Genesis · Chapter 7

V. 1. Here is a gracious invitation of Noah and his family into a place of safety, now the flood of waters was coming.

For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation-Those are righteous indeed that are righteous before God; that have not only the form of godliness by which they appear righteous before men, who may easily be imposed upon; but the power of it, by which they approve themselves to God, who searcheth the heart.

Verse 1. Thee have I seen righteous] See Clarke’s note on “Genesis 6:8”.

Verse 1. Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark — His family consisted only of eight persons, 1 Peter 3:20, namely, Noah and his three sons, and their four wives, Genesis 6:18. By this it appears that each man had but one wife, and consequently it is probable, that, as polygamy began in the posterity of Cain, so it was confined to them, and had not, as yet, got footing among the sons of God. For if ever polygamy had been allowable, it must have been now for repeopling of the perishing world. For thee have I seen righteous before me — With the righteousness of faith, as it is explained Hebrews 11:7, evidenced by the fruits of righteousness and true holiness. Those are righteous indeed, that are righteous before God; that have not only the form of godliness, by which they appear righteous before men, who may easily be imposed upon; but the power of it, by which they approve themselves to God, who searcheth the heart.

1. Come thou and all thy house into the ark — “The long period of warning and preparation had now nearly passed. The one hundred and twenty years had rolled on, and were now within a week of their termination. The ark itself was at length completed and ready for occupancy. Against all the reviling of men and the temptations of Satan, Noah’s faith had triumphed. Now it remained to introduce to the majestic structure its tenants, and God’s time has come for them to enter. The command to enter is a gracious command. The plan of God from the beginning has been to dispense his grace by a household covenant. He has been pleased to propagate his Church by means of a pious posterity. Hence we have the household baptisms in the Christian Church.” — Jacobus.

V. 2. Here are necessary orders given concerning the brute creatures that they were to be preserved alive with Noah in the ark. He must carefully preserve every species, that no tribe, no, not the least considerable, might entirely perish out of the creation. Observe in this: (1.) God’s care for man. Doth God take care for oxen? 1 Corinthians 9:9, or was it not rather for man’s sake that this care was taken? (2.) Even the unclean beasts were preserved alive in the ark, that were least valuable. For God’s tender mercies are over all his works, and not only over those that are of most use. (3.) Yet more of the clean were preserved than of the unclean.

1. Because the clean were most for the service of man; and therefore in favour to him, more of them were preserved and are still propagated. Thanks be to God there are not herds of lions as there are of oxen, nor flocks of tigers as there are of sheep.

2. Because the clean were for sacrifice to God; and therefore, in honour to him, more of them were preserved, three couple for breed, and the odd seventh for sacrifice, Genesis 8:20.

Verse 2. Of every clean beast] So we find the distinction between clean and unclean animals existed long before the Mosaic law. This distinction seems to have been originally designed to mark those animals which were proper for sacrifice and food, from those that were not. See Lev. xi.

Verse 2. Here are necessary orders given concerning the brute creatures that were to be preserved alive with Noah in the ark. He must carefully preserve every species, that no tribe, no, not the least considerable, might entirely perish out of the creation. Even the unclean beasts, that were least valuable, were preserved alive in the ark. For God’s tender mercies are over all his works, and not only over those that are of most use; yet more of the clean were preserved than of the unclean. 1st, Because the clean were most for the service of man; and therefore, in favour to him, more of them were preserved, and are still propagated. Thanks be to God, there are not herds of lions as there are of oxen; nor flocks of tigers, as there are of sheep. 2d, Because the clean were for sacrifice to God; and therefore, in honour to him, more of them were preserved, three couple for breed, and the odd seventh for sacrifice, Genesis 8:20.

Verse 2, 8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. God’s special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

2. Every clean beast — “The objection that this was an anticipation of the Levitical distinction of beasts into clean and unclean, is wholly groundless. The boundary line between clean and unclean animals is marked by nature. Every tribe of mankind would distinguish between the sheep and the hyena, between the dove and the vulture. Whether animal food was eaten before the deluge or not, it is certain that flocks and herds were fed for the sake of their milk and wool, and that of them victims were offered in sacrifice. This alone would separate between the clean and the unclean. It is not improbable, that the distinction even of the names clean and unclean had been fully established by custom long before it was recognised and ratified by the law.” — Speaker’s Com. By sevens — Heb, seven seven. Seven pairs of every clean beast is, doubtless, the meaning of the writer, as implied by the additional words, the male and his female. This statement Kalisch declares to be totally “irreconcilable with the preceding narrative,” and imagines that the discrepancy may be easily explained by the hypothesis of Elohistic and Jehovistic documents. He supposes that the Jehovist “prudently introduced the significant number of seven pairs” in order to provide for Noah’s offering of clean beasts and fowls after the flood. Genesis 8:20. And yet he admits that the Jehovist “neither thought, nor did he in any way intend, to be in opposition to the statement of the Elohist. He understood the two animals which Noah was to bring, as merely signifying that always male and female were to be chosen, that they were to be pairs, without the number of these pairs being stated; for he writes: ‘Two and two went in to Noah into the ark, male and female, as Elohim had commanded Noah.’” Verse 9. Is it not strange that a writer who can so readily understand that this “Jehovist” (who wrote the narrative as it now stands, and “designed full harmony with the Elohist”) saw no discrepancy here, but “understood that they were to be pairs without the number of these pairs being stated,” will insist that the two statements are utterly irreconcilable with each other? If the “Jehovist” had no trouble in reconciling these statements, probably Moses had none; nor need we. “The command here is but an amplification of the former injunction, which had probably been given one hundred and twenty years before. In the first instance it was said that Noah’s family should be preserved, together with a pair of every kind of beast. In the second, that, while the general rule should be the saving of a single pair, yet, in the case of the clean beasts there should be preserved not one pair only, but seven.” — Speaker’s Com.

Verse 2, 8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. God’s special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

V. 4. Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain-It shall be seven days yet before I do it, After the 120 years were expired, God grants them a reprieve of seven days longer, both to shew how slow he is to anger, and to give them some farther space for repentance. But all in vain; these seven days were trifled away after all the rest, they continued secure until the day that the flood came. While Noah told them of the judgment at a distance, they were tempted to put off their repentance: but now he is ordered to tell them that it is at the door; that they have but one week more to turn them in, to see if that will now at last awaken them to consider the things that belong to their peace. But it is common for those that have been careless for their souls during the years of their health, when they have looked upon death at a distance, to be as careless during the days, the seven days of their sickness, when they see it approaching, their hearts being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Verse 4. For yet seven days] God spoke these words probably on the seventh or Sabbath day, and the days of the ensuing week were employed in entering the ark, in embarking the mighty troop, for whose reception ample provision had been already made.

Forty days] This period became afterwards sacred, and was considered a proper space for humiliation. Moses fasted forty days, Deuteronomy 9:9,11; so did Elijah, 1 Kings 19:8; so did our Lord, Matthew 4:2. Forty days’ respite were given to the Ninevites that they might repent, Jonah 3:4; and thrice forty (one hundred and twenty) years were given to the old world for the same gracious purpose, Genesis 6:3. The forty days of Lent, in commemoration of our Lord’s fasting, have a reference to the same thing; as each of these seems to be deduced from this primitive judgment.

Verse 4. Yet seven days — Or after seven days, which time the long-suffering of God (1 Peter 3:20) granted to the world, as a further space for repentance, of which, therefore, it is probable, Noah gave them notice. And it is not unlikely that many of them, who slighted the threatening when it was at the distance of one hundred and twenty years, now hearing another threatening, and considering the nearness of their danger, might be more affected, and brought to repentance. And although destroyed, as to their bodies, by the flood, for their former and long-continued impenitence, yet might be saved in their spirits, 1 Peter 4:6. And as it is likely that some, who were preserved from the waters by the ark, nevertheless, at last, perished in hell; so some that were drowned in the deluge might be eternally saved into heaven. With respect, however, to the generality, this reprieve was certainly in vain: see Luke 17:26, and 2 Peter 2:5. These seven days were trifled away after all the rest, and they continued secure until the day that the flood came. While Noah told them of the judgment at a distance, they were tempted to put off their repentance: but now he is ordered to tell them that it is at the door; that they have but one week more to turn them in, to see if that will now at last awaken them to consider the things that belong to their peace. But it is common for those that have been careless for their souls during the years of their health, when they have looked upon death at a distance, to be as careless during the days, the seven days of their sickness, when they see it approaching, their hearts being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Reader, art thou the man?

Verse 2, 8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. God’s special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

4. Yet seven days — One full week yet remained for gathering all into the ark. Seven… forty… forty — We naturally note here the occurrence of these significant numbers. Comp. also Genesis 8:4, 10, 12 (notes); and Moses forty days on the mount; Israel forty years in the desert; the spies forty days in searching Canaan. But in these historical narratives there is no reason to question the literal significance of the numbers. Their prominence in history made them specially significant in prophecy.

Verse 2, 8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. God’s special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

Verse 2, 8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. God’s special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

V. 7. And Noah went in with his sons, and his wife, and his sons wives-And the brute creatures readily went in with him. The same hand that at first brought them to Adam to be named, now brought them to Noah to be preserved.

Verse 2, 8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. God’s special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

Verse 2, 8. Clean beasts by sevens. Male and female, reserving one for sacrifice. God’s special care is over man and beast, and over the preservation of religion.

V. 11. The six hundredth year of Noah’s life, was 1656 years from the creation. In the second month, the seventeenth day of the month-Which is reckoned to be about the beginning of November; so that Noah had had a harvest just before, from which to victual his ark. The same day the fountains of the great deep were broken up-There needed no new creation of waters; God has laid up the deep in store-houses, Psalm 33:7, and now he broke up those stores. God had, in the creation, set bars and doors to the waters of the sea, that they might not return to cover the earth, Psalm 104:9 Job 38:9-11, and now he only removed these ancient mounds and fences, and the waters of the sea returned to cover the earth, as they had done at first, Genesis 1:9.

And the windows of heaven were opened-And the waters which were above the firmament were poured out upon the world; those treasures which God has reserved against the time of trouble, the day of battle and war, Job 38:22,23. The rain, which ordinarily descends in drops, then came down in streams. We read, Job 26:8. That God binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them; but now the bond was loosed, the cloud was rent, and such rains descended as were never known before or since.

Verse 11. In the six hundredth year, &c.] This must have been in the beginning of the six hundredth year of his life; for he was a year in the ark, Genesis 8:13; and lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, and died nine hundred and fifty years old, Genesis 9:29; so it is evident that, when the flood commenced, he had just entered on his six hundredth year.

Second month] The first month was Tisri, which answers to the latter half of September, and first half of October; and the second was Mareheshvan, which answers to part of October and part of November. After the deliverance from Egypt, the beginning of the year was changed from Marcheshvan to Nisan, which answers to a part of our March and April. But it is not likely that this reckoning obtained before the flood. Dr. Lightfoot very probably conjectures that Methuselah was alive in the first month of this year. And it appears, says he, how clearly the Spirit of prophecy foretold of things to come, when it directed his father Enoch almost a thousand years before to name him Methuselah, which signifies they die by a dart; or, he dieth, and then is the dart; or, he dieth, end then it is sent. And thus Adam and Methuselah had measured the whole time between the creation and the flood, and lived above two hundred and forty years together. See Clarke’s note - Tables “Genesis 5:3”. Were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.] It appears that an immense quantity of waters occupied the centre of the antediluvian earth; and as these burst forth, by the order of God, the circumambient strata must sink, in order to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the elevated waters. This is probably what is meant by breaking up the fountains of the great deep. These waters, with the seas on the earth’s surface, might be deemed sufficient to drown the whole globe, as the waters now on its surface are nearly three-fourths of the whole, as has been accurately ascertained by Dr. Long. See Clarke’s note on “Genesis 1:10”.

By the opening of the windows of heaven is probably meant the precipitating all the aqueous vapours which were suspended in the whole atmosphere, so that, as Moses expresses it, Genesis 1:7, the waters that were above the firmament were again united to the waters which were below the firmament, from which on the second day of creation they had been separated. A multitude of facts have proved that water itself is composed of two airs, oxygen and hydrogen; and that 85 parts of the first and 15 of the last, making 100 in the whole, will produce exactly 100 parts of water. And thus it is found that these two airs form the constituent parts of water in the above proportions. The electric spark, which is the same as lightning, passing through these airs, decomposes them and converts them to water. And to this cause we may probably attribute the rain which immediately follows the flash of lightning and peal of thunder. God therefore, by the means of lightning, might have converted the whole atmosphere into water, for the purpose of drowning the globe, had there not been a sufficiency of merely aqueous vapours suspended in the atmosphere on the second day of creation. And if the electric fluid were used on this occasion for the production of water, the incessant glare of lightning, and the continual peals of thunder, must have added indescribable horrors to the scene. See Clarke’s note on “Genesis 8:1”. These two causes concurring were amply sufficient, not only to overflow the earth, but probably to dissolve the whole terrene fabric, as some judicious naturalists have supposed: indeed, this seems determined by the word lwbm mabbul, translated flood, which is derived from lb bal llb or balal, to mix, mingle, confound, confuse, because the aqueous and terrene parts of the globe were then mixed and confounded together; and when the supernatural cause that produced this mighty change suspended its operations, the different particles of matter would settle according to their specific gravities, and thus form the various strata or beds of which the earth appears to be internally constructed. Some naturalists have controverted this sentiment, because in some cases the internal structure of the earth does not appear to justify the opinion that the various portions of matter had settled according to their specific gravities; but these anomalies may easily be accounted for, from the great changes that have taken place in different parts of the earth since the flood, by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, &c. Some very eminent philosophers are of the opinion “that, by the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, we are to understand an eruption of waters from the Southern Ocean.” Mr. Kirwan supposes “that this is pretty evident from such animals as the elephant and rhinoceros being found in great masses in Siberia, mixed with different marine substances; whereas no animals or other substances belonging to the northern regions have been ever found in southern climates. Had these animals died natural deaths in their proper climate, their bodies would not have been found in such masses. But that they were carried no farther northward than Siberia, is evident from there being no remains of any animals besides those of whales found in the mountains of Greenland. That this great rush of waters was from the south or south-east is farther evident, he thinks, from the south and south-east sides of almost all great mountains being much steeper than their north or north-west sides, as they necessarily would be if the force of a great body of water fell upon them in that direction.” On a subject like this men may innocently differ. Many think the first opinion accords best with the Hebrew text and with the phenomena of nature, for mountains do not always present the above appearance.

Verse 11. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, second month, the seventeenth day — It must be observed here, that the year among the Hebrews was two-fold: the one sacred, for the celebration of feasts, beginning in March, Exodus 12:12; the other civil, for men’s political or civil affairs, beginning in September. Accordingly this second month has been thought by some to have been part of April and part of May, the most pleasant time of the year, when a flood was least expected or feared; by others, part of October and part of November, a little after Noah had gathered in the fruits of the earth and laid them up in the ark: so that the flood came in with the winter, and was, by degrees, dried up by the heat of the following summer. And this latter opinion seems more probable, because the most ancient and first beginning of the year was in September; and the other beginning of it in March, a later institution, which took place among the Jews, with respect to their feasts and religious affairs only, which are not concerned here. The fountains of the great deep were broken up — There needed no new creation of waters; God has laid up the deep in storehouses, Psalm 33:7; and now he broke up those stores. God had, in the creation, set bars and doors to the waters of the sea, that they might not return to cover the earth, Psalm 104:9; Job 38:9, 10, 11; and now he only removed these ancient mounds and fences, and the waters returned to cover the earth, as they had done at first, chap. 1:9. And the windows of heaven were opened — And the waters which were above the firmament were poured out upon the world; those treasures which God, has reserved against the time of trouble, the day of battle and war, Job 38:22, 23. The rain, which ordinarily descends in drops, then came down in streams. We read, Job 26:8, that God binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them; but now the bond was loosed, the cloud was rent, and such rains descended as were never known before or since.

Ver. 11. The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up. The Lord by a cause known to himself, increased the powers of gravitation, by which the seas rushed on the land in tides which augmented till the mountains were washed, and till the latent rocks presented their shaggy and contour cliffs. By consequence every tide would leave the channels of the deep exposed on the shores from which the seas receded. And the windows, or as the LXX read, the cataracts of heaven were opened. Tides have descended with such velocity from the Norwegian mountains, that in some of the creeks no soundings can be found with a line of a thousand fathoms.—Bp. Pontoppidon’ s Hist.

11. Six hundredth year… second month… seventeenth day — Dates and measures throughout the narrative are given with an arithmetical minuteness which removes it entirely out of the region of poetry. In fact, there is no poetic colouring, no vividly emotional expression, such as might naturally be expected in the description of such an awfully impressive judgment. It reads like a simple diary of events from an eye-witness who is profoundly impressed with their divine origin and purpose, but who makes no attempt at rhetorical embellishment. See further on Genesis 8:4. Fountains of the great deep — The fathomless ocean. Broken up — Rent, or cloven asunder. The windows — Lattices, sluices; margin, floodgates. The waters came from the great deep and from the skies. Two natural causes of the deluge are here, then, clearly assigned — the overflowing ocean and the descending rains. The word deep (µwht) primarily signifies the original watery abyss (Genesis 1:2) out of which the “dry land” was elevated, and would here, therefore, be naturally applied to the ocean returning over the sinking land. This unique event is described in wholly unique phraseology. The water rushes upon the earth from the ocean as if from a multitude of suddenly opened fountains. Bursting fountains from the deep and opened lattices in the skies are pictorial conceptions of one who saw and felt the awful judgment; yet, as said above, there is no attempt at an elaborate description of scenes which have furnished poetry and painting an exhaustless field.

V. 12. It rained without intermission or abatement, forty days and forty nights-And that upon the whole earth at once.

Verse 12. The rain was upon the earth] Dr. Lightfoot supposes that the rain began on the 18th day of the second month, or Marcheshvan, and that it ceased on the 28th of the third month, Cisleu.

Verse 12. Forty days and forty nights — By proceeding in this gradual way, God, it is hoped, both awakened many to repentance, and gave them space for it.

Ver. 12. Forty days. Blessed be God that they were not destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah in a moment; it leaves a probability that besides the infants, some of them might be saved. See them flying from the plains to the hills, if they had adjacent hills: see the giants and monsters of the earth, vanquished by an omnipotent arm. See the infidel age, ah! not infidel now, confounded to see Noah and his family safely afloat. Hear the children load their long-lived fathers with the bitterest reproaches for teaching them to despise religion, to indulge in crimes, and to scoff at the ark. See them ere they had half uttered their wrongs, washing away by the next rolling wave, and their souls hurrying to the prison of hell, as St. Peter affirms, to renew their alternate reproaches.

13. The selfsame day entered — ab, might here be rendered in the pluperfect, had entered; that is, on that day the embarkation had ended. There may have been fearful portends of the approaching convulsion of nature while Noah was making his final preparations; but when the great rain actually began and the great deep burst over the barriers of the shore, Noah and his family, and the animals that were to be preserved, were safe in the ark.

V. 14. And every beast after his kind-According to the phrase used in the history of the creation, Genesis 1:21,24,25, to intimate, that just as many species as were created at first were saved now, and no more.

Verse 14. Every beast after his kind — According to the phrase used in the history of the creation, Genesis 1:21, to intimate, that as many species as were created were now saved. Every fowl and every bird — The former word in the original signifies the larger, the latter, the less sort of birds; of every sort — The Hebrew is, of every kind of wing, whether feathered, as the wing is in most birds, or skinny, as in bats.

Verse 15. And they went in, &c.] It was physically impossible for Noah to have collected such a vast number of tame and ferocious animals, nor could they have been retained in their wards by mere natural means. How then were they brought from various distances to the ark and preserved there? Only by the power of God. He who first miraculously brought them to Adam that he might give them their names, now brings them to Noah that he may preserve their lives. And now we may reasonably suppose that their natural enmity was so far removed or suspended that the lion might dwell with the lamb, and the wolf lie down with the kid, though each might still require his peculiar aliment. This can be no difficulty to the power of God, without the immediate interposition of which neither the deluge nor the concomitant circumstances could have taken place.

Verse 16. The Lord shut him in.] This seems to imply that God took him under his especial protection, and as he shut HIM in, so he shut the OTHERS out. God had waited one hundred and twenty years upon that generation; they did not repent; they filled up the measure of their iniquities, and then wrath came upon them to the uttermost.

16. The Lord shut him in — Noah in the ark was encompassed by the arms of the covenant-keeping God. While the elemental war raged so fiercely above and beneath, he was shut in with Jehovah. The use of the two divine names is here most suggestive and impressive. It was Elohim, the mighty God, the Creator, who brought the flood of waters upon the earth; but it was Jehovah, the God of the promise and of the covenant, the Unchanging One, (o wn kai o hn kai o ercomenov,) who now covered him with his wings. Thus will God close the door of the Church when the final storm of judgment shall fall upon the world. They “went in unto the marriage and the door was shut.” Matthew 25:10. This verse, blending, as it does, the two divine names in one sentence, conclusively demonstrates the unity of the narrative, showing that in its present form it proceeded from a single mind.

17, 18. Forty days — That is, as we understand it, for forty days the rain burst from the “lattices of heaven,” and the waters rushed from the great deep upon the subsiding land. At last they lifted up the ark from off the earth, so that it went upon the face of the waters. Repetitions like those in verses 17-19 (comp. also verse 12, and verses 20-23) favour the theory that the narrative is a compilation from different documents; but the compiler may as well have been Moses or one of his contemporaries as any writer living a thousand years later.

17, 18. Forty days — That is, as we understand it, for forty days the rain burst from the “lattices of heaven,” and the waters rushed from the great deep upon the subsiding land. At last they lifted up the ark from off the earth, so that it went upon the face of the waters. Repetitions like those in verses 17-19 (comp. also verse 12, and verses 20-23) favour the theory that the narrative is a compilation from different documents; but the compiler may as well have been Moses or one of his contemporaries as any writer living a thousand years later.

Verses 19, 20. All the high hills, and the mountains were covered — Therefore, there were hills and mountains before the flood. Deists, and other infidels, would persuade us that this was impossible, because of the vast height of divers hills and mountains. But, not to mention here that this fact has been established by the universal consent of all nations, that there was a general deluge which over-flowed the whole world, and that it has been demonstrated by different writers that there is in nature a sufficient quantity of water to deluge it, concerning both which see the Encyclopædia Britannica; it will be sufficient to observe here, that this cannot be thought impossible by any one who believes in the existence of such a being as Jehovah, a God of infinite power, to whom it surely was as easy to bring forth a sufficiency of water for this purpose, as it was to create all things by the word of his power, or to say, Let there be light, and there was light. It is evident Moses, the historian, makes no difficulty on this subject. So far from questioning whether the quantity of water in the earth and atmosphere was sufficient, he thought the sources from whence it came were not exhausted, since both of them required to be stopped by the same almighty hand that opened them, lest the flood should increase more than it actually did.

19. High hills… covered — Waters rose above the summits of the high hills, or rather, they gradually settled beneath the inundating flood, until, to the observer in the floating ark, the world was a monotonous waste of waters, vast and mighty, (Hebrews, mighty exceedingly,) and as far as the eye could see, all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. On the usage of such universal terms, see above, note introductory to Genesis 6:9.

V. 20. The mountains were covered-Therefore there were mountains before the flood.

Verse 20. Fifteen cubits upward] Should any person object to the universality of the deluge because he may imagine there is not water sufficient to drown the whole globe in the manner here related, he may find a most satisfactory answer to all the objections he can raise on this ground in Mr. Ray’s Physico-theological Discourses, 2d edit., 8vo., 1693.

Verses 19, 20. All the high hills, and the mountains were covered — Therefore, there were hills and mountains before the flood. Deists, and other infidels, would persuade us that this was impossible, because of the vast height of divers hills and mountains. But, not to mention here that this fact has been established by the universal consent of all nations, that there was a general deluge which over-flowed the whole world, and that it has been demonstrated by different writers that there is in nature a sufficient quantity of water to deluge it, concerning both which see the Encyclopædia Britannica; it will be sufficient to observe here, that this cannot be thought impossible by any one who believes in the existence of such a being as Jehovah, a God of infinite power, to whom it surely was as easy to bring forth a sufficiency of water for this purpose, as it was to create all things by the word of his power, or to say, Let there be light, and there was light. It is evident Moses, the historian, makes no difficulty on this subject. So far from questioning whether the quantity of water in the earth and atmosphere was sufficient, he thought the sources from whence it came were not exhausted, since both of them required to be stopped by the same almighty hand that opened them, lest the flood should increase more than it actually did.

20. Fifteen cubits upward — The arithmetical exactness here is noteworthy. Here, as in the minute specifications of time, which are given as carefully as if they had been set down in a logbook, we have the language of one who was in the midst of the scene — a spectator who was profoundly impressed by the rushing floods, the rising and slowly moving ark, the sinking hills, the drowning men and beasts, yet was not confused or bewildered amid the awful scene. He notes and records the precise date of each critical event, and coolly fathoms the deluge itself. Probably the ark drew fifteen cubits of water, and as it did not ground upon the hills, the spectator saw that they were covered to this depth. Shut in with Jehovah, though in the unwieldy ark, floating he knew not whither, faith gave Noah a confidence more calm and grand than skill and science can ever give the navigator, though in a seaworthy ship traversing familiar waters.

V. 21. All flesh died, all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was on the dry land, every living substance-And why so? Man only had done wickedly, and justly is God’s hand against him, but these sheep what have they done? I answer, 1. We are sure God did them no wrong. He is the sovereign Lord of all life, for he is the sole fountain and author of it. He that made them as he pleased, might unmake them when he pleased, and who shall say unto him, What dost thou? 2. God did admirably serve the purposes of his own glory by their destruction, as well as by their creation. Herein his holiness and justice were greatly magnified: by this it appears that he hates sin, and is highly displeased with sinners, when even the inferior creatures, because they are the servants of man, and part of his possession, and because they have been abused to be the servants of sin, are destroyed with him. It was likewise an instance of God’s wisdom. As the creatures were made for man when he was made, so they were multiplied for him when he was multiplied; and therefore, now mankind was reduced to so small a number, it was fit that the beasts should proportionable be reduced, otherwise they would have had the dominion, and would have replenished the earth, and the remnant of mankind that was left would have been overpowered by them.

Verse 21. All flesh died; all that was on the dry land — And why so? Man only had done wickedly, and justly is God’s hand against him, but these sheep, what have they done? I answer, 1st, We are sure God did them no wrong. He is the sovereign Lord of all life; for he is the sole fountain and author of it. He that made them as he pleased, might unmake them when he pleased, and who shall say unto God, What dost thou? 2d, God did admirably serve the purposes of his own glory by their destruction, as well as by their creation. Herein his holiness and justice were greatly magnified: by this it appears that he hates sin, and is highly displeased with sinners, since even the inferior creatures, because they are the servants of man, and part of his possession, and because they had been abused to be the servants of sin, are destroyed with him. It was likewise an instance of God’s wisdom. As the creatures were made for man when he was made, so they were multiplied for him when he was multiplied; and, therefore, now mankind was reduced to so small a number, it was fit that the beasts should proportionably be reduced, otherwise they would have had the dominion, and would have replenished the earth, and the remnant of mankind that was left would have been overpowered by them.

21. And all flesh died — In the land inhabited by man. Far as the narrator could see the mountains were covered, and all living things were swept away. See the introductory note on the extent of the deluge.

Verse 22. Of all that was in the dry land] From this we may conclude that such animals only as could not live in the water were preserved in the ark.

Verse 24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.] The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, and the raining forty days and nights, had raised the waters fifteen cubits above the highest mountains; after which forty days it appears to have continued at this height for one hundred and fifty days more. “So,” says Dr. Lightfoot, “these two sums are to be reckoned distinct, and not the forty days included in the one hundred and fifty; so that when the one hundred and fifty days were ended, there were six months and ten days of the flood past.”

For an improvement of this awful judgment, see the conclusion of the following chapter.

GENESIS

24. A hundred and fifty days — Five months elapsed from the time Noah entered the ark until it rested on the mountains of Ararat. He entered in on the seventeenth day of the second month, (Genesis 7:11,) and the ark rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. Genesis 8:4.