What need was there of a new command of God to go out? The flood was now ended, and the earth utterly dried: no danger remained: there was, in short, nothing to invite to remaining longer in the Ark, or to delay from going out: especially since the dwelling of men and animals in the Ark had been necessary on account of the danger of the flood; this being past, there was no reason why Noah ought or should wish to remain in it any longer. Why, then, did he not go out at once of his own accord? But here the excellent and perfect obedience of Noah shines wonderfully: since he would neither enter nor leave the Ark except at God's command. “When the water withdrew,” says Ambrose, “and the earth was dried, Noah could go out of the Ark. But the just man arrogates nothing to himself, but commits himself wholly to the divine command. And especially he who had entered by a heavenly oracle ought, in order to go out, to await a heavenly response. For modest is righteousness, just as immodest is iniquity, which usurps what is not due and does not reverence its author.” So Ambrose.²

And Noah's entering into the Ark and going out signifies the whole course of human life and of human actions: since even in the Hebrew idiom the entrance and exit of any man signifies his conduct and actions. Whence David: “May the Lord keep thy going in and thy going out”: and of David it is written, “All Israel and Judah loved David: for he went in and went out before them.” And of our Savior, Peter said: “In all the time,” he says, “in which the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day in which he was taken up from us.” Let us, therefore, by the example of Noah, learn both to begin and to end our actions agreeably to the will and precepts of God: even as the Church herself wishes and asks of God, saying: “Prevent our actions, we beseech thee, O Lord, by thy inspiration, and further them by thy help: that all our prayer and work may always begin from thee, and being begun, may be ended through thee.”³

But why above, commanding about the entrance into the Ark, did God order the men to enter the Ark separately and the women separately? And that they entered the Ark in this way, Moses narrated a little after, saying that there entered into the Ark Noah and his sons, his wife and the wives of his sons: but no[w]…⁴

…but now, commanding about the going out, He names each man with his own wife, saying: “Go out, thou and thy wife, thy sons and the wives of thy sons with thee”; although Moses, soon narrating their going out of the Ark, names the men and women separately, saying: “Noah went out, and his sons, his wife and the wives of his sons with him.” But it is easy to render a not improbable cause of this matter: the men and women are mentioned as entering the Ark separately, so that it might be signified that in the Ark they had to abstain from the use of marriage — for the time of the flood was a time of mourning and penance, not of pleasure and joy. But because, having gone out of the Ark, they had at once to be free for generation, on account of the multiplication of the human race (as God said to them, “Increase and multiply”), to signify this, when He commanded about the going out, He named the man jointly with the wife. Yet they went out separately, the men from the women, whereby it might be clearly understood that from their entrance into the Ark until their going out they had persevered in continence.⁵

But let the reader hear what Ambrose elegantly writes on this matter: “Now let us inquire,” he says, “for what reason, while they were entering the Ark, this was the order of those entering — that first he himself entered and his sons, then his wife and the wives of his sons; but when they went out, it was changed. For it is written: He went out, and his wife, and his sons and the wives of his sons. And the text indeed signifies in the entrance abstinence from generation, in the going out the use of generation. For then the father with the sons first went in, and the sons with the parent, and afterward the wife and his sons' wives: that is, the sexes are not mingled in the entrance, but are mingled in the going out. Plainly, therefore, by the very order of entering, the just man as it were utters a certain voice: that that was not a time of intercourse or of delights, when destruction was threatening all. Whence in the Gospel the Lord says, reproaching that in the times of Noah they ate and drank, took wives and gave daughters in marriage, and therefore on account of intemperance the famous flood came upon them. It was, therefore, a time of mourning, not of joy. And hence the just man took no delight in the company of his wife, nor did the just sons seek the conjugal union. For how unseemly it would be that, at the time when the living were dying, those about to perish should then be begotten? But afterward, rightly, the use and care of marriage is resumed for the propagation of the rest, when the flood withdrew. And so not men with men, but women with men go out, so that the manly intermingling might appear forbidden in itself, but the union of man and woman permitted by the lawful lot of marriage.” Thus Ambrose.⁶

But someone may ask why God by name ordered the animals to be brought out of the Ark. Would not Noah have done this of his own accord, even if God had not commanded it? For the animals had been enclosed in the Ark for this purpose: that, saved by it from the destruction of the flood, when the flood was ended they might each again propagate their species on the earth. Rupert brings forward a cause of this matter, drawn from mystical interpretation: he says that Noah's Ark prefigured the ancient Church of the Patriarchs and Prophets, which our Lord founded even before He became man, and in which, made man, He willed to live and to die. Into that Ark the animals, both clean and unclean, are ordered to enter: similarly into that Church of the Fathers, whoever were gathered, whether from the clean Jews or from the unclean Gentiles…⁷

…were gathered, they are ordered to enter to Christ — that is, to be grafted into the hope and expectation of them. Nevertheless they are ordered to go out of the Ark: because in that Church they are not allowed to remain in bodily ceremonies — namely, to be circumcised bodily, to keep the Sabbath, to immolate the paschal lamb, in short, to Judaize according to those carnal ceremonies. So from Rupert.⁸

But the historical reason is this: just as God before the flood had commanded Noah to bring the animals into the Ark, so the same God commands after the flood that he bring them out of the Ark; for both the bringing-in and the bringing-out of the animals was done by Noah not without a miracle of divine providence, all the animals promptly obeying Noah both at the entrance and at the going out.⁹