Written on Water, Written on Hearts
Torah: Genesis 7 (Parashat Noach)
Prophet: Jeremiah 31:27-34
Focus Verse: “I will put My instruction within them and write it on their hearts.” (Jer 31:33)
Four Voices
Jeremiah 31:27-34
A New Relationship with God
27 “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will greatly increase the human population and the number of animals here in Israel and Judah. 28 In the past I deliberately uprooted and tore down this nation. I overthrew it, destroyed it, and brought disaster upon it. But in the future I will just as deliberately plant it and build it up. I, the Lord, have spoken!
29 “The people will no longer quote this proverb:
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste.’
30 All people will die for their own sins—those who eat the sour grapes will be the ones whose mouths will pucker.
31 “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 32 This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.
33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
Old Testament
Bereshit (Genesis) Chapter 7
1 God said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and your entire household, for it is you that I have seen to be righteous before Me in this generation.
2 You must take for yourself seven pairs of every kind of animal that does not impart spiritual defilement if eaten, each pair consisting of a male and its mate, but take only two of the animals that impart spiritual defilement, a male and its mate.
3 You must also take seven pairs of the birds of the heavens that do not impart spiritual defilement, each pair consisting of a male and its mate, in order to keep its seed alive over the entire surface of the earth.
4 For in another seven days, I will bring rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. I will obliterate every being that I have made from the surface of the earth.”
5 Noah did all that God had commanded him.
6 Noah was in his 600th year when the Flood occurred and water covered the earth.
7 Noah, together with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, came into the ark, fleeing from the water of the Flood.
8 Of the animals that do not impart spiritual defilement, of the animals that impart spiritual defilement, of the birds, and of all the creatures that crawl on the ground,
9 a minimum of two each had come, male and female, to Noah, so he could take them into the ark as God had commanded Noah.
10 After the seven days passed, the water of the Flood came upon the earth.
11 The Flood began in the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the 17th of the month. On that day, all the wellsprings of the great abyss burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
12 Rain fell upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.
13 Noah entered the ark in the very midst of that day, with Noah’s sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them.
14 With them, every kind of walking wildlife, every kind of domestic animal, every kind of creature that crawls on the ground, and every kind of flying creature—every bird and every winged creature.
15 Pairs of all species of flesh that breathed, i.e., that were alive, came to Noah into the ark.
16 Those who came were male and female; of all flesh they came, as God had commanded him, and God sealed the entrance behind him.
Chiastic Structures
Outer Ring — GENESIS (The Floodgates)
Rupture → Judgment → Renewal through water
A. Heaven and Deep Opened
→ The fountains of the tehom (abyss) burst upward; the windows of heaven open downward.
All boundaries dissolve. Heaven and Earth in direct dialogue.
B. Water Poured to Erase
→ Judgment as cleansing. The world returns to its prenatal state, submerged in
divine womb-water.
C. Rain Upon the Earth (Axis Point)
→ Where above and below meet — not destruction but purification.
The world is baptized into silence.
Inner Ring — JEREMIAH (The Heartgates)
Reversal → Grace → Renewal through word
A′. Heaven and Earth Receptive
→ “The days are coming…” — the divine horizon opens again, not to flood but to fill.
B′. Word/Seed Sown to Renew
→ God plants His covenant inside the soil of humanity; fertility replaces fury.
C′. Seed Within the Earth (Axis Point)
→ The inner mirror of Genesis’ rain: Word instead of water, inscription instead of deluge.
Center — AXIS OF RECONCILIATION
Judgment becomes Mercy; Water becomes Word
Genesis: The floodgates of heaven open to wash the world clean.
Jeremiah: The heartgates of humanity open to receive divine inscription.
→ Both reveal a single movement: God breaking and then sowing.
Heaven Opens
↓ ↑
Flood (Genesis) Seed (Jeremiah)
↓ ↑
Earth Heart
PARDES: Four Layers of Understanding
Peshat (Plain):
God destroys corruption but saves righteousness. Jeremiah foresees restoration — the same hand that tore down will build up.
Remez (Hint):
The flood and the new covenant both mark seventh-day moments — sabbath cycles of completion. Rain = renewal, ink = implantation.
Drash (Interpretive):
Noah’s ark is a floating temple; the Torah-heart is a living ark. In both, God dwells where obedience and refuge meet. The new covenant is Eden restored inside the human soul.
Sod (Mystical):
The “wellsprings of the deep” are the subconscious gates. When they burst, the Spirit cleanses memory itself. God’s inscription upon the heart-water is the re-creation of consciousness — humanity emerging from the ark of flesh to breathe divine air anew.
Word Studies
תֵּבָה (Tevah) – “Ark / Word-container”
Same term used for the basket of baby Moses. A tevah holds life during chaos. Mystically, it is also “word”: the ark of speech that preserves the covenant even in flood.
→ The one who abides in God’s Word rides above the waters.
בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה (Brit Chadasha) – “New Covenant”
Not a replacement but a renewal. In Hebrew thought, chadash means “freshened,” like a moon reappearing — continuity through transformation.
לֵב (Lev) – “Heart”
I
n Hebrew anthropology, the heart is not emotion but consciousness — the seat of mind and will. God’s Torah is not inked on muscle but etched into decision.
