Blood Covenant Origins

by C. A. Gray

  In time, Judith bore me three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. As they grew to manhood, my mother died, leaving me with a feeling of desolation and loneliness I had never before imagined. As the world grew worse and worse, I felt that I was the only one with eyes to see it. Abominations once performed only behind closed doors were now out in the open for all to see. Children, particularly the few that were still entirely human, were abused and sacrificed in the name of worship. Sex trafficking and even gang rape were performed openly, in the streets. Theft, murder, slander, bribery, genocide—all of these things knew no bounds. And who dared to condemn any of it? The only moral absolute was that there were no absolutes; the only sin universally acknowledged as such was the sin of passing judgment upon others. Truth was considered unknowable, if it even existed at all.

  And the Lord wept. Though He did not speak to me openly, the more I withdrew from society and spent time in His creation, the closer I felt to His heart. People had become wholly and completely evil, all the time. I sensed how sorry the Lord was that He had made man at all.

  As my sons grew to manhood, I felt a sense of urgency to procure for them wives among the very few pure human women left upon the earth, and I did this as soon as they were of age. I did not care for my daughters-in-law; to me, they had been far too influenced by the debauchery of the age. But beggars could not be choosers. Ham married Aya, a woman I particularly disliked. During their wedding, she offered sacrifices to false gods, and led Ham to do the same. As the ceremony devolved into a drunken orgy, I left in disgust. I attempted to take Judith with me, for the two of us to make a statement of unified disapproval—but it was her son’s wedding, and she refused to go. The two of us quarreled, and I stormed out into the forest that night alone.

  It was a new moon, so the shadows were very deep. The cicadas sang, and I happened upon a few deer, who glanced up at me and then continued grazing, unperturbed. In a clearing I saw the enormous silhouette of a brontosaurus, steadily chewing foliage from the tops of the trees. Something within me relaxed at the sight of my favorite huge, slow, peaceable dinosaur. Gazing at him was to me like gazing at the night sky, spangled with stars. He reminded me that no matter how terrible the world might become, somewhere out in the forest, the brontosaurus continued to amble and chew, afraid of nothing and no one.

  “Lord,” I whispered, gazing alternately at the great lizard, and then up at the sky. “My soul is so weary. Is there to be no end of the evil of mankind?”

  “There shall be an end of it.”

  I gasped and fell to my knees, face down on the earth as soon as the voice sounded. It was as if the rumble came from the earth itself, and it was not until after it had finished speaking that my brain processed the words. My heart hammered in my chest so hard that I thought it would burst from my chest. I had spent centuries walking with God, talking to Him and wishing He would talk back. Had it happened at last?

  When I dared, I managed in a tiny voice, “God? Was… that You?”

  “I will destroy man and beast from the face of the earth, for I am sorry that I have made them,” the deep rumble answered. “The earth is filled with violence through them.”

  I buried my face in the earth once more, though now that I understood the great sound as a voice, I processed the words as He spoke them. And yet before I fully comprehended His meaning, God instructed, “Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. And this is how you shall make it: the length of the ark shall be four hundred and fifty feet, its width seventy five feet, and its height forty five feet. You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a foot and a half from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. I Myself shall bring floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself, and it shall be food for you and for them.”

  I lay panting in the dirt when the voice of the Lord at last stopped, leaving me with vivid images in my imagination. A flood that would kill every living thing? I could scarcely conceive of this. I understood the concept of a flood only because from time to time, the Pishon River, the nearest river to my city of Havilah, overflowed its banks. But where would enough water come from to wipe out everything upon the face of the earth?

  I envisioned the ark as God had described it. I had seen seafaring boats before, built to travel across bodies of water from one place to the next. That was not what God described to me. As His plan took shape in my mind, I realized this was more like a chest or a barge than a ship, meant to preserve and to float, but not to go anywhere. Gopherwood was the hardest and most durable wood with which I was familiar, and the pitch would preserve it from the elements, making it watertight. I pictured that ark buffeted against rising flood waters, though I could not envision where the waters would come from.

  “When, Lord?” I whispered at last. This was an enormous task; I would not be able to complete such a feat in a year or even in several years, if I were working alone. I would be faster if I had the help of my sons, but I could not expect that. They would be more likely to ridicule than to help.

  “Man’s remaining days shall be one hundred and twenty years,” the voice answered. “As you build the ark, the people shall come to you and ask what you are doing. Warn them of their impending destruction. Call them to repentance. Any who heed you shall also have a place upon the ark, and shall be preserved.”

  One hundred and twenty years . I sighed with relief. That would be more than enough time to gather the materials, prepare them and construct the ark, and then to collect all the needed food, even if I was forced to do it all alone. Judith, I thought, would help me at least with collecting, preserving, and storing the food. And the Lord had promised to bring the animals to me, so at least I would not have to do that part.

  The animals! “Lord,” I said, looking at the brontosaurus, “the ark will be very large, but—surely not large enough to hold two of every one of your creatures?”

  The rumbling voice did not reply. In the subsequent silence, I thought—perhaps he will bring me two babies of each kind? They would certainly eat less, and would be far smaller. And presumably he would only bring me two of each species, not each breed of every kind of animal, since that would be innumerable…

  God said nothing more. I assumed this was because I had my orders, and did not need any further particulars right now. When I stood, gazing absently at the dinosaur still grazing from the canopy of trees, I murmured to myself, “How in the world am I going to explain this to Judith? Let alone Shem, Ham, and Japheth…”

  Poorly, as it happened. Judith stared at me, skeptical and confused.

  “ God told you this,” she said for the third time, as if she couldn’t possibly have understood me the first time.

  “Yes!” I cried with growing impatience. “Believe me or not—either way, the Lord will save you too, and our sons and their wives with us, for my sake.”

  She let out a derisive snort at this. “Oh, how self-righteous you are, Noah! You think God Almighty talks to you and you alone? Of everyone on the face of the earth, you are the only one worth saving?”

  “No!” I shouted with frustration, “He wants to save everyone! I’m just the only one listening!”

  She shook her head at me in condescending disbelief. “You’ve always been insufferably arrogant, with all your talk about truth ,
as if anyone even knows what that word means! But you’ve finally gone completely insane! You want to build a giant barge, and proclaim to the whole world that, what, water is going to fall from the sky ? Fine. But I wash my hands of it!”

  She might as well have stabbed me, though Judith’s disrespect was hardly a surprise. It was just… the loneliness of it that got to me.

  “Is there no one who understands?” I whispered to the Lord aloud after she had stalked off in a huff.

  But of course there wasn’t. That was the whole point.

  Without words, though, I felt a balm soothe the acute ache in my soul with a sudden conviction: she will come around. Sometime between now and when the flood waters finally came, she at least would come around.

  “That’s still over a century away,” I reminded the Lord, as I set out into the forest in search of gopherwood.

  For the first decade or so, no one noticed my peculiar activities. It took me almost that long just to fell the wood I needed, prepare the beams, and gather the first batch of pitch. Only my family knew what I was doing. Particularly my son Ham and his new wife Aya mocked me openly. I gritted my teeth and ignored them. The one benefit to their ridicule was that it curbed Judith’s own tongue. Had they not taken up the cause against me, she might have done so—but she had enough loyalty in her to disapprove of her son’s open mocking of his father, especially when I never opened my mouth in my own defense. I gathered that she had scolded him in private, because after a few years of this, their insults became slightly less vocal. Shem and Japheth and their wives watched me with concern, as if they thought me unhinged, but said very little.

  Once I began to assemble of the outer shell of the ark, though, the citizens of Havilah began to whisper. Here and there I noticed a few peering out at me from behind the trees on the edge of the clearing where I worked. At first they scampered off as soon as they saw me looking. But soon I attracted more and more of a crowd. One brave heckler cried, “Hey, old man! Why are you building a boat this far from the shore?”

  I looked up from hammering, wiping the sweat from my brow, to meet the eyes of the young man. The Lord had told me to preach, though I had the strong impression that this kid had already decided what he thought of me.

  “Because the Lord told me to,” I said. “The corruption and the violence of mankind grieves Him. He plans to flood the earth and wipe out every living creature, great and small, except for those upon the ark. There is a place for you aboard, if you will repent and join us.”

  The young man gave a derisive snort, and then doubled over with laughter, which quickly spread to all of his companions. I turned back to my labors, trying to ignore the anger as I heard the young man’s high-pitched imitation of me.

  Unfortunately he spread the story all over town. From that day on, I had visitors. Some were merely curious, but most were hecklers. I followed the promptings of my own spirit, and said nothing to those who were only there to mock. When I sensed any genuine curiosity in the pilgrims, I gave them the Lord’s message, and then carried on with my work.

  As the ark took shape, both it and its eccentric architect became a local attraction. Crowds began to come from neighboring towns, sitting at a distance with their picnic lunches for hours, as if I were a spectacle for their entertainment. I ignored them, working from sun up to sun down. I was glad when I had finished the exterior shell of the ark, and needed to focus instead on the inner decks, as this gave me a good excuse to hide from the crowds.

  After several decades of solitary labor, it was time to cover the ark with pitch. The crowds were thick as usual, so I did not notice when one of the many broke ranks and approached until he stood right before me. It was my son Japheth. Wordlessly, he took up a brush and a bucket of pitch, meeting my eyes with a small smile. Tears sprung to my eyes and a lump to my throat. Japheth gave me a tiny nod, and set to work beside me.

  A week later, my other son Shem showed up and did the same. The smell of pitch when we finished the inside of the ark was overpowering, and we often had to take breaks outside in the fresh air.

  “I hope there’s still a few years for the inside of the ark to air out before we’re all stuck in there indefinitely!” Shem announced, waving a hand in front of his nose, and all three of us laughed. I didn’t know whether they were mocking me or not, but even if they were, at least they were here.

  Not long after Japheth and Shem began to help me, Judith began to bring us meals, even though it meant she had to pass through the scornful crowds to do it. After decades of what felt like estrangement from her, I could hardly describe the relief I felt from this small act of kindness and bravery on her part, even though I suspected it was motivated more by her love for her sons than respect for me. I took her gently by the wrist as she set down the basket outside the ark on that first day.

  “Thank you,” I told her. Her face softened, and she pressed her lips together.

  “I still think you’re crazy,” she hedged. “But—” she gestured at the ark behind me. “You clearly believe that God spoke to you. The fact that you’ve done all this, day after day, year after year, and never wavered—even when you were all alone, and the whole world made fun of you, even your own family…” she stopped, and ran a hand through her hair, as if searching for the words to say. At last she settled on, “I have to admire that.”

  My throat was too thick to reply. I stared after her as Judith turned and made her way through the crowds again, ignoring the jeers that were now also leveled at her.

  The crowds continued to come. Whenever they were there, I preached while my sons carried on the work. At some point they must have shamed Ham into helping also, as he too showed up from time to time, though he was always surly.

  “Repent!” I cried to the crowds daily, “there is still time for you to repent! There is still a place for you on the ark, if you desire it!” Every day this was met with loud jeers. Sometimes the people hurled leftovers from their picnic lunches at me. I learned to dodge even as I preached.

  As we reached the hundred and twentieth year since the Lord had originally spoken to me about building an ark, I began to send my family and even my daughters-in-law to collect food, preserve it, and store it on the ark. I helped some, but mostly I continued to preach with increasing urgency. The onlookers continued to ignore and mock me.

  Until the animals began to arrive.

  They came in a trickle at first: pairs of zebras, pairs of deer, pairs of cattle. With no effort on my part, the animals marched right past the amazed crowd and climbed aboard the ark.

  “This is as the Lord said!” I cried to the onlookers with renewed zeal, as a pair of baby black bears came next, followed by a pair of young lions, weaned but small enough that they did not look like an immediate threat. I pointed at them and cried, “Is this normal behavior? How could this possibly happen without the intervention of the Lord?”

  Murmurs rippled through the crowd, and a few of the more outspoken hecklers cried, “That hardly proves the entire earth is about to be flooded! Who can explain what animals do? They’re wild!”

  The crowd murmured its hesitant assent to this, though the whispers died away as small flocks of seven parrots, seven gulls, and seven doves swooped down from the sky. These were followed by a pair of baby pterodactyls, to my apprehension.

  “I hope you plan on putting all the predators into a deep sleep once we’re all aboard,” I muttered to the Lord. I could just imagine the ark tossed about on the waves, agitating the winged creatures who could not escape any more than the rest of us. Come to think of it, I suddenly wondered, how would we tolerate the smell of excrement from all of these creatures in a confined space like this for an indefinite period of time? What about our own excrement? The only windows in the ark were at the very top. Was there a way we could collect and dispose of various kinds of waste products, I wondered? I decided to pack empty wooden barrels small enough to toss out the upper windows once th
ey were full.

  Over the next several weeks, the animals continued to climb on board, even as my family packed the ark with preserved food, and Shem and Ham focused on constructing beds in the chambers that would belong to each of us and our wives. I noticed that the ark seemed strangely quiet, for all its new inhabitants. I realized in relief that the Lord had already answered my prayer: the creatures had apparently all fallen into a deep sleep.

  At last the arrival of the animals slowed, and then stopped altogether. I felt the growing perplexity of the onlookers at the strange display, particularly because the inside of the ark was now deadly silent, when it should have been alive with squawks and snorts and growls and roars. The more concerned they became, the louder the jeers grew. I ignored them now, though. Had I any doubts before that I had heard the Lord correctly, all such doubts had vanished. Even my family seemed far more serious and subdued.

  Then one day at daybreak, I was awake before Judith and went outside to watch the sunrise. This had become my habit over the years. I had not heard the Lord speak to me aloud since He originally told me to build the ark, but I felt that watching the sunrise was like watching Him paint. That morning, as reds and golds streaked across the sky, I heard His voice again.

  “Come into the ark, you and all your household. After seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.”