Young Earth Creationists often say that if Noah's Flood was just a local flood, then God has broken his promises many times. Chapter 10 of The Answers Book says:
"If the Flood had happened nearby, God would have broken His promise many times not to send another one. In recent years, there have been huge "local" floods, such as the one in Bangladesh, where 80% of the country was flooded, and the ones in Europe and the United States "n 2002." (Footnote 1)
Does this claim have any truth to it? Do the floods we see in our own towns today break the promise God made with Noah? First, let's read Genesis 9:8–15, which is the covenant.
8 Then God spoke to Noah, who was with his sons, and said,
9 "Now, look: I, Myself, make My promise to you and to your descendants after you;
10 and with every living thing that is with you, including birds, cattle, and every animal on earth. This includes every animal that comes out of the ark.
11 And I make a promise to you: The water of the flood will never again cut off all life, and a flood will never again destroy the earth."
12 And God said, "This is the sign of the promise I'm making between you and me and all the living things that are with you for all time;
13 I put My bow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of the deal I made with the earth.
14 When I bring a cloud over the earth, the bow will be able to be seen in the cloud.
15 and I will remember My promise, which is between Me, you, and every living thing of all flesh. The water will never again turn into a flood that kills all living things."
To find the answer, you have to look at what the covenant says. First, with whom is the agreement made? This is in verses 9 through 10. It's clear that it was made for Noah, his sons, and their children and grandchildren. It was also made with the help of every living thing with Noah. At the end of verse 10, God says that it applies to "every animal on earth." There's no doubt who the covenant is with, but it's interesting that God makes a distinction between the living creatures with Noah (every living thing that is with you) and the rest of the creatures (even every beast of the earth). Why would God choose to do this? If all the animals were killed and Noah took all the survivors on the ark, it wouldn't do any good to make the covenant apply to anyone else. This shows that the flood was local and that there were other animals besides the ones in the ark. If every living thing was on the ark, the phrase "even every beast of the earth" doesn't add anything to the text.
But what exactly is the agreement? This is said in verses 11 and 15.
11 "And I make a promise to you: The water of the flood will never again cut off all life, and there will never again be a flood that destroys the earth."
15 "And I will remember My Promise, which is between Me and you and all living things, and the water will never again turn into a flood that kills all living things."
"All flesh" is the key phrase to look at. What does this word or phrase mean? This goes back to the beginning of the story about the ark, when God told what the Flood was for.
In their book The Genesis Flood (Footnote 2), Morris and Whitcomb say that the flood was meant to kill people, animals, bugs, and birds. Genesis 6:12 has the answer:
And God looked at the earth and saw that it was bad, because every person had messed up his way on the earth. (KJV)
The goal of the flood was to get rid of this evil. In the Flood chapters, the Hebrew word for flesh is basar, which means person or man. The Hebrew dictionary doesn't even let you add animal flesh to this. God isn't talking about how bad the animal kingdom is, though. He's talking about how bad people are. This is fixed in some other versions (NIV: "people," "humanity" in Amplified). The flood was meant to kill off people, not animals. Yes, the animals in the flooded places would die, but that's not what God wants.
The main idea behind the covenant is that people will never be wiped off the face of the earth again. Since the time of Noah, local floods have never wiped people off the face of the earth. Yes, a lot of people have died, but never as many as during Noah's flood, when only eight people survived.
Local floods today aren't even close to being enough to kill everyone. The Answers Book talks about the floods in Bangladesh, where a lot of people died. Even after those floods, billions of people are still living on Earth. Obviously, this is nothing like Noah's Flood, when more than 99 percent of people died. Even the 2004 Tsunami, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, is not as bad as Noah's Flood.
Less than 1/100th of one percent of the world's people are killed by local floods each year. Almost every person on Earth died in Noah's flood. There's no way to compare them.
God also makes a promise to the animals of the earth that they will not experience floods like Noah's. Local floods do kill animals, but they aren't even close to as bad as Noah's Flood, which almost wiped out the whole human race (except for Noah and his family).
"There will never be another flood that destroys the earth" is the only other option. We don't know how big Noah's Flood was, but we can assume that it affected all the places where people lived at the time. Local floods do damage to the earth, but it is safe to say that nothing like Noah's Flood has happened since. It may also be important to know that the Hebrew word for earth, 'erets, also means land in general, like a field, a nation, or even "ground."
Conclusion
God hasn't flooded the earth in the same way as he did during the time of Noah, nor has the effect been the same. God hasn't gone back on His word. No more people have ever been wiped off the face of the earth. Young Earth Creationists say this, but there is no truth to it.
Was the Flood worldwide?, The Answers Book (web version), answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/AnswersBook/global10.asp
2 Henry Morris and John Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood, Baker Book House, 1961, pp. 11–14.
