It is true: from Gen 6:13, upon commissioning the ark, until 8:19, when the last animal exits the ark, Noah’s actions are mostly in direct obedience to God’s explicit instructions. There are few times when any individual is so specifically directed by God for such a long period, and for such a momentous purpose. But this certainly makes sense, considering that the salvation of Noah meant the salvation of the human race. Thus God, for something so important, left nothing to chance, i.e., the chancy, fallible powers of human judgment. It is no accident that God chose Noah, a man who walked with God, because Noah was capable of being strictly obedient to God; his fate and ours depended on that holy talent. But more broadly, this divine hand-holding is a precursor and symbol of the precise steps required by redemption through sacrifice, of certain actions taken by prophets (one thinks of how extensively Moses was directed, and of Ezekiel’s exhibitions of prophecy), and later of obedience to the Holy Spirit that every Christian hopes to practice.