BIBLICAL BRIEFS 91
Apart from the fact that it is obviously a historical documentation that also serves to confirm the truth of this epoch-making event, it is also of typological importance. Rom. 15: 4 explains this: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction …” Everything in the Old Testament has a typological pendant in the New Testament. This anchor episode of a new age on earth (“The end of all flesh is come before me …” – Gen. 6:13) is clearly a (specific) prototype. This being said, Peter (1Pet. 3: 20-21) and Jesus (Matt. 24: 37-41), for example, make references to Noah to put forward certain typological equations. The number seven is used often in the Bible, meaning completeness, completion and perfection. In the history of Noah, it is especially important because God made the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2: 2-3). In addition, Noah’s name means “rest”. The entire history of Noah culminates in his divine identity, which ought to bring mankind to rest – this has been remarkably prophesied over him by his father, Lamed, before his birth: “Now he called his name Noah, saying, ‘This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.’” (Gen. 5:29). In the Bible, the number seventeen symbolizes total victory and resurrection. In his book, The King James Code, Michael Hoggard says: “the number seventeen overwhelmingly represents the completion of time and change or transformation”. The number is also linked to the enigmatic number 153, because 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + … 16 + 17 = 153. The number 153’s gematria indicates “the sons of God” (John 21:11), i.e., the Bride of Christ. And then – the meaning of the name Ararat means: “The curse is reversed”! This specified date, therefore, is also a symbolic indication of the fact that in the resurrection power of Jesus and His Bride, God will bring a completely new dispensation on earth, “that he might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10).
Dr Tom Gouws
