Genesis 7:10

Gen_7:10 to Gen_8:14. The Account of the Flood, compiled from J and P

10. after the seven days] The seven days mentioned in Gen_7:4, the period during which Noah and his family were in the ark, before the commencement of the Flood. The arrangements necessary for the inmates of the ark required time. Moreover, throughout the Genesis story, a period of probation and patience precedes the fulfilment of the Divine word.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 7:10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

Ver. 10. The waters of the flood were upon the earth.] God is as faithful in his menaces, as in his promises. {Zep 3:5} The wicked think them but wind, but shall feel them to be "fire". {Jer 5:14} "Your fathers, where are they? Did not my word" (though never so much slighted) "lay hold upon them? And they returned" (that is, changed their minds, when they smarted) "and said, Like as the Lord thought to do unto us, so hath he dealt with us". {Zec 1:5-6} Veratio dat intellectum . There wanted not those in the old world, that held all the threats of a flood to be in terrorem only; and, when they heard Noah thundering, put off all, as those in the gospel, with "God forbid". {Luk 20:16} We cannot get men to believe that God is so just, or the devil so black, or sin so heavy, or hell so hot; till it hath even closed her mouth upon them. "The fool rageth and is confident," {Pro 14:16} "passeth on and is punished," {Pro 22:3} and will not be better advised. But what said the martyr? {a} They that tremble not in hearing, shall be crushed to pieces in feeling. God’s wrath is such as none can avert or avoid.

{a} Bradford.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

SECOND SECTION

The Flood and the Judgment

Gen_7:10-24

10And it came to pass after seven days [literally, seven of days] that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. 11In the sixth hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,7 and the windows8 of heaven were opened. 12And the rain9 [גשם, heavy rain, imber, cloud-bursting] was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13In the selfsame day10 entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark. 14They, and every beast11 after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. 15And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. 16And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in. 17And the flood was forty days upon the earth; 18and the waters increased and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went 19[drove here and there] upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. 20Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 21And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: 22All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land. 23And every living thing was destroyed [Lange reads יִמַח in Kal, and renders, he destroyed] which was Upon the face of the ground,12 both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; an Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. 24And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. The Time of the Flood.—The beginning of the flood is first determined in reference to the age of Noah. It was in the sixth hundredth year of Noah’s life, that is, in the year when the six hundredth year of his life would be completed. The number 600 appears here to have a symbolical meaning, as also the week for his going into the ark. Six is the number of toil and labor. Next there is fixed the date of the beginning: on the seventeenth day of the second month. According to Knobel, must this date be reckoned from the first day of the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. For this there appears no ground here, if we assume that the narrator had in view a known and determined numbering of the months. The question is this—whether the months are to be determined according to the theocratic year, which the Jews kept after the Exodus from Egypt, and which began with Nisan in April (so that the beginning of the flood would have fallen in the month Ijar, or May), or whether it was after the œconomic years’ reckoning, according to which Tisri (September and October) made the end of the year (Exo_23:16; Exo_34:32). Rabbi Joshua, Lepsius, and others, are for the theocratic time-reckoning. According to this, the flood began in the month that followed Nisan. Keil and Knobel, on the contrary, are for the œconomic reckoning, according to which the second month would have fallen in our October or November. “Josephus (Antiq. i. 3, 3) has in mind the month named by the Hebrews Marhezvan, which follows after Tisri; so the Targum of Jonathan, as well as Jarchi and Kimchi. The continuous increase, then, or swelling of the waters from the 17th of the second month, to the 17th of the seventh month, a period of five months, or 150 days, would fall in the winter months.” Knobel. Instead of this, we hold that in a cosmical catastrophe, such as the flood appears to have been, the regard paid to the season of the year becomes fallacious; and then we are not here to think of any usual climatic events, such as took place in the case of the Egyptian plagues, though miraculously effected. It appears, therefore, to us, to have no bearing on the case, that the Euphrates and the Tigris fall towards the end of May, and in August and November reach their lowest point, or the consideration that, for the ancients, the winter season was a mournful time of desolation, etc. Knobel. It would seem from Gen_8:22, that the flood broke through all the ordinary constitution of nature. In the first place must we endeavor to set ourselves right with respect to the connection in the dates as given in our narration. On the 17th day of the second month, then, came the flood, and it rained, from that time on, forty days and forty nights. The consequence was the height of water in the flood which continued for 150 days (Gen_7:24). Then began the waters to fall, and, on the 17th day of the seventh month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. Thus far five months have passed. On the first day of the 10th month, that is, after about eight months, the tops of the mountains appeared. Finally, in the six hundred and first year of Noah’s age, in the first day of the first month, the ground was becoming dry, and on the seven-and-twentieth day of the next month, it had become wholly dry (Gen_8:14). From the statement that this ensued in the six hundred and first year of Noah’s age, it cannot follow that his birthday fell on New Year, but only that about one year had elapsed. The extreme end of the flood, however, was ten days after the full year which the flood had continued. Knobel conjectures that the flood was originally reckoned according to the solar year of 365 days, but that the Hebrew narrator, reckoning by lunar years, transposes the account to one year and eleven days (p. 81). That would make the solar year to have been before the lunar year, which seems to us impossible. It would seem to aid, to some extent, in getting a right view of the times of the year, to bear in mind that the dove which Noah let fly the second time brought back a fresh olive-leaf in its mouth (Gen_8:11). That was probably forty days, and fourteen days, after the first day of the tenth month, and therefore, at all events, towards the end of the eleventh month. If we must regard this fresh olive-leaf as belonging to the spring season, then the beginning of the flood may have well fallen eleven months before, or in the time of May. But this conclusion is insecure, because the olive-leaf, in its budding, is not confined to the spring. For the opposite view, Delitzsch (p. 257) presents something that is specially worthy of notice, namely, that the observation of the earlier œconomic reckoning of time continued among the Jews after the introduction of the theocratic computation. If, however, the flood began with the autumnal rainy season, it must have ceased exactly as the rainy season of the next year commenced. In regard to the reckoning of the year, Knobel remarks that the Hebrews reckoned it according to lunar months, 354 days, other nations by solar months, making 365 days,—for example, the Egyptians and the Persians, and also, in astronomical matters, the Chaldæans.

In regard to the world-year of the flood, the citations of Delitzsch (p. 244) are worthy of attention. The mythologically enlarged numbering of the Babylonians, Delitzsch and others, reduce to the 2500th year before Christ. In respect to the day when the flood commenced, the Babylonian legend gives the 15th of Dasio.13 This statement favors the Bible reckoning of the year from Nisan (that is, according to the theocratic reckoning), not from Tisri. For a table of the different monthly suns, see Delitzsch, p. 246.

2. Gen_7:10-16. The opening of the Flood the shutting up of the Ark.—All the fountains of the great deep were broken up.—The Niphal or passive form of בקע is to be noticed. It denotes violent changes in the depths of the sea, or in the action of the earth,—at all events, in the atmosphere (see the preceding Section). תהום, the deep of the sea, whose fountains (Job_38:16; Pro_8:28) or origins are conditioned by the heights and depths of the earth itself. This fact is placed first. The rain appears to be mentioned as a consequence. “Similar views of water in the interior of the earth found place among the Greeks and Romans; from this, too, many sought to explain the ebb and flow of the tides.” Knobel. Only, here there is expressed no distinct view respecting the fountains of the sea-deep.14 The expression, too, “the windows of heaven,” is not to be too literally pressed.—In the selfsame day entered Noah, etc.—That is, by the time of the breaking out of the flood was the difficult embarkation accomplished—happily accomplished. חַיָּה denotes here the wild beast. All birds, all winged creatures, Knobel takes as synonymous. But since the kind is named before, there would seem to be intended a subdivision of the kind, and that what is said relates to birds in a narrower and in a wider sense.—As God had commanded him, and the Lord shut him in.—Here most distinctly presents itself the contrasting relation of these two names. Elohim gives him the prescription in relation to the pairs of animals for the preservation of the animal world, but Jehovah, the covenant God, shuts him in, that is, makes sure the closing of the ark for the whole voyage, and for the salvation of his people. This inclusion was, at the same time, an exclusion of the race devoted to death.

3. Gen_7:17-24.—The full Development of the Flood and its Effect, the Destruction of every Living Thing. And the flood was forty days upon the earth.—The first forty days denote the full development of the flood, which lifted up the ark and set it in motion. The advance of the flood is measured by reference to the ark. It is lifted up; it is driven on. With the waves she sails, and over the high hills. The last is said in a general acceptation, as a measurement of the height of the flood by the height of the hills. The estimate that seems to be expressed by saying, “fifteen cubits did the waters prevail over the high hills,” would neither give sense if taken literally, since the high hills have very different heights, nor could it mean that the flood was fifteen cubits above the highest mountain on the earth. But since now Noah could hardly have sailed directly over the highest mountain of the earth, much less have known the fact, we must suppose that this exact estimate was imparted to himself, or to some later writer, through direct revelation—an idea which is little in harmony with the true character of a divine revelation. We must, therefore, suppose that the epic-symbolical view according to which the flood rose high over all the mountains of the earth, became connected with the tradition that Noah found out the measure denoted, by some kind of reference to the mountain on which the ark settled. Knobel: “The representation may amount to this: since the ark drew about fifteen cubits water, its first settling on Ararat in the falling of the flood would give that measure. The 150 days, within which the destruction was accomplished, include the forty days of storm at the beginning. According to Gen_8:2, the rain continued all through these 150 days. Still must we distinguish its more moderated continuance from the first storm of rain in the forty days.” In respect to the universality of the flood, see Keil, whose judgment about it is similar to that of Ebrard, whereas Delitzsch is unwilling to insist upon it as an article of faith, especially the geographical universality (p. 260). Compare the preceding Section.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The threatenings of God are as certain as his promises; for God’s word is certain. As sure, however, as is the word of God, so sure is faith in its holy fear, its holy confidence and joy.

2. As God has provided help and deliverance for men by means of exposed infants, or abandoned orphans, so also through old men, as in the case of Abraham, Moses, Noah. The like wonders happen in all times.

3. When the necessity is greatest, then is the help at the nearest, and the highest. When sin (and the flood) become most powerful, then grace, and the miracles of grace, become most mighty for deliverance.

4. The safe embarkation of a little world in the ark before the breaking out of the flood. A wonderful instinct, a still more wonderful procession, a wonderful peace as the consequence of a wonderful terror.

5. The animal-world in the ark, type and symbol of the animal-world in general: the mention of man and woman, man and wife, presents prominently the fact that the ark was to become the point of departure for new generations.

6. Jehovah shut him in.—The innermost motive for the salvation of every living thing is God’s covenant with his own. Christ is here the head and star of history.

7. The ark, with its souls, in the waters of the great flood (sintflut), which was at the same time a sin-flood (sündflut), a destroying flood of wrath and judgment; in like manner Moses in the ark upon the Nile, and Christ on the cross and in the grave.—There are moments in which the kingdom of God seems lost, or in the most fearful peril, and yet is it all the more securely hidden and protected in the truthfulness of God himself, in the everlasting love he has for his people.

8. The terror of judgment in the flood immensely great, and yet not equal to the terror of the last judgment-day (1Pe_3:4).

9. The waters of the flood as a symbol of the judgment of redemption, of the baptism at the world’s end, and generally, of the passage of believers with Christ through death to life (Psa_69:77), is to be distinguished from the waters of the sea as the symbol of peoples and nations, their births and revolutions, as compared with the kingdom of God (Psalms 93; Daniel 7; Rev_13:1).

10. The most fearful sorrows are measured by comparing them with the height of water in the flood, and the hardest days of sorrow are reckoned as the days of the deluge.

11. The symbolic of the forty days. Four is the number of the world, ten the number of the completed development. It therefore denotes the fulness of the world-times, and of the world’s judgment.

12. God’s dominion as great as God himself.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the preceding.—The embarkation into the ark.—Jehovah’s shutting in.—The measured deeps of terror, the numbered days of trouble.—The ark as the cradle of the new human race rocked by the billows: 1. a frail chest, an infinitely precious content; 2. fearfully threatened, securely protected; trembling in the deep abyss of waters, lifted high on the wave of consecration.—The help of God in the floods of distress.—The watery grave: 1. deep for the human eye; not too deep for the eye of God.—The sea, too, shall give up her dead.—Noah’s faith; its grandeur: as in contrast, 1. to the universal apostasy, 2. to the impending judgment, 3. to its once great task and labor, 4. to the sport of the world, 5. to the terrors of the flood, 6. to the terrors of the animal world inclosed with him—the ark a lion’s den.—Noah in the floating ark, and Moses. Both, though seeming lost, preserved for the greatest things.

Starke: As God suffered the waters to increase gradually, so had the ungodly time for repentance; a thing which may, perhaps, have happened in the case of many, so that the soul was saved in the destruction of the flesh. According to this, it would be false what the Jews say of the men who perished in the flood, that they have neither part in the eternal life, nor in the resurrection of the dead,—a conclusion which they draw from an improper interpretation of Gen_6:3. It may be easily believed that the fish in great part died, not because the waters were seething hot, as the Rabbins say, but because, with the fresh water, there mingled itself the salt, which is contrary to the nature of many kinds of fish.

Lisco: God shut Noah in; so was the pressure into the ark prevented as against the godless, whilst Noah was made safe.

Gerlach: The clean beasts. Before their use as food they were offered in sacrifice, devoted to God; partly because in each enjoyment thanks should be offered to God, and partly because thereby even the enjoyment itself becomes sanctified.

Calwer, Handbuch: The first judgment of the world through water, the last through fire (2Pe_8:6).—So sinks the old world in its grave. Jehovah, the trusted, shuts him in. So, too, watches over us the shepherd of Israel, who slumbers not nor sleepeth.—Schröder: There seest thou that all the words of God have the power of an oath (Val. Herberger).—A night of death reigns over a world abandoned to its doom. Because the earth was corrupt, morally, the Lord destroys it—(that is, gives it up to physical corruption). So Luther. To say the fountains were broken up, and the flood-gates were opened, is a biblical mode of speech whereby is expressed the fact, that the waters were not suffered to flow in their wonted manner (Calvin).—The Lord preserved the ark and Noah therein as a treasure (Verleb. Bibel).

Footnotes:

[7][Gen_7:11.—נִבְקְעוּ, a very strong word. Sudden cleaving; used of the earthquake or earth-cleaving, Num_16:31; ZaGen Gen_14:4. Hence the noun בִּקְעָה, a valley, as though the Hebrews had some notion of valleys having their origin in fissures or violent separations of the earth. Comp. Hab_3:9, נְהָרוֹת תְּבַקַּצ אָרֶץ, “Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers”—or floods.—T. L.]

[8][Gen_7:11.—אֲרֻבֹּת windows, openings—general sense very clear from parallel passages, such as Isa_60:5 and Ecc_12:3, though in the latter passage it is used metaphorically of the eyes as the windows of the body. LXX., κ́αταῤῥάκται, Syriac, ܒܿܣܒ̈ܐ, or pourers.—T. L.]

[9][Gen_7:12.—גֶּשֶׁם, the very great rain, that which comes down in a body, as it were. מָטָר denotes the common rain, except when this word is joined with it, as in Job_37:6, מְטַר גֶשֶׁם, and in ZaGen Gen_10:1,—when it is intensified. In the Arabic, ּװד is never used for the rain, but it keeps the primary sense of magnitude, weight, density, pinguis, crassus.—T. L.]

[10][Gen_7:13.—בְּצֶצֶם הַיּוֹם, in ipso die, in that very day. It denotes a statistical particularity, which takes this account entirely out of the legendary or mythical view. It is most exactly true, or it is the boldest of forgeries in every unit and decimal employed in its reckonings.—T. L.]

[11][Gen_7:14.—וְכָל חַחַיָּה—וְכָל הָרֶמֶשׂ. It need only be remarked that all the alls, here and elsewhere, in this account, are to be taken as unlimited, or as specific, according to the view we are compelled, from other considerations, to form of the universality or partiality of the flood itself. Elsewhere only the בְּהֵמָה are mentioned, as is noticed by Dr. Murphy, p. 212, and there is good reason to regard it here as specifically limiting the more general word חיה before it. Their coming to the ark by pairs was evidently supernatural, but this in no respect affects the other question.—T. L.]

[12][Gen_7:23.—עַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה. Rendered in our Version, “on the face of the ground.” Rather, “on the face of the Adamah,” the word, in the chapters before, used for the inhabited territory in distinction from ארץ, as in Gen_4:14;—ארץ, in that connection, being used for the wide, unknown earth, into which Cain feared he should be driven, as a wanderer and a vagabond. The use of אֲרָמָה here certainly seems to imply some territorial limitation. Even when ארץ occurs, it may be better rendered land, indefinitely, than with that idea of totality which our modern knowledge makes us attach to it. See further on this in the Excursus, at the end of the account.—T. L.]

[13][Dasios was the eighth month of the Babylonian and Macedonian year. See the Table of Delitzsch, p. 246.—T. L.]

[14] “The great deep,” תּהוֹם רַבָּה, Gen_7:21. Comp. Gen_1:2; Pro_8:27-28; Job_38:16; Psa_104:6; Jon_2:6; Isa_51:10, and other places. Sometimes tehom is joined with ים, and seems to be used as synonymous with the great sea, as in Psa_104:6; Jon_2:5; but for the primary idea we must look to Gen_1:2. In creation, it was all water, or fluid (so conceived). Afterwards the land (the solid) is commanded to appear, and the waters are gathered to one place, מָקוֹם אֶחָר, whether it means the surface sea, or the supposed great abyss beneath. In the poetical parts of the Bible, the conception is that of the earth (the land or ground) as built upon the waters lying below. It was the contrast to the heavens or skies above, as in Pro_8:28, בְּאַמְּצוֹ שְׁחָקִים מִמָּעַל בַּעַזוֹז עֵינוֹת תִּהוֹם. In regard to all this, it may be said, that the Bible is responsible neither for Neptunian nor Plutonian theories. Facts are given, but they are presented according to the conceptions of the day. Water gushed from the earth, and the writer describes it by saying that the fountains of the tehom rabba, the great deep, were broken up. Aside from the traditional creative account, nothing could have been more natural than the idea that the interior earth, or the space under the earth (whatever notions might have been had of the earth’s shape or support), was a region of water. It was a direct deduction (true or false) from the phenomena of springs and wells,—and that, by a process strictly Baconian. Afterwards, but very early, the sight of volcanoes (see Psa_104:32) must have given also the idea of interior fire. We know, even yet, hardly any thing about it. Researches on the surface, or shell, of the globe, have given us much curious knowledge as to its progressive surface-formation, and the great periods which it indicates; but beyond this, our knowledge of the vast interior is about as great as that which one who had pierced half through the shell of an egg, would, by such means alone, have obtained of that most curious structure. He might conjecture that there was heat and fluid there, but that would be all. Perhaps it is well that we have so little means of penetrating this vast unknown. We could not rest very securely if we knew all that was going on inside the earth, or had even a glimpse of the surging, boiling, or burning, that may be taking place ten miles, or even ten furlongs, right beneath our feet. There is a tehom rabba there, filled with something that might make a rapid ruin of our earth, if we had nothing to trust to but the unknown nature, and no other insurance against it but our much-lauded science. Our only secure trust is in One in whom we believe, as having a higher than a physical purpose in the continuance of the earth,—one who “binds the floods from overflowing,” and the fires from yet bursting forth.

This conception of the tehom rabba is most graphically presented Gen_49:25. It is there called הַּחַת תְּהוֹם רֹבֶצֶת, “the abyss couchant below,” like a wild beast crouching down and ready to spring upon his prey, just as in Gen_4:7 sin is described as רֹנֵץ, ready to spring upon a man at any moment.—In the Arabian tradition the waters are represented as coming out of an oven (the vaulted interior earth), and as being boiling hot. See Koran, Surat 11:41, ֵِהَ ַ ֱֲּَ ֳוْל ُ׀ַَ זَ ׀ַَ ׁَ ֳב׀ٌז ׂ,

“when our command went forth, then boiled the furnace.” This came from the idea of Geysers, or hot springs, and may have had some truth in it, since it does not detract from Scripture to suppose that there may have been other minor facts respecting the flood, preserved in other and independent accounts. Sale says that the Arabians got this from the Jews; and so also Reckendorf states in the Introduction to his Hebrew translation of the Koran, citing from the Talmud (Sanhedrin), but this does not bear them out, since the word רותח, there used, means simply the effervescence or tumultuous boiling motion which Maimonides says came from the violence of the eruption, and not from heat. It is by him, and the Talmud, compared with the violent fermentations and eruptions of sensuality that brought on such an outbursting flood as a fitting judgment; and so says Rabbi Hasada, in the passage quoted from the Sanhedrin: “They corrupted everything (ברותחין), in the boiling sensuality of their transgression, and by the boilings of an all-destroying water wore they judged.” Such a mode of interpretation is peculiarly Rabbinical, but the fact of hot eruptions (like those of the Icelandic geysers) may well have been, or of boiling water, as the Arabian account states it.—T.L.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(10) After seven days.—Said, in Jewish tradition, to have been the seven days of mourning for Methuselah, who died in the year of the flood.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life,.... Not complete, but current, for otherwise Noah would have lived after the flood three hundred and fifty one years, whereas he lived but three hundred and fifty; Gen 9:28.

in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month: as the Jews had two ways of beginning their year, one at the spring, and the other at autumn; the one on ecclesiastical accounts, which began at Nisan, and which answers to March and April; and then the second month must be Ijar, which answers to part of April and part of May: and the other on civil accounts, which began at Tisri, and answers to part of September and part of October; and then the second month must be Marchesvan, which answers to part of October and part of November; so they are divided about this month in which the flood was: one says it was Marchesvan; another that it was Ijar (t); a third in particular says (u) it was on the tenth of Marchesvan that all the creatures came together into the ark, and on the seventeenth the waters of the flood descended on the earth; and this is most likely, since this was the most ancient way of beginning the year; for it was not until after the Jews came out of Egypt that they began their year in Nisan on sacred accounts; and besides the autumn was a proper time for Noah's gathering in the fruits of the earth, to lay up in the ark, as well as for the falling of the rains; though others think it was in the spring, in the most pleasant time of the year, and when the flood was least expected: the Arabic writers (w), contrary to both, and to the Scripture, say, that Noah, with his sons, and their wives, and whomsoever the Lord bid him take into the ark, entered on a Friday, the twenty seventh day of the month Adar or Agar: according to the Chaldean account by Berosus (x), it was predicted that mankind would be destroyed by a flood on the fifteenth of the month Daesius, the second month from the vernal equinox: it is very remarkable what Plutarch (y) relates, that Osiris went into the ark the seventeenth of Athyr, which month is the second after the autumnal equinox, and entirely agrees with the account of Moses concerning Noah: according to Bishop Usher, it was on the seventh of December, on the first day of the week; others the sixth of November; with Mr. Whiston the twenty eighth:

the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened; and by both these the flood of waters was brought upon the earth, which drowned it, and all the creatures in it: by the former are meant the vast quantities of subterraneous waters, which are more or greater than we know; and might be greater still at the time of the deluge:"there are large lakes, (as Seneca observes (z),) which we see not, much of the sea that lies hidden, and many rivers that slide in secret:''so that those vast quantities of water in the bowels of the earth being pressed upwards, by the falling down of the earth, or by some other cause unknown to us, as Bishop Patrick observes, gushed out violently in several parts of the earth, where holes and gaps were made, and where they either found or made a vent, which, with the forty days' rain, might well make such a flood as here described: it is observed (a), there are seas which have so many rivers running into them, which must be emptied in an unknown manner, by some subterraneous passages, as the Euxine sea; and particularly it is remarked of the Caspian sea, reckoned in length to be above one hundred and twenty German leagues, and in breadth from east to west about ninety, that it has no visible way for the water to run out, and yet it receives into its bosom near one hundred rivers, and particularly the great river Volga, which is of itself like a sea for largeness, and is supposed to empty so much water into it in a year's time, as might suffice to cover the whole earth, and yet it is never increased nor diminished, nor is it observed to ebb or flow: so that if, says my author, the fountains of the great deep, or these subterraneous passages, were continued to be let loose, without any reflux into them, as Moses supposes, during the time of the rain of forty days and forty nights; and the waters ascended but a quarter of a mile in an hour; yet in forty days it would drain all the waters for two hundred and forty miles deep; which would, no doubt, be sufficient to cover the earth above four miles high: and by the former, "the windows" or flood gates of heaven, or the "cataracts", as the Septuagint version, may be meant the clouds, as Sir Walter Raleigh (b) interprets them; Moses using the word, he says, to express the violence of the rains, and pouring down of waters; for whosoever, adds he, hath seen those fallings of water which sometimes happen in the Indies, which are called "the spouts", where clouds do not break into drops, but fall with a resistless violence in one body, may properly use that manner of speech which Moses did, that the windows or flood gates of heaven were opened, or that the waters fell contrary to custom, and that order which we call natural; God then loosened the power retentive in the uppermost air, and the waters fell in abundance: and another writer upon this observes (c), that thick air is easily turned into water; and that round the earth there is a thicker air, which we call the "atmosphere"; which, the further it is distant from the earth, the thinner it is, and so it grows thinner in proportion, until it loseth all its watery quality: how far this may extend cannot be determined; it may reach as far as the orb of the moon, for aught we know to the contrary; now when this retentive quality of waters was withdrawn, Moses tells us, that "the rain was upon the earth forty days" and "forty nights": and therefore some of it might come so far as to be forty days in falling; and if we allow the rain a little more than ten miles in an hour, or two hundred and fifty miles in a day, then all the watery particles, which were 10,000 miles high, might descend upon the earth; and this alone might be more than sufficient to cover the highest mountains. (We now know that the earth's atmosphere does not extent more than a few miles above the earth's surface, before thinning out rapidly. If all the water vapour in our present atmosphere fell as rain, the ground would be covered to an average depth of less than two inches (d). Even if there was a vapour canopy, this would not be a major source or water. Most of the water came from subterranean sources or volcanic activity. We know that volcanic eruptions spew much steam and water vapour into the atmosphere. This would later fall as rain. For a complete discussion of this see the book in footnote (e). Ed.)

(t) In Bab. Roshhashanah, fol. 11. 2. (u) Pirke Eliezer, c. 23. (w) Elmacinus, p. 11. apud Hottinger. p. 251. Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 8. (x) Apud Syncell. p. 30, 31. (y) De Iside & Osir. (z) Nat. Quaest. l. 3. c. 30. (a) Bedford's Scripture Chronology, c. 12. p. 154. (b) History of the World. B. l. c. 7. sect. 6. (c) Bedford's Scripture Chronology. p. 153. See Scheuchzer. Physica, vol. 1. p. 45. Ray's Physico-Theolog. Discourses, Disc. 2. c. 2. p. 71. (d) The Genesis Flood, Whitcomb and Morris, 1978, The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, p. 121. (e) Ib.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

- XXV. The Flood

The date is here given, at which the flood commenced and the entrance into the ark was completed. “In seven days.” On the seventh day from the command. “In the second month.” The primeval year commenced about the autumnal equinox; we may say, on the nearest new moon. The rains began about a month or six weeks after the equinox, and, consequently, not far from the seventeenth of the second month. “All the fountains of the great deep, and the windows of the skies.” It appears that the deluge was produced by a gradual commotion of nature on a grand scale. The gathering clouds were dissolved into incessant showers. But this was not sufficient of itself to effect the overwhelming desolation that followed. The beautiful figure of the windows of the skies being opened is preceded by the equally striking one of the fountains of the great deep being broken up. This was the chief source of the flood. A change in the level of the land was accomplished. That which had emerged from the waters on the third day of the last creation was now again submerged. The waters of the great deep now broke their bounds, flowed in on the sunken surface, and drowned the world of man, with all its inhabitants. The accompanying heavy rain of forty days and nights was, in reality, only a subsidiary instrument in the deluging of the land. We may imagine the sinking of the land to have been so gradual as to occupy the whole of these forty days of rain. There is an awful magnificence in this constant uplifting of the billows over the yielding land.

Gen 7:13-16

There is a simple grandeur in the threefold description of the entrance of Noah and his retinue into the ark, first in the command, next in the actual process during the seven days, and, lastly, in the completed act on the seventh day. “Every living thing after its kind” is here unaccompanied with the epithet רעה rā‛âh, evil, or the qualifying term of the land or of the field, and therefore may, we conceive, be taken in the extent of Gen 6:20; Gen 7:2-3, Gen 7:6. At all events the whole of the wild animals did not need to be included in the ark, as their range was greater than that of antediluvian man or of the flood. “And the Lord shut him in.” This is a fitting close to the scene. The whole work was manifestly the Lord’s doing, from first to last. The personal name of God is appropriately introduced here. For the Everlasting now shows himself to be the causer or effecter of the covenant blessing promised to Noah. In what way the Lord shut him in is an idle question, altogether unworthy of the grandeur of the occasion. We can tell nothing more than what is written. We are certain that it would be accomplished in a manner worthy of him.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And it came to pass after seven days (literally, at the seventh of the days), that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ויהי לשבעת הימים, at the end of the period which G’d had described previously as כי לימים עוד שבעה in verse 4.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.