This Side of the Flood and the Other Side of the Flood
The title of this publication is a reference to a handful of verses in the Bible such as this one:
“Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.” (Joshua 24:14, KJV)
The flood in this case is a river, which some translations specify is the Euphrates. God recounts to the tribes of Israel how their ancestors from before the time of Abraham once lived elsewhere and worshiped other gods, but faith sustained them through trials and tribulations until they reached Canaan, where they triumphed over their enemies, took their cities, and fluorished.
For many, the flood will also suggest the deluge in the Book of Genesis. You know the story: Noah and his family and his extended family of two of every creature survived in an ark until the waters receded and a rainbow appeared in the sky as a promise from God never to do that again. Viewed this way, the other side of the flood is the time before the deluge when sin ran rampant, and this side of the flood is the time afterward when you’ve come through the worst transformed.
It’s also just a cool-sounding phrase, as are its alterations, from Symbolist painter George Frederic Watts’s After the Deluge to Bob Dylan and The Band’s double live album Before the Flood.
