The salt even in the line of Seth lost its savour, and _the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually_ (Gen. vi. 1–5). In this awful crisis one man only found favour with God, NOAH, the son of Lamech, in whom at his birth, with prophetic glance his father beheld a pledge of that _rest_ and _comfort_, which the men of faith felt they so sorely needed from the burden of weary and irksome labour on _the ground which Jehovah had cursed_ (Gen. v. 29). When Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of three sons, SHEM, HAM, and JAPHETH. Like Enoch he was a _righteous and perfect man in his generation_, and in this age of universal apostasy maintained an unflinching trust in the Righteous Ruler of the Universe, and at length, when the cup of man’s iniquity was full, he received intimation from the Almighty of His intention to bring an awful judgment upon the world. _Behold I, even I_, said God, _do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die_. From the general catastrophe Noah and his family alone were to be preserved, and he was directed to construct an Ark, a huge vessel of enormous dimensions, into which, when completed, he was to repair with his wife, his three sons and their wives, and also two of every species of beasts and birds accounted “unclean” or unfit for sacrifice, and seven of every species accounted “clean.” The vessel thus ordered was to be constructed of gopher-wood, probably cypress, and was to be overlaid within and without with pitch or bitumen; in length it was to be 300 cubits, in breadth 50, in depth 30. But though the impending Judgment was thus announced, and a visible pledge of it directed to be constructed, the Doom itself was not to be as yet. He who afterwards waited 400 years till the _cup of the iniquity of the Amorites_ was full, who gave the Ninevites forty days for repentance, now _waited_ (1 Pet. iii. 20), _with much long-suffering_, for a space of 120 years.