I remember learning in high school Latin class about chiasms, a literary technique using an A-B-C-…-C’-B’-A’ structural pattern. Typically it serves to emphasize whatever is being framed in the center (which I’m told is particularly important in languages like Hebrew where there is no ability to emphasize with bold or italics). It can be used to clarify meaning, by comparing or contrasting B with its B’ counterpart, or for general emphasis given the repetitive nature of its structure.
Reading through Genesis 6-9, I was struck for the first time by the significance of the detailed accounts of time intervals, and then came across this chiastic structuring of the account (from Joe Carter of the Gospel Coalition):
A Noah (6:10a)
B Shem, Ham, Japheth (10b)
C Ark to be built (14-16)
D Flood announced (17)
E Covenant with Noah (18-20)
F Food in ark (21)
G Command to enter ark (7:1-3)
H 7 days waiting for flood (4-5)
I 7 days waiting for flood (7-10)
J Entry to ark (11-15)
K God shuts Noah in (16)
L 40 days flood (17a)
M Waters increase (17b-18)
N Mountains covered (18-20)
O 150 days water prevail (21-24)
P God remembers Noah (8:1)
O’ 150 days water abate (3)
N’ Mountain tops visible (4-5)
M’ Waters abate (6)
L’ 40 days waiting (6a)
K’ Noah opens window (6b)
J’ Raven and dove leave (7-9)
I’ 7 days waiting (10-11)
H’ 7 days waiting (12-13)
G’ Command to leave ark (15-17)
F’ Food outside ark (9:1-4)
E’ Covenant with all flesh (8-10)
D’ No flood in future (4-17)
C’ Ark (18a)
B’ Shem, Ham, Japeth (18b)
A’ Noah (19)
This is one person’s interpretation and some may argue with the partitioning, but the general structure brings out a few things. For one, it highlights as the center of the narrative “But God remembered” (Genesis 8:1). I had never really seen the focus of the story that way—we tend to think of ourselves, or maybe the parade of animals, at the center, but when we consider the ark a small speck on the entire watery planet, before a God with the power to undo creation, we see that the entire narrative turns on this point. God is a God who remembers us, and it is a remembrance that results in reversal.
Another takeaway is that Noah did a lot of waiting! For some reason, we tend to think of the flood as forty days long—while there are different interpretations of the exact number of days (not all agreeing with the above), most agree that Noah was in the ark for over a year, with active rain for only a fraction of that year. Can you imagine being inside a boat with the same few people and all the animals, endlessly caregiving and cleaning and stewarding, while waiting for the everlasting waters outside to recede? Sending out a bird, then waiting another seven days before sending out another? Or before that: loading up the ark, then waiting seven days before the first drop of rain falls?
Noah utters not one word of complaint. Interestingly, he utters not one word at all in this entire passage. He listens and does as God commands, nearly always when it made no sense, and waited, nearly always for something he could not see (be it water or land). So much of the spiritual life is in learning to wait well. “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:25). Nouwen notes that the word “patience” is from the Latin “patior,” meaning “to suffer.” “Waiting patiently,” he writes, “is suffering through the present moment, tasting it to the fullest in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us,” rather than being anxious about the future and wanting to move on from the present. As Simone Weil wrote, “waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” There’s much of that in this journey, isn’t there? So much of the “already, but not yet,” so much of faith that is being fully present in the now while hoping for what we do not yet see.
No comments:
Post a Comment