne! I have three divisions because God does so many things in threes—thus the seventy-two cherubim I spoke of earlier. I don’t mention the time length since God isn’t in time, but when our Messiah reigns on earth for the next age, we will all go once a year to present ourselves.
Do you remember Gabriel’s calling card spoken about in A Little Lower Than the Angels (Volume One of The Generations series)? He said I stand in the presence when he visited Zacharias with the message regarding the priest’s prayers concerning his wife Elisabeth’s barrenness. Zacharias doubted what Gabriel has said because he and his wife are old, and he questioned him. Luke 1:19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee and to shew thee these glad tidings. He stood in the Creator’s presence.
How great a calling card! I can’t imagine me doing anything but falling to my face before Him—much like the cherubim in my story.
So then I remembered Revelation 4:10-11 The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. That’s where I got another clue as to this presentation the angels did more than once. Before, I thought of the ‘elders’ mentioned as being men—like the church elders—but what if they were angels, the cherubim.
Regarding how the angels war:
2 Chronicles 20:21-22
And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for his mercy endureth for ever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against
the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten.
Because angels are eternal beings, and according to what Gabriel told Daniel that they do war against each other, what can be at stake? How can there be victors and losers in the Second Heaven when battle has no casualties? When no one dies?
The seraphim’s six wings, and the Arc of the Covenant with two golden cherubim on either end with their wings spread over it…the wings seem important. I thought, what if two armies of angels, when they meet for battle, come together and fly circles, each going in opposite directions?
And I imagined two or four—whatever the number—flying into the center of the circles and singing against each other. The rules are simple. A new song trumps an old one, and God Himself is the righteous Judge. The loser’s feathers start falling off, and that loss impairs his flight. It helps decide victor.
If eventually decimated, the loser is forced to leave the battle. He must go to the Temple Made without Hands (where Moses went) to re-grow his feathers before the next watch. If he cannot participate in the watch by then, he must remain until the next watch changes, weakening his legion.
Other than the clues mentioned, my understanding of how angels war is from my imaginations and observations. But isn’t that how Satan seduces so many? With his unholy music and rhythms that beat out of sync with the rhythm of our heartbeats? And is music not an instrument of war?
Writing about the time spent on the ark proved more difficult than I thought, but my husband got involved thinking of everything they’d have to do.
He was only told to store food in Genesis 6:21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. But can you imagine the water needed to support the lives aboard the ark? And all the waste… To imagine composts and water tanks aboard—then the water screw to refill them—isn’t a far stretch, and to back my thinking, I offer this scripture in Ecclesiastes 1:9. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Did it strike you as an odd thing to call Noah’s sons triplets?
This scripture tells us And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Genesis 5:32 So all in that same year, Noah fathered his three sons, Japheth, Ham, and Shem. Oh it would be possible that he had twins and eleven months later had his third son and they would have all been born in his five hundredth year, and actually, to my way of thinking, he did have twins and a third—the triplet—Shem—but all at the same time.
Why, you ask, do I think that? Because I believe Japheth was the firstborn, a twin with Ham, because twins are often mirrored. Japheth was a good man of honor and integrity, and Ham as we know ends up getting cursed by his own father, so we can assume he wasn’t so honorable.
And that leaves Shem, third born. But we know he ends up with the birthright, don’t we? He is the one in the lineage of Christ. And…his name is mentioned first, too, in the King James, so why do I think he was third born?
A thing is confirmed to be established, true, or factual, out of the mouths of two or three witnesses, so says the Word (Deuteronomy17:6 and 19:15) And there are two verses that confirm Japheth was the eldest. Genesis 10:1-2 lists Japheth’s sons first insinuating he is the elder: Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras
Then, a little further down, it spells it out: Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born. Genesis 10:21
Then how can we suppose that Shem went from third, or last, to be the first listed of Noah’s sons and holder of the coveted birthright?
When thinking on this, I remembered another time this happened between brothers—you do, too, don’t you?—Jacob and Essau. The elder traded his birthright for a bowl of his brother’s soup or stew. And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Genesis 25:33
So what could I come up with that Japheth might be willing to trade his to Shem, without the question that it would be the youngest and not Ham. You know since you’ve already read the story, that I used the love of a woman.
In the end of things, God always has His Way. The last shall be first and the first last. While men get to choose their paths and what they will do or not do, the Lord—in my humble opinion—leads and guides those of us who seek to do His will, no matter what—by our own choices.
Whether God zapped Japheth with the love for Jemri, or he chose to love her above the others, his loving that woman and being willing to trade away his birthright for her, placed his younger brother Shem in the place of being an ancestor of Yeshua, Jesus, God’s Own Son born a man of a virgin.
What do you believe regarding Noah and his wife (my proofreader, Lenda Selph, came up with her name to be Hattimas) having other sons and daughters as most of the early fathers did?
In his five hundredth year, Noah begat three sons. They took their wives with them on the ark. When the flood was done, the waters subsided, and the vessel of salvation once again on dry land, we have proof that Noah did not have other children in Genesis chapter nine, verses eighteen and nineteen: And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. Genesis 9:18-19 Of them—the three sons of Noah—the whole world was repopulated.
The section of Scripture regarding Noah being drunk and naked in the tent, Ham telling his brothers, exposing and dishonoring his father, and all that came after stopped me cold as I waited and prayed about what to write.
Though Ham was the one who told the brothers, it was Canaan whom Noah cursed in Genesis 9: 22-25 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
This is why I handled Canaan as I did and the incident as God did, without spelling out exactly what his youngest son had done. Then I have Ham and all his descendants leaving with him because of Genesis 11:1-3 wherein it mentions ‘they’ several times: And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
Of course, this is the beginning of the Tower of Babel story, and in the tenth chapter, it tells us Ham and his sons had Babel, so these ‘they’s applies to them leaving. I did find it interesting that it was the Canaanites whose lands included Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 10:19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. So though the sin that Canaan had done for his grandfather to curse him—remember Noah was righteous man who walked with God—is not spelled out, the clues are there.
So, let’s discuss Paradise and Torment again. I addressed this in Volume One, A Little Lower Than the Angels, but it is possible not everyone reading Then the Deluge Comes has read that. Here are just a couple of the Scriptures that led me to believe both are in the middle of the earth.
You know the story in Luke 16: 19-26; There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his
gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom [also called Paradise]: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.[So from Torments, or hell, the rich man could view the beggar and Abraham.]
And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
And in Numbers 16:31-33 it is again confirmed: And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.
Another hint of the location of Paradise, speaking of where Christ went after His crucifixion. Ephesians 4:9-10 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
