Preventing Nuclear War: Recommended for All Ages

Fleabane, or erigeron, sketched at North Pond in Chicago.
The Greek root gérōn means "old man."
It has become my favorite wildflower.

Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the Earth. Noah and his wife and sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. In seven days the floodwaters came.

- Genesis 7:6-10
(translation from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene H. Peterson)

I keep coming back to that number: 600. Why is the story telling us Noah's age? (And why is the story so obviously fibbing?)

At first glance, the number "600" seems simply to tie in to the prologue to the Noah story -- the part about "great men" who lived hundreds of years. But Noah's age shows up several more times in the story - in the verses immediately following this one, as well as at the end. What's the point?

At the end of the story, we learn that Noah lived to be 950 years old. That means that the voyage of the ark happened in the middle of his life. It wasn't his final act; it wasn't his initiation into adulthood. It occurred amid a long string of "ordinary days."

As I think about the problem of preventing nuclear war, I sometimes wonder who the "right" person would be to make a difference. Is it a hoary sage, some ancient prophet, whose words will be like a thunderbolt that make everyone stop in their tracks? Or is it a little child -- the David who will slay this Goliath? When I start down that road, it's not long before I'm thinking, "Whoever it is, it's certainly not someone like me."

After all, I just turned 60 a few months ago. I'm still looking over my shoulder, following chemotherapy a few summers back, hoping my lymphoma doesn't flare up again. And I'm up here in a far corner of northern Wisconsin, living on an island!

But the story keeps insisting: Noah was 600 years old!

Perhaps the time has come for us to recognize that the time is now, and no matter what season of life a person is in, it's the right season to take an active role in preventing nuclear war.


Next NOAH post
Previous NOAH post
All NOAH posts


Related post:

I don't think Alanna and I ever talked about what it must be like to be trying to escape a shower of sparks and hot ash. But she seemed to know that the sparks and hot ash are too important a part of the picture to be left out.


(See The Children Are Waiting )