ARK, NOAH'S (ark, nWah s), (Heb. lay.
bow, boat vessel, Gen. vi:t4). The word here employed is different from aron, which is applied to the ark of the covenant and other receptacles which we know to have been chests or coffers.
But it is the same that is applied to the 'ark' in which Moses was hid ( Exod. ii :3), the only other part of Scripture in which it occurs. In the latter passage the Septuagint renders it 0113n, a ship, in the former, 03corbs, a chest The truth seems to he that iron denotes any kind of chest or cof fer, while the exclusive application of tebah to the vessels of Noah and of Moses would suggest the probability that it was restricted to such chests or arks as were intended to float upon the water, of whatever description. The identity of the name with that of the wicker basket in which Moses was exposed on the Nile has led some to suppose that the ark of Noah was also of wicker-work, or rather was wattled and smeared over with bitu men (Ruth. Vcrs. 'pitch,' Gen. vi:i4). This is not impossible, seeing that vessels of considerable burden are thus constructed at the present day; but there is no sufficient authority for carrying the analogy to this extent.
(1) Form and Arrangement. Va't labor and ingenuity have been employed by various writers in the attempt to determine the form of Noah's ark and the arrangement of its parts. The suc cess has not been equal to the exertion; for, on comparing the few simple facts in the Scripture narrative, every one feels how slight positive data there arc for the minute descriptions and elaborate representations which such writers have given. That form of the ark which repeated pictorial representations have rendered familiar—a kind of house in a kind of boat—has not only no founda tion in Scripture, but is contrary to reason The form thus given to it is fitted for progression and for cutting the waves; whereas the ark of Noah was really destined to float idly upon the waters. without any other motion than that which it re ceived from them. If we examine the passage in Gen. vi :14-16, we can only draw from it the con elusion that the ark was a building in the form of a parallelogram, 30o cubits long, so cubits broad, and 3o cubits high. The length of the cubit, in the great variety of measures that bore this name, it is impossible to ascertain and useless to conjec ture. So far as the name affords any evidence, it also goes to show that the ark of Noah was not a regularly-built vessel, but merely intended to float at large upon the waters. We may, therefore, probably with justice, regard it as a large, oblong, floating house, with a roof either flat or only slightly inclined. It was constructed with three stories, and had a door in the side. The is no mention of windows in the side, but above, i. e., probably in the flat roof, where Noah was com manded to make them of a cubit in size (Gen. vi:
16). That this is the meaning of the passage seems apparent from Gen. viii :13, where Noah re moves the covering of the ark in order to ascer tain whether the ground was dry; a labor un necessary surely, had there been windows in the sides of the ark.
(2) Purpose. The purpose of this ark was to preserve certain persons and animals from the Deluge with which God intended to overwhelm the land, in punishment for man's iniquities. The persons were eight—Noah and his wife, with his three sons and their wives (Gen. vii :17; 2 Pet. ii: 5). The animals were one pair of every 'un clean' animal, and seven pairs of all that were 'clean.' By 'clean,' we understand fit, and by 'un clean,' unfit for food or for sacrifice. Of birds there were seven pairs (Gen. vii :2, 3).
(3) Species of Animals. Those who have written professedly and largely on the subject have been at great pains to provide for all the ex isting species of animals in the ark of Noah, showing how they might be distributed, fed and otherwise provided for. But they are very far from having cleared the matter of all its difficul ties. These difficulties, however, chiefly arise from the assumption that the species of all the earth were collected in the ark. The number of such species has been vastly underrated by these writ ers. They have usually satisfied themselves with a provision for three or four hundred species at most. But of the existing mammalia consider ably more than one thousand species are known ; of birds, fully five thousand; of reptiles, very few kinds of which can live in water, two thousand ; and the researches of travelers and naturalists are making frequent and most interesting additions to the number of these and all other classes. Of in sects, using the word in the popular sense, the number of species is immense; to say one hundred thousand would be moderate; each has its appro priate habitation and food, and these are necessary to its life; and the larger number could not live in water. Also the innumerable millions upon millions of anirnalcula must be provided for; for they have all their appropriate and diversified places and circumstances of existence (Dr. J. Pye Smith, On the Relation Between the Holy Script ures and Some Parts of Geological Science. p. 135). Nor do these numbers form the only diffi culty; for all land animals have their geographical regions, to which their constitutional natures are congenial, and many could not live in any other situation. We cannot represent to ourselves the idea of their being brought into one small spot, from the polar regions, the torrid zone, and all the other climates of Asia, Africa, Europe, America, Australia, and the thousands of islands, their preservation and provision, and the final dis posal of them, withou. bringing up the idea of miracles more stupend a than any which are re corded in Scripture.