Ea told Utnapishtim to build a boat, “Of seven stories each with nine chambers” (Gilgamesh 10). The boat was also to be cube shaped and able to hold food, wine, minerals, his family, and the “seed of living animals” (Gilgamesh 10). Similarly, God instructed Noah to build an ark of cypress with rooms. It has to be “three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high” (Genesis 6:15). The ark also contained upper, middle, and lower decks, and a door on the side. Both had been told how the boat should be built by a divine figure, but God’s instructions to Noah were different than those given to Utnapishtim. After the flood waters had ceased, both Utnapishtim and Noah sent out a series of bird to check if it was safe to come out of their large boats and then were rewarded for their obedience. Utnapishtim sent out a dove, swallow and raven, with whom each found land, and Noah sent out a raven and a dove, which was sent out twice. When both men exited their ships, their God/gods rewarded them greatly, but with different things. Enlil, the war god blessed Utnapishtim and his family by saying, “You and your wife shall be like gods. You shall live in the distance at the river’s mouth, at the source” (Gilgamesh 10). For Noah, God promised him, “Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything”
![Enkidu’s Enkidu’s](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/week4-gilgamesh-111111154704-phpapp02/95/gilgameshs-search-for-meaning-11-638.jpg?cb=1378468090)
Utnapishtim obeyed, and all who sailed on The. According to the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim was the only man to escape death and receive immortality from the gods (his wife was also granted immortality). Many years before the events in the story, the gods had sent a flood to punish humanity.