In the Genesis account of Noah's Ark, Noah built the vessel after God commanded him to do so.
Genesis presents Noah as a righteous man living in a world described as corrupt and violent. God warned him of a devastating flood and instructed him to construct an ark large enough to preserve his family and representatives of animal life.
The story identifies Noah as the ark's builder, while his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—are also associated with the voyage. Later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions expand the story in different ways, but Noah remains the central human figure.
Noah is sometimes confused with other patriarchs because the flood narrative appears early in the Bible's long sequence of ancestral stories. In Islamic tradition, Noah is known as Nuh.