How Many Animals Did You Say?
April 30th, 2008. Filed under: Wednesday's Wonders.
I’m wondering why I never noticed that before. How many animals do you think Noah took on the ark? Bet you said two of each. I would have before this morning. I usually read the New Testament, but have recently been delving into Genesis. I’ve made it through Genesis 9 and have learned several new things – a couple of which have revised what I’ve “known” since I was a child. I also figured out why the Jewish day runs from sundown to sundown. Quick question. Who was the oldest man in the Bible? I hear a chorus of “Methuselah.” Yes, he was oldest at the ripe old age of 969. That’s only 31 years short of 1000. Man, that’s a century! And we make a big deal out of reaching 100. But Methuselah only made the record by 7 years. Jared lived to be 962. A lot of the guys back then lived to be over 900 years old. Noah was 950 when he died.
Oh, yes. Back to the animals. Do you know how long Noah and the other seven people lived on board that ark with all those animals? I know what you’re going to say. “Forty days and forty nights.” Wrong! That’s what I’ve always thought, too. It rained for forty days and forty nights. Noah and his family were actually cooped up with all those animals, birds and all the living things that “creepth upon the earth” for over a year. Think about that, folks. Think about the logistics of it. Noah, his family and all those critters had to eat for a year. We’re talking stockpiling the pantry big time. I used to work on some mighty large cruise ships and I still can’t visualize how much space it would take to store all that food. And you just know those animals multiplied. Just think what a pair of rabbits alone could do in a year. That would take a lot of rabbit pellets just to feed them. How much do you think the elephants and rhinos ate? Noah had his hands full. He had to have spent a lot of time tending the pets. It’s a good thing TV hadn’t been invented yet. The only spare time he had was probably spent on meals and sleeping long enough to recover and start over again the next day. I wonder if Mrs. Noah had to sit on her hands to keep from swatting the flies. Each female housefly can lay over 9,000 eggs.
I wonder how many mouths Noah had to feed during that year. Okay, okay. I’ll tell you how many pairs he took on the ark with him. He took seven pairs of the clean animals and the birds. He only took one pair of all the rest of the animals and creepy crawlies. That’s still a lot of mouths to feed.
April 30th, 2008 at 17:30
Makes you feel sorry for Mrs. Noah (Naamah) doesn’t it?
maybe they were all fed on manna
some people say that God put the animals into a sort
of hybernation for the boat ride.
but then some people say a lot of things.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:38
That hybernation is a good thought. It would have been handy to have at times when my kids were growing up. Just long enough to get them through some of those rough spots. I think my parents wouldn’t have been opposed to having it through the entire teens for me. I did tend to be a bit stubborn and rebellous at times. ;p