“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord./ These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” (6:8-9)
The Spirit describing the generation of Noah gives us two division similar to the before and after in the case of Job. God blessed the latter half of Job. “ So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.”(Job 42:12). God had found him perfect, and there is no question of having to change it least of all before Satan. “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?”(Job 1:8). The Spirit used the two divisions to show the divine Will is perfect and holiness of God allowed Job to be tempted even as did not spare his own Son. The blessings of his latter end covered both ‘after our own image and after our likeness.” Thus blessings went two fold where he was as double for his Son and in the estimation of God the Father as well.
In the case of Noah it is other way around. Before the flood he is after the likeness of his Son, the Man component in the everlasting covenant. So when God tells him of the covenant, “And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations.”(9:12). God is referring to the existing covenant of Ge. Ch.1. “This covenant between God and Man in his Son is for ‘perpetual generations.” Under the bow in heaven it is addressed to all flesh, “And I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” (9:16-17)
The dry land where Noah tended his crops recall his life of the flesh which is his second phase. In order to distinguish these two halves we have the age given. “And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him./And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” What is six hundred? (2x3x100) Where the Command number Three establishes the role of Noah. He is the redeemer of a nucleus of the family of God. (“There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains;”-Ps.72:16) . Having fulfilled his ministry he is on the earth redeemed from Judgment. The same foreshadows, of the light of the Lamb lighting the earth under which the saved nations shall walk. (Re.21:25) As in the case of Enoch he also walked with God so death only refers to his flesh.
“And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:”
Here the drunkenness of Noah runs parallel with the deep sleep of Adam. As soon as he comes out of it he is aware what his younger son had done. The Spirit is putting emphasis on the flesh in the latter half.
“And he died” “And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years./ And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died. The Spirit goes to its home and the dust returns to dust. In order to separate these we have before and after the flood.
GuidetohisWord 