The Ark's Dimensions - Life, Hope & Truth

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by Erik Jones

Genesis 6:15

And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.

God gave Noah very specific instructions and dimensions for the ark that he was to build. Noah is identified as “righteous” because He had faith in God and obeyed His instructions (Hebrews 11:7).

To understand how big the ark actually was, we have to know the length of a cubit. The general consensus among scholars is that a biblical cubit is equivalent to 18 inches (or 0.46 meter). This is roughly the length from a man’s elbow to his extended middle finger.

With this definition of a cubit, the dimensions of the ark would have been roughly:

  • 450 feet long.
  • 75 feet wide.
  • 45 feet high.

To put these numbers in perspective, Noah’s ark would be about 1½ football fields long and about three stories tall. By the standards of the ships of the ancient world, this was a very large structure. But we should also understand that the ark was not designed to be a sailing ship that would navigate the waters. The ark was only designed to be a floating structure that would preserve human and animal life and not sink.

To learn more about the book that records the Flood account, read Genesis.

With this Daily Bible Verse, we will be taking a break from the Genesis series for a month due to the observance of the biblical holy days that occur in the month of September this year. During this time, we will be posting scriptures relevant to the meaning and themes of these holy days. To learn more about these annual observances, read the articles on Plan of Salvation: How God’s Holy Days Reveal His Plan.

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