Parshat Noach5 min read

Noah Tied the Giant Reem Outside the Ark

Noah saved spirits without bodies, lashed a reem the size of a mountain to the ark's side, and refused to leave until God swore the world would not flood again.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Reem Was Too Vast to Enter the Ark
  2. The Ark Saved Things With No Bodies
  3. The Pairs Who Were Accepted and Those Who Were Turned Away
  4. Noah Refused to Leave Without an Oath
Noah Tied the Giant Reem Outside the Ark Click for full size

The Reem Was Too Vast to Enter the Ark

The reem would not fit through the door.

Rabbi Judah said only the young came aboard. Rabbi Nehemiah went further: not even the calves boarded. Noah tied the great beast outside by a rope, and as the ark moved through the floodwaters it dragged the reem alongside, plowing furrows in the earth long enough to measure the road from Tiberias to Susita. One witness to the reem's scale claimed he had once seen a day-old calf as big as Mount Tabor, with a neck stretching three parasangs and dung so plentiful it dammed the Jordan. No stall in the ark could hold such a creature. No ramp could receive it. So it traveled beside, tethered to the vessel's hull, the largest beast in the world hitched to salvation like cargo too big to stow.

The Ark Saved Things With No Bodies

Before the reem puzzle, the command created another. Every living thing, the Torah says. The sages pressed on that word living. It was too large to mean only flesh and blood. It included spirits, beings created with souls but never given bodies, who slipped into the ark alongside the breathing creatures. They entered not through stalls or cages but through the reach of the command itself. The ark was large enough, by divine instruction, for things that had no size.

The phoenix also boarded. When Noah went through the ark during the year of the flood, providing food for every creature at the appropriate hour, he found the phoenix lying quietly in its compartment, not asking for anything. He asked it: "do you not need to eat?" The bird answered: "I saw you were busy and I did not want to trouble you." Noah blessed it: "may you live forever." And the tradition says it does, dying in fire at the end of each age and rising again from whatever remains.

The Pairs Who Were Accepted and Those Who Were Turned Away

When the animals came aboard two by two, the ark accepted only certain pairs. The rule the sages drew from the verse was behavioral: if a male pursued a female, accept the pair. If a female chased the male, the natural order showed the coupling was not fit, and Noah turned them away.

Then Falsehood tried to enter. It arrived alone, without a pair, and Noah turned it away, because the command was clear: two by two. Falsehood walked out and found Corruption and proposed a partnership. "We travel together, and whatever you gain belongs to me." Corruption agreed. They entered together. That is why, the sages said, Falsehood and Corruption have traveled together since before the flood: they made their arrangement at the door of the ark when there was no other way in.

Noah Refused to Leave Without an Oath

After a year inside the ark, the door could have been forced. Rabbi Yudan admitted he would have broken it open and walked out. But Noah refused to move. "Just as I came in only by permission," he reasoned, "I will leave only by permission." He sat in the ark like a steward minding another man's post, waiting for the owner to return and release him.

Even when the command came to leave, he hesitated. "Why bring children into a world that might be flooded again?" He would not step out until the Holy One swore an oath never to flood the earth a second time. Only a sworn promise could draw him through the door. The man whose righteousness had saved humanity demanded a guarantee for the world he was re-entering before he would agree to re-enter it.

The animals were sent out to multiply on the open earth, not inside the ark. The sages read the spelling of the verses closely to establish that mongrel creatures and those unable to reproduce had no future in the repopulation, and that only the natural pairs, the ones whose fitness had already been demonstrated at the door, went out to fill the emptied world.

Yalkut ShimoniNoahFloodAnimalsArk
← All myths

From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 54:2Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

"And of every living thing, of all flesh" (Genesis 6:19). Even the spirits entered the ark, as it is said, "and of every living thing" - those who were created with souls but for whom no bodies were created.

Rabbi Judah says: the reem [a giant wild ox] did not enter the ark, but its young entered. Rabbi Nehemiah says: neither it nor its young, but rather Noah tied it to the ark, and it plowed furrows like the distance from Tiberias to Susita. This is what is written, "Can you bind the reem with its rope in the furrow? Will it harrow the valleys after you?" (Job 39:10).

In the days of Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba, one young reem came up into the Land of Israel and left no tree standing without uprooting it. They proclaimed a fast and Rabbi Hiyya prayed, and its mother bellowed from the wilderness, and it went down at her voice.

Full source
Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 55:1Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

"Male and female they shall be" (Genesis 6:19). If you see a male running after a female, accept it; but if a female runs after a male, do not accept it.

This works well for Rabbi Yohanan, who said that no flood came down upon the Land of Israel, so the reem could stand there. But according to Resh Lakish, where did the reem stand? Rabbi Yannai said: they brought the young of the reem into the ark. But did not Rabbah bar bar Hannah say, "I myself saw a day-old reem calf, and it was like Mount Tabor; and how large is Mount Tabor? Forty parsangs. The length of its neck was three parsangs, the resting place of its head a parsang and a half. It cast its dung and dammed up the Jordan." Rabbi Yohanan said: they brought its head into the ark. But you just said the resting place of its head was a parsang and a half! Rather, they brought its nostril into the ark. But did not Rabbi Yohanan say no flood came down on the Land of Israel? He said this according to the view of Resh Lakish. [But the ark was traveling about!] They tied its horns to the ark. But did not Rav Hisda say the generation of the flood sinned with boiling heat and were judged with boiling waters [which would have scorched it]? By your own reasoning, how did the ark itself travel, and how did Og king of Bashan survive? Rather, a miracle occurred and the sides of the ark cooled (Zevahim 113b).

Rabbi Eleazar said: from where do we learn that an animal missing a limb is forbidden to the children of Noah? As it is said, "and of every living thing, of all flesh" - the Torah said: bring an animal whose limb-ends are alive [intact]. But this is needed to exclude a torn animal! A torn animal is derived from "to keep seed alive" (Genesis 7:3). This works for the one who says a torn animal cannot give birth; but for the one who says a torn animal does give birth, what can be said? Scripture says "with you" (Genesis 6:18) - meaning ones like you. But perhaps Noah himself was a torn one? "Blameless" is written of him. But perhaps blameless in his ways? "Righteous" is written of him. But perhaps blameless in his ways and righteous in his deeds, yet still flawed in body? That cannot enter your mind, for if Noah were a torn one, the Merciful One would have said to him, "Bring in ones like you," and whole ones he would not bring in. And now that we derive the matter from "with you," why do I need "to keep seed alive"? Had it come only from "with you," I would have said it was merely for company, even a sterile one; therefore the Merciful One wrote "to keep seed alive."

Full source
Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 59:2Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

"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).

Full source