Ararat

(holy ground) (Gen. 8:4) — a region, or country, lying near the center of Armenia. It once had several cities that were the seats of successive kings and rulers of Armenia, and for this reason the word Ararat is often used to designate the whole region (Armenia). In Holy Scripture (2 Kings 19:37; Isa. 37:38) it is called the land of Ararat. In the northeastern part of Armenia, on the borders of Russia with Turkey and Persia, on the elevated plain of the Araxes, rises one of the highest mountains of Armenia, with two peaks: Great and Little Ararat.

The former is called by the Persians Koh-i-Nuh, that is, “Mountain of Noah.” It is supposed that Noah’s ark came to rest on this mountain. Among the Turks it is called Agri Dagh. The summits of these peaks (one of which rises 15,000 feet above sea level) are constantly covered with snow. One recent traveler says: if one looks up from the plain, one cannot help thinking that these highest mountains in the world have been piled one upon another solely to form a vast mass of earth, rock, and snow — this majestic, awe-inspiring monument of the antediluvian world, this striking boundary line in the history of mankind before and after the Flood.

It was here that, once, the whole population of the world was gathered in one small family of eight persons, which alone was saved in the ark from the universal Flood. Representatives of every kind and species of animal were gathered here in the ark. Here God’s covenant with mankind was established, and the rainbow in the clouds was set as the sign of the covenant; here too Noah built the first altar to the Lord after the terrible catastrophe of the destruction of the face of the earth by the Flood.