Drama retelling the story of Noah's Ark in the accents of a homely Jewish family.
When old Noah tells Esther, his wife, that God has instructed him to build an ark to save his family and the animal kingdom from a flood, she scolds him for drinking too much. Noah's two married sons, practical Shem and philistine Ham, deride their father's vision, but his son Japheth, a rational and philosophical bachelor, is appalled by the prospect of the earth's annihilation. Although Japheth works hard to construct the ark, he refuses to take a wife and says he will not join the others when the deluge comes. To please his parents, however, he introduces easy-going Goldie to them. Goldie bores Japheth, but Ham, who ignores his wife Rachel, woos her. The family's doubts about Noah's authority are dispelled when he is miraculously transformed into a robust man of fifty, and as the storm begins, everyone but Japheth boards the vessel.
Confessing to Rachel that he loves her, Japheth says he would rather die protesting God's brutality than be saved; but Noah knocks him unconscious and takes him aboard. During the journey the ailing Esther observes the young couples and concludes that Japheth should many Rachel and Ham should marry Goldie.
Meanwhile, Noah finds himself in perpetual conflict with Japheth, who believes man should shape his own destiny. Esther dies, leaving Noah smitten with remorse for having refused her final wish that the couples be married; he therefore performs the weddings. At length the ark lands by a flowering peach tree, and Noah's children disembark with their mates, planning new lives. Noah, once again an old man, tells God that during the journey he has learned to be humble and to see that the welfare of the world is man's responsibility.