There Were More Than 2 Of Each Animal On Noah’s Ark – Part 6 of 7

Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for tuning in. Our goal is to share the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible through social media.

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So, you are tuning in toward the end of a seven-part sermon series. We are on number six. Please watch the playlist here if you haven’t seen the previous messages. It is in a card, or navigate to our YouTube channel and find the playlist.

We are talking about the world as it was in the time of Noah and what was going on around there. So, today we are talking about “The Animals on the Ark.” Everyone seems to think or believe that two-by-two the animals are on the ark.

There is a popular joke that says, “How many animals did Moses put on the ark?” And everyone said, “Oh, two of each.” But then they threw in the word Moses, so the real answer is zero. But, it’s two – is what everyone says.

It is two animals each, and that is not what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us there were a lot more than two of each animal on the ark. So, we’re gonna dive into that. Think about it, first of all. If there were two of each animal – Noah and his family were eight people.

So there are eight people there. They were on the ark for over five months, okay – five months! What did they eat? It is not like they were growing a garden. They may have had some pots or something like that with plants in them. But five months, how do we know five months?

Well, let’s check it out. Genesis 7:11, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life on the 17th day of the second month on that day all of the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of heaven were opened and rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.”

You say, “Wait a minute – no, no, no – not five months. It’s only 40 days and 40 nights.” Forty days and 40 nights – non-stop torrential downpouring rain the water in the atmosphere came down on the earth – 40 days and 40 nights.

Then, if they didn’t just get off after that, they’d be swimming. They had to wait for the earth to soak up all that water and for the sun to take it back up in evaporation. So, how do we know it’s five months? Well, let’s jump over to Genesis 8:4.

Genesis 8:4 says: “And on the 17th day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the 10th month. And on the first day of the 10th month, the tops of the mountains became visible.”

Okay, so, I said over five months. Well if it started on the 17th day of the second month and the seventh month, the 17th day of the seventh month, that’s five months. Okay, it came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

That doesn’t mean they got off. I mean they could have maybe got out of the ark and explored a little and maybe got back on, threw a rope over the side, climbed down, let’s check it out, okay nice, get me back up here.

After, it says: “Then the waters continued to recede until the 10th month.” So that’s three more months. The first day of the 10th month, so we’re at eight months. The tops of the mountains became visible.

After 40 days, that was another month, so now we are at 11 months. Noah opened the window and sent out a raven, that kept flying back and forth. Then he sent out a dove, which could not find a place to perch.

So, pretty much 10 months, 11 months, they’re on this ark for sure. Okay, He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove. When the dove returned there was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Noah knew that the water had receded. He waited seven more days.

So, now we are probably at like 12 months here, “Waited seven more days.” So this is a full year. Seven more days, sent it out again, it did not return to him. By the first day of the first month of Noah’s 600 and first year, the water had dried up from the earth.

Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. So, very likely this is the first time they got off the ark, on the first day of the first month of Noah’s 600 and first year – first day, first month.

When did he get to the 600th year of his life? “The 17th day of the second month.” So this is almost one full year they were on the ark. For a whole year, what do you think they ate? Nothing? They had to have eaten something.

Eight people, a whole year on this ark, or almost a whole year – during that time, they had to eat something. So, at least two of each animal got off of the ark. There had to be more than two of each animal on the ark.

That’s simple logic, supposition, but we don’t have to go on that alone. Don’t take my word for it. Take the Bible. Let’s go to Genesis 6:19-20, “You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, and keep them alive with you.” Okay, what is the big deal?

It says “Two, male and female.” Ah ah, let’s keep going: Verse 20, “Two of every kind of bird, two of every kind of animal, and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.”

Okay, well that is two. So what are we getting at here? Don’t worry, “You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and as food for them.” Every kind of food was brought onto the ark for the animals and Noah.

Now, at this point, were any of these animals – like, what did a lion eat? Vegetables, or did they eat meat? We don’t know at this point, but there were clean and unclean animals. So humans supposedly, at this time, could have eaten meat.

Let’s continue. So, God tells Noah to take two of every kind of animal, and bird, and store up all the food for the animals and his family. Keep going. Genesis 7:2-3, “Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, male, and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male, and its mate, seven of every kind of bird, male, and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.”

Okay, why was Noah to take seven clean animal pairs, so 14, and only two, or one pair of unclean? Verse 2, “Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male, and its mate.” So, seven of every kind of clean, a male in its mate.

Seven is an odd number. So, was he taking four males and three females, or four females and three males? Or was it seven pairs – so 14 animals, seven of every kind of clean, a male and it is mate?

Well, if you check your footnotes it could tell you a little bit more about that. Let’s see what our footnote is. So, the footnotes in the Bible usually say seven pairs, so 14 clean animals and then two – a pair, one male and its mate – of unclean animals.

Why was this? Well, they didn’t eat the unclean animals, so they only needed two. So why the clean animals (14 of them)? Because in a year, they probably needed some for food, or for a sacrifice, if they sinned, they needed to sacrifice an animal maybe to atone for their sins.

And then what did they do with that? Well, they, I don’t know what they did with that. Maybe they threw it overboard. They probably didn’t eat it, but they could have. Or maybe they fed it to the carnivores that were on the boat or the ark.

So, God tells Noah to take seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of every unclean animal, but seven pairs of all the birds whether they were clean or unclean. So, Noah had 14 of every clean animal 14 of every kind of bird, and two of every unclean animal.

God sent all these animals to Noah. He chose which animals they were. They weren’t sent randomly. It said here: “God sent them all. I will send all of them to you.” And so, God plans everything in detail. We have talked about this before.

Everything God does is right down to the very smallest detail. He does not leave anything to chance. There is no coincidence. Everything is meticulously planned out by God. So you can believe that whatever animals were sent there were chosen by God.

Why were they chosen, and for what reason? We don’t know. Maybe it’s because they were the healthiest. They could have been without defects. They could have been the best animals that went there. It could have been that they were the proper animals for food.

Whatever the reason is, those animals were chosen. God sent them to Noah, and he had them go exactly where they were supposed to go. So, think of how large the ark had to be to fit 14 different clean animals, 14 different kinds of birds, and then two of every unclean animal.

This thing was huge. We’re going to talk about the size of the ark next week, so be sure to stay tuned for that message. Let’s talk about why we think, that Noah and his family would have been eating some of these animals.

So, if we go to Genesis Chapter 9 – this is when they have gotten off the ark. Well first of all, we think they would have been eating some of those animals because almost a whole year on the ark, they stored up every kind of food, so we’re talking every kind of food on the ark for a whole year.

That means they had, like, bushels of apples and corn and wheat and all of this kind of stuff brought on the ark. Now, I don’t know about you, but if you have like a bag of lettuce or spinach or a head of lettuce, which they probably grew and stored up after like a week or two, that thing will get spoilt badly.

So, God had some supernatural stuff going on on this ark to probably preserve this food for them to last for the whole year. How much food do eight people need to go through in a year? These weren’t eight little kids.

These were eight grown people. So think about if you have a family of four or six or eight. How much food do you buy in a year, and consume in one year? Now think about food for your pets, and now think about food for 14 of every kind of animal two of every kind of unclean animal, and 14 of every kind of bird.

The food storage of this place alone had to be bigger than a house – very, very large to store all of this food. I mean, just imagine how they had it sorted, all the shelving, all of the different things that they had for all the different types of food, and where it was.

And then, if they had to store food for the carnivores, or if God did a supernatural thing and just closed the mouths of the lions so that they didn’t eat for a whole year. I don’t know what was going on, or how, or maybe they were babies, so, they had to have milk.

And God had goats, and, and cows and all of that, and so they were milking them and maybe that’s all they fed the carnivores for the first year of their life – could have been milk, maybe, that, you know – we don’t know.

We don’t know the science and how it all worked. We just know that it worked. I suppose that there is a very good possibility that a lot of the carnivores – the carnivorous animals were probably young, so they weren’t fierce and they weren’t killers yet, but they needed milk to survive.

And it’s very possible that maybe they brought an adult female on because that could be the seven. Maybe they brought six babies and, so two, two, two, and then one that was an adult female nursing the young. That could be, or it could very well be seven pairs.

Like the footnotes could say – seven pairs. So, it could be one or the other. Either way, chances are very, very good chance that a lot of these animals were babies. And now, let’s not forget that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with humans then as well.

And so, I imagine a dinosaur was probably an unclean animal, they were on there – two of every kind. So dinosaurs would have been on the ark. Now can you imagine a dinosaur on the ark? That thing would tear it to pieces!

Well, not if it was a baby. So we’re gonna talk about the size of the ark later and how they all would have fit, most likely because they were babies. But how are they all kept alive for that whole year?

I would guess that, with nurturing infants – they were all on milk, and so that could be why they didn’t need so much meat to feed all of these carnivorous animals. Or if they, maybe weren’t carnivorous yet.

However, the most likely – when the fall of mankind happened with Eve falling into temptation and then giving it to Adam and him sinning as well – that could have been when humankind became meat eaters. We don’t know for sure.

Other people say it was when the flood ended. However, if we jump to Genesis 9:3, it says there, Chapter 9:3, “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”

So some people say, “Okay, God now allows them to eat meat.” However, why would there be a distinction between clean and unclean animals before this if they weren’t eating the clean animals?

Later on, when God commands Moses and the Levites on clean and unclean animals what they are to eat and how they are to prepare their food. He says “You can eat those clean animals but the unclean animals don’t.”

And so, if there’s a distinction between clean and unclean animals when God is sending the animals to Noah, we can reason that while they were on the ark they must have eaten some of the clean animals. That’s why there were extra pairs.

I am not sure. We don’t know for certain, but this verse here says, “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now gave you everything.” So is it at this point that mankind was now allowed to eat any animal clean and unclean?

And then later on in the Bible, God says to his people, “I’m making a distinction. You guys need to not eat the unclean animals.” There are some suppositions either way, but the point is that they (eight people) survived on this ark for a whole year.

How much food do you need to go through with your family in an entire year? It’s not quite a year, 11 months and so some days – and you’re, you know if you have one dog or two dogs, or a couple of cats? Think about thousands and thousands of animals to feed as well, that lot of food.

God said, “They should store up every kind of food, for themselves and the animals.” And so, did they eat meat on the ark? We don’t know for sure. Probably, but they were probably consuming the milk and the dairy products from all of the other animals as well, goats, the cows, the sheep maybe, whatever they could eat to continue getting nutrients and staying healthy on the ark.

In addition, there was most likely, like I said, some supernatural stuff going on to keep all of that food from rotting. Or, maybe some of the food did rot and then that was provided as food for the pigs or for whatever other animals that would eat the rotten food.

So, there were a lot of animals on the ark, seven kinds of clean and two unclean. This ark had to be huge. We’re gonna talk about how big it was next week. So, again, if you haven’t seen the past messages of this sermon series, check it out.

This is a history lesson of what was going on in the time of Noah and just the awesomeness of all of this stuff. How young the Earth was, is kind of an eye-opening fact. The water in the atmosphere is amazing, how dinosaurs were so huge and fearsome and great creatures, and then the first rain, and how then we were limited to 120 and why that happened.

And then now just how many animals were on the ark – and then thinking about that, how huge the ark has to have been. And so, it’s just so many awesome, like, awe-inspiring things that were happening then. And that’s the point of this message. So it’s just a cool thing.

You can use this to share. It’s not heavy stuff. It’s not, you know, super controversial, so it’s light-hearted. You can share it with friends, and your family, and talk about it and just say how cool this was.

And then hopefully that can lead you into the deeper stuff of bringing more people into the Kingdom of God and showing them that Jesus died for their sins and that they can become followers of Christ and go to Heaven as well.

So let’s pray, thank you so much Lord for these great messages that you’re giving us. For just the incredibleness of the animals on the ark and what Noah went through at age 500, and then, then 600 he went onto the ark and he spent 100 years building this thing.

It’s just truly amazing, the strength that you gave him and his family. Lord, we ask that you would give us that strength. We know we’re limited to 120, but help us make these 120 years just, just amazing.

And I ask that you would bless us and the viewers who are working to share you and to spread your kingdom, that you would bless us so that we would be fortunate enough to live those 120 years.

Don’t take us out early. We want to come to you. We want to go to Heaven. I would love to die today, but I know that we can’t. We need to stay here because it is better for the world that we preach of You and that we share You with as many people as possible.

So Lord, please inspire us to do that. Please help us to share with You every chance we get. Help us to be bold and courageous. Give us the words to say so that we can continue to share Jesus everywhere we go.

In Jesus’ name. Amen. Thanks so much for tuning in today, and for giving us your time. Please give us one more thing if you can, a like on this video and a subscribe, a comment below if possible, and maybe even share this video on your social media platforms as well. God bless.