Right. Those were the wicked whom God intended to destroy.
Noah was not removed from the Earth. He never left the Earth. The flood waters were still a part of the Earth.
Noah didn't have to be removed from the earth. Noah was removed from the judgment through a mechanism, the ark, that God had chosen for that event.
Had Noah been taken through the judgment, he would have died along with the wicked. He was removed from the judgment, not taken through it.
Noah didn't have to be removed from the earth. Noah was removed from the judgment through a mechanism, the ark, that God had chosen for that event.
I also might make note of the fact that Noah and his family couldn't be removed from the earth (as we will be when the time comes) because God had already ordained that the Messiah would come out of a line running from Adam forward.
If Noah and his family were totally removed from this earth, that would be the end of the line of humanity -- and thus, also, the end of the line through which the Messiah of Israel (yet future) was to come.
No, God would not do what would go against His own plans.
It was the corruption of the human race, in order to prevent the line of the Messiah coming about, so that He couldn't come -- that the evil angels wished to perpetrate upon humanity -- thus, that's why the angels were cohabiting with human females and corrupting mankind's genetic code, and trying to destroying mankind that God made in the Garden of Eden, through which this Messiah was to come.
God preserved the genetic code through the perfect generations of Noah and his family (as God said) and thus preserved the human race and also the line through which the Messiah of Israel was to come.
Noah could not have been removed from this earth, or else God would contradict Himself and be shown to be a liar in the coming promised Messiah.