Noah Waits for Permission to Leave the Ark

"And God spoke to Noah, saying: Go forth from the ark" (Genesis 8:15-16). It is written, "If the spirit of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place" (Ecclesiastes 10:4). Noah said: just as I entered the ark by permission, so I will not go out except by permission. Rabbi Yudan said: had I been there, I would have broken it open and gone out for myself. Rather, Noah said: just as I entered only by permission, so I will not leave it except by permission. "Go forth from the ark." A parable of a steward who left a place and seated another in his stead; when he returned, he said to him, Leave your place. A parable of a scribe who went off to some place and seated another in his stead; when he returned, he said to him, Leave your place. So too Noah. "Go forth from the ark." But he would not accept upon himself to go out. He said: shall I go out and be fruitful and multiply only for a curse? until the Holy One, blessed be He, swore to him that He would not bring a flood upon the world, as it is said, "For this is to Me as the waters of Noah" and so on (Isaiah 54:9). "Every living thing that is with you" (Genesis 8:17). Rabbi Yudan said: it is written hotze [bring out] but read hayetze [let them go out]? "and let them swarm on the earth" and not in the ark, "and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth" and not in the ark. "Every beast, every creeping thing, every fowl, everything that creeps upon the earth" (Genesis 8:19). Rabbi Zeira said: "creeping" is written in full spelling, to exclude crossbred kinds; "by their families," to exclude the sterile. Rabbi Yirmiyah ben Elazar said: "by their families" and not they themselves. Eliezer said to Shem the Great: it is written "by their families they went out of the ark"? how did you manage? He said to him: we had great trouble in the ark. A creature whose way was to be fed by day, we fed by day; by night, we fed by night. As for that chameleon, my father did not know what it ate. One day he was sitting and slicing a pomegranate, a worm dropped out of it, and the chameleon ate it; from then on he would knead bran for it, and when it became wormy it would eat. The lion was sustained by fever, for Rav said: this lion, no fewer than six days and no more than twelve, fever sustains it. As for the phoenix [urshina], my father found it lying in a compartment of the ark. He said to it: why did you not ask for food? It said to him: I saw that you were busy, so I said, I will not trouble you. He said to it: since you were concerned about my trouble, may it be His will that you not die, as it is said, "And I said, I shall die with my nest, and I shall multiply my days like the sand [or: the phoenix]" (Job 29:18).