Rest, comfort, the name of celebrated patriarch who was preserved by Jehovah with his family, by means of the ark, through the deluge, and thus became the second founder of the human race. The history of Noah and the deluge is contained in Genesis 5:1-9:29 . He was the son of Lamech, and grandson of Methuselah lived six hundred years before the deluge, and three hundred and fifty after it, dying two years before Abram was born. His name may have been given to him by his parents in the hope that he would be the promised "seed of the woman" that should "bruise the serpent's head." He was in the line of the patriarchs who feared God, and was himself a just man, Ezekiel 14:14,20 , and a "preacher of righteousness," 1 Peter 3:19,20 2 Peter 2:5 . His efforts to reform the degenerate world, continued as some suppose for one hundred and twenty years, produced little effect, Matthew 24:37; the flood did not "find faith upon the earth." Noah, however, was an example of real faith: he believed the warning of God, was moved by fear, and pursued the necessary course of action, Hebrews 11:7 .
His first care on coming out from the ark was to worship the Lord, with sacrifices of all the fitting animals. Little more is recorded of him except his falling into intoxication, a sad instance of the shame and misfortune into which wine is apt to lead. His three sons, it is believed, peopled the whole word; the posterity of Japheth chiefly occupying Europe, those of Shem Asia, and those of Ham Africa.
Numerous traces of traditions respecting Noah have been found all over the world. Among the most accurate is that embodied in the legend of the Greeks respecting Deucalion and Pyrrha. We may also mention the medals struck at Apamea in Phrygia, in the time of Septimus Severus, and bearing the name NO, an ark, a man and woman, a raven, and a dove with an olive branch in its mouth. See ARK.