When my wife is away, I get into the kitchen for my culiniary
experiments. Having followed the recipe in all its details, I leave
it to be cooked on the stove and get back to my desk. Most of the
time, I get so engrossed in my work and remember my cooking only when
the burning smell wafts to my office from the kitchen. That is when I
remember that I had left a vessel on a burning stove.
Genesis 8:1 surprises
us with this obervation: ‘But God remembered Noah’ (ESV). This is
the first time the word ‘remember’ occurs in the Bible. Does this
mean that God had forgotten Noah and all that he has in the ark? What
would have happened if God did not remember them—certainly it would
have been disastrous. The supply of food would not last for ever for
all of them.
This short phrase
brings out the turning point in whole story—a turning point from
the devastating flood to the new earth and newness of life. In other
words it is the fulcrum on which the events turn from annihiliation
to reconstruction. Chapter 7 begins with the beginning of the flood.
Around the middle of this chapter we see the fury of the waters that
drowned everything—waters from inside the earth, above the earth
and then torrential rains lashed to lift the ark up and to drown even
mountain peaks (Gen 7:11-12). Chapter 7 ends with the report that the
flood is still abating.
He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. (Gen 7:23-23 ESV).
Then comes this short
sentence bringing with it relief rousing in us the eagerness to know
what is going to happen next: ‘But God remembered Noah’ (Gen 8:1
ESV). I would rather like to translate it as ‘then God remembered
Noah’ because God’s act of remembering is part of the series of
events that we see in Genesis 7. Fountains of the deep and the
windows of the heavens that were opened to flood the earth are now
closed. The rain that persisted for 150 days also ‘was restrained’
(8:2). God had already made a ‘wind to blow over the earth’ so
that the ‘water recede’ (8:1). Then finally, the story goes on to
tell us how the tops of the mountains became visible, new shoots came
out of the trees, dry land appeared and how they landed safely on the
new earth as the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. All because
‘God remembered Noah.’
When God remembers
things take a new turn, not only here but throughout the Bible. The
reason for Lot’s escape from the destruction was that ‘God
remembered Abraham’ (Gen 19:29). When God remembered barren Rachel
she gave birth to a child (Gen 30:22). The reason for the deliverance
of the Israelite slaves from Egypt was nothing but ‘God remembered
the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ (Exod 2:24). In the New
Testament Zechariah the priest affirms his faith in the God ‘who
remembers his holy covenant’ (Luke 1:72).
God’s remembrance is
the basis for our prayer both positively and negatively. Positively
we pray God to remember us fully assured that God will act. When God
remembers with favour things are going to be positive. So, when
asking for God’s favour in his life Job prayed: ‘Remember that my
life is a breath; my eye will never again see good’ (Job 7:7 ESV).
So also the Psalmist prayes, ‘Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your
steadfast love, for they have been from of old’ (Psa 25:6 ESV).
Making God to ‘remember’ is to make God to act.
Negatively, we ask God
not to remember what we have done to earn his displeasure. The
dreadful reality is that when God remembers sins things are going to
turn against us. So the Psalmist prays:
Remember not the sins of my
youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember
me,
for the sake of your goodness,
O Lord! (Psa 25:7 ESV).
Thus when God
‘remembers,’ things take a new turn. People of God had prayed to
God to remember their faithfulness as the supplicant of Psalm 20:3
prayed or to remember their helplessness as Job did (Job 7:7). We can
also plead for God not to remember our sins so that his favour will
remain upon us. Whichever way it goes we cling on to the divine
promise that we find in Isaiah 43:25:
I, I am he
who blots out your
transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your
sins. (Isa 43:25 ESV).