Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship. Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”
(Genesis 8:18-20)

God said go out, so Noah obeyed. He went out of the ark and he took his family. He got all the animals out too (although they may have left under their own steam because God commanded it just like they arrived because God commanded it – Genesis 7:8-9). They left the security of the ark. The pleasantness of the ark. The SAFETY of the ark. Not because they wanted to, but because God commanded them to. They were OBEDIENT to His words.

The first thing Noah did was build an altar and worship God. Being thankful in the ark wasn’t enough. Being thankful when they left wasn’t enough. Being thankful for being saved wasn’t enough. Noah felt a need to demonstrate it. To show God he cared. That he loved. That he was thankful. That he worshipped. The first thing Noah did wasn’t to focus on how the world looked, on the destruction all around them, or on the bodies left over, or even the smell. Noah focused on God first and foremost. He build an altar and he worshipped God. He focused on the positive and what they had, their eager expectation and hope, not the negative or what had been lost.

God had provided the animals for this, having commanded Noah to bring more than just two (a male-female pair) into the ark to save them. God gave Noah the sacrifices he needed for his sacrifices. God ALWAYS gives seed to the sower (2 Corinthians 9:10).

The sage Ibn Ezra writes: ‘EVERY CLEAN BEAST. There are ten kinds of clean beasts. We do not know the number of clean fowl because the Bible lists only the unclean ones since the clean fowl are more numerous than the unclean. Noah built the altar on one of the mountains of Ararat.’

The sage Chizkuni writes: ‘ויעל עולות, “he offered burnt offerings.” He acted similar to the sailors in the story of Jonah, who after having been saved from a great storm and returned to dry land, immediately offered offerings to G-d for their deliverance. (Jonah 2,16). We learn from here that anyone who has been miraculously saved from dangers beyond his control is expected to offer tangible thanksgiving offerings.’