Of the patriarch Noah we read, Genesis vi.-ix., that he found grace in the eyes of Jehovah; that he was a righteous man; that he walked with (the) Elohim; that Elohim repeatedly spoke to him, directed him to build an ark, and prescribed the form of it, forewarned him of the deluge and of its object, directed him to enter the ark, and shut him in; that he did according to all that Jehovah commanded him; that Elohim directed him to go forth from the ark; that he built an altar unto Jehovah, took of animals denominated clean, and offered burnt offerings on the altar, and was accepted; that Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, prescribed certain laws to be observed thereafter, and announced a covenant of which the rainbow was made a perpetual token. In all these communications, the form of address is like that of a person locally and visibly present: "I, even I, _do bring_ a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh.... But with thee will I establish my covenant.... _Come_ thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous _before me_, in this generation.... Elohim spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, I, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you." And when Noah offered burnt offerings on the altar, "Jehovah smelled a sweet savor." From all which, and the occasion and nature of the things said and done, and a comparison of this with the occasions of local appearance to Abraham and others, which are declared to have been visible, we may without presumption conclude that He who spake to Noah was present in a visible form. That he was one of the most eminent and most favored of those with whom Jehovah conversed, whose righteousness he attested, and to whom he assigned the most important services, and imparted the highest gifts, is shown by his being named first of the three, who, by their preëminent righteousness, might, if present, be expected by the captive Israelites to shield them from exterminating judgments. "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in the land, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith Jehovah Elohim." Ezekiel xiv. And if there was, in the course of the patriarchial or Levitical dispensations, any occasion on which the nature and magnitude of the events were reasons for the local and visible presence of Jehovah, surely that of the judicial destruction of the whole race, excepting Noah and his family, may be assumed to have been such.