Patterns in the Flood

I’m working through the story of the Flood right now, building the slides for our small group study. I’m actually working on a book based on the same material as well; I wish I could find a co-author with some “credentials” (because I don’t have any) to help out, and make this thing go faster—but I’ve not had much luck on that front. It’ll be easier when I can sort publishing a fiction book I’ve been working on (my first), and the two technical book projects I’m working on are done (not for a while).

At any rate, one thing I find interesting about the story of the Flood is the number of patterns we find there. For instance, take these verses:

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” Genesis 5:21-29

Doesn’t look like much, does it? Just your typical so-and-so begat so-and-so, and so on…. Stuff you normally skip over. But before we move along (“nothing to see here”), let’s look at each of these people in a little more detail.

Enoch fathered Methuselah. As we learn a few sentences later, Enoch “was no more,” because God took him. In contrast to other folks, he didn’t die, he was just taken.
Methuselah fathered Lamech. Methuselah’s name has been given to mean, “when he dies, it will come,” as a reference to the coming judgment of the Earth. Methuselah died the year the Flood came. We can infer that because Methuselah’s death is noted, he died in the normal way, as a man full of years.
Lamech fathered Noah. Lamech also named Noah, and since we don’t see his death here, we can infer he died in the Flood.
Noah passed through the Flood in the Ark he built with his own hands.

So Noah passed through the Flood. Noah’s father died in the Flood. Noah’s Grandfather died in the year of the Flood. And Noah’s Great-Grandfather was taken before the Flood began. We have all four options in relation to the flood represented in Noah’s bloodline. What are the odds that’s just a coincidence? Pretty low, I’d say. As the Rabbi’s say, “Coincidence is not a Kosher word.” But what does it mean?

I think that just as people work in patterns, God works in patterns. That since we are created in God’s image, God must have this same sort of pattern building in His personality, but on some more perfect and larger scale (hence the Rabbinical quote above). Of course, I’m a network engineer. My entire work is really devoted to mathematical patterns understood on an “instinctive” level, so maybe I see these things where others don’t simply because they aren’t there.

Beyond these observations, the only solution I have to this puzzle lies in the words of Yeshua.

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Matthew 24:37-39