122
GEESIS 7 COMMETARY EDITED BY GLE PEASE 1 The LORD then said to oah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. BARES, " - The Ark Was Entered 2. טהורâhôr “clean, fit for food or sacrifice.” 4. יקוּםy e qûm “standing thing; what grows up, whether animal or plant.” Compare קמהqāmâh “stalk, or standing corn.” Gen_7:1-4 Here is found the command to enter the ark. The general direction in the preceding chapter was given many years ago, before the ark was commenced. Now, when it is completed, a more specific command is issued. “For thee have I seen righteous before me.” Noah has accepted the mercy of God, is therefore set right in point of law, and walks aright in point of practice. The Lord recognizes this indication of an adopted and renewed son. “In this age” he and his were the solitary family so characterized. HERY, "Gen 7:1-4 - Here is, I. A gracious invitation of Noah and his family into a place of safety, now that the flood of waters was coming, Gen_7:1 . 1. The call itself is very kind, like that of a tender father to his children, to come in doors, when he sees night or a storm coming: Come thou, and all thy house, that small family that thou hast, into the ark. Observe, (1.) Noah did not go into the ark till God bade him; though he knew it was designed for his place of refuge, yet he waited for a renewed command, and had it. It is very comfortable to follow the calls of Providence, and to see God going before us in every step we take. (2.) God does not bid him go into the ark, but come into it, implying that God would go with him, would lead him into it,

Genesis 7 commentary

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Genesis 7 commentary

GEESIS 7 COMMETARY

EDITED BY GLE PEASE

1

The LORD then said to oah, "Go into the ark,

you and your whole family, because I have

found you righteous in this generation.

BARES, " - The Ark Was Entered

”.âhôr “clean, fit for food or sacrifice טהור .2

קמה yeqûm “standing thing; what grows up, whether animal or plant.” Compare יקום .4

qāmâh “stalk, or standing corn.”

Gen_7:1-4

Here is found the command to enter the ark. The general direction in the preceding chapter was given many years ago, before the ark was commenced. Now, when it is completed, a more specific command is issued. “For thee have I seen righteous before me.” Noah has accepted the mercy of God, is therefore set right in point of law, and walks aright in point of practice. The Lord recognizes this indication of an adopted and renewed son. “In this age” he and his were the solitary family so characterized.

HERY, "Gen 7:1-4 -

Here is, I. A gracious invitation of Noah and his family into a place of safety, now that the flood of waters was coming, Gen_7:1.

1. The call itself is very kind, like that of a tender father to his children, to come in doors, when he sees night or a storm coming: Come thou, and all thy house, that small family that thou hast, into the ark. Observe, (1.) Noah did not go into the ark till God bade him; though he knew it was designed for his place of refuge, yet he waited for a renewed command, and had it. It is very comfortable to follow the calls of Providence, and to see God going before us in every step we take. (2.) God does not bid him go into the ark, but come into it, implying that God would go with him, would lead him into it,

Page 2: Genesis 7 commentary

accompany him in it, and in due time bring him safely out of it. Note, Wherever we are, it is very desirable to have the presence of God with us, for this is all in all to the comfort of every condition. It was this that made Noah's ark, which was a prison, to be to him not only a refuge, but a palace. (3.) Noah had taken a great deal of pains to build the ark, and now he was himself preserved alive in it. Note, What we do in obedience to the command of God, and in faith, we ourselves shall certainly have the comfort of, first or last. (4.) Not he only, but his house also, his wife and children, are called with him into the ark. Note, It is good to belong to the family of a godly man; it is safe and comfortable to dwell under such a shadow. One of Noah's sons was Ham, who proved afterwards a bad man, yet he was saved in the ark, which intimates, [1.] That wicked children often fare the better for the sake of their godly parents. [2.] That there is a mixture of bad with good in the best societies in earth, and we are not to think it strange. In Noah's family there was a Ham, and in Christ's family there was a Judas. There is no perfect purity on this side heaven. (5.) This call to Noah was a type of the call which the gospel gives to poor sinners. Christ is an ark already prepared, in whom alone we can be safe when death and judgment come. Now the burden of the song is, “Come, come;” the word says, “Come;” ministers say, “Come;” the Spirit says, “Come, come into the ark.”

2. The reason for this invitation is a very honourable testimony to Noah's integrity: For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Observe, (1.) 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 searches the heart, and cannot be deceived in men's characters. (2.) God takes notice of and is pleased with those that are righteous before him: Thee have I seen. In a world of wicked people God could see one righteous Noah; that single grain of wheat could not be lost, no, not in so great a heap of chaff. The Lord knows those that are his. (3.) God, that is a witness to, will shortly be a witness for, his people's integrity; he that sees it will proclaim it before angels and men, to their immortal honour. Those that obtain mercy to be righteous shall obtain witness that they are righteous. (4.) God is, in a special manner, pleased with those that are good in bad times and places. Noah was therefore illustriously righteous, because he was so in that wicked and adulterous generation. (5.) Those that keep themselves pure in times of common iniquity God will keep safe in times of common calamity; those that partake not with others in their sins shall not partake with them in their plagues; those that are better than others are, even in this life, safer than others, and it is better with them.

II. Here are necessary orders given concerning the brute-creatures that were to be preserved alive with Noah in the ark, Gen_7:2, Gen_7:3. They were not capable of receiving the warning and directions themselves, as man was, who herein is taught more than the beasts of the earth, and made wiser than the fowls of heaven - that he is endued with the power of foresight; therefore man is charged with the care of them: being under his dominion, they must be under his protection; and, though he could not secure every individual, yet 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, for his comfort and benefit. We do not find that Noah was solicitous of himself about this matter; but God consults our happiness more than we do ourselves. Though God saw that the old world was very provoking, and foresaw that the new one would be little better, yet he would preserve the brute creatures for man's use. Doth God take care for oxen? 1Co_9:9. Or was it not rather for man's sake that this care was taken? 2. Even the unclean beasts, which were least valuable and profitable, were preserved alive in the ark; for God's tender mercies are over all his works, and not over

Page 3: Genesis 7 commentary

those only that are of most eminence and 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, Gen_8:20. God gives us six for one in earthly things, as in the distribution of the days of the week, that in spiritual things we should be all for him. What is devoted to God's honour, and used in his service, is particularly blessed and increased.

III. Here is notice given of the now imminent approach of the flood: Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain, Gen_8:4. 1. “It shall be seven days yet, before I do it.” After the hundred and twenty years had expired, God grants them a reprieve of seven days longer, both to show how slow he is to anger and that punishing work is his strange work, and also to give them some further space for repentance: but all in vain; these seven days were trifled away, after all the rest; they continued secure and sensual until the day that the flood came. 2. “It shall be but seven days.” While Noah told them of the judgment at a distance, they were tempted to put off their repentance, because the vision was for a great while to come; 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, but one sabbath more to improve, to see if that will now, at last, awaken them to consider the things that belong to their peace, which otherwise will soon be hidden from their eyes. But it is common for those that have been careless of 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.

GILL, "Noah was a rare instance of this character; there was none besides him in that wicked generation, so that he was very conspicuous and remarkable; and it was wonderful grace to him, that he should have this blessing to be righteous in an age so sadly corrupt, which was the cause of his being saved; for whoever are justified shall be saved eternally, Rom_8:30 as well as they are often saved from temporal calamities, see Isa_3:10.

HAWKER, "This is a very interesting Chapter, in that it enables us to look back and read the destruction of the old world, by water; as the scriptures teach us to look forward to the sure destruction of the world that now is, by fire, in the great day of the Lord Jesus. We here behold Noah and his household entering into the ark, on the seventeenth day of the second month, in the year of the world, 1656, before Christ’s manifestation in the flesh, 2348 years, and in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. The fountains of the great deep are broken up from beneath; the rains descend from above; and forty days without intermission, the deluge continues to increase, until the highest mountains are covered, and the waters prevail, to the depth of nine yards, above the surface of the earth. All flesh is destroyed excepting Noah, and those who are with him in the ark; and the flood continues upon the earth for the space of one hundred and fifty days.

Gen_7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Page 4: Genesis 7 commentary

This invitation to Noah, if we consider the ark (as scripture authorizes us to do, See 1Pe_3:20-21) as a type of Jesus, will be best explained by those parallel passages, Isa_26:20; then Mat_11:28 and then Rev_22:17. The first of them, is the call of God the Father: Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, etc. And what are those chambers, but the covenant of redemption, in Christ Jesus? The second is the invitation of Christ himself; Come unto me, and I will give you rest, etc. see also Isa_28:12; Jer_6:16. And the third is the call of God the Holy Ghost; And the Spirit and the Bride say come, etc. proving the gracious part which that Eternal Spirit bears, in the work of redemption. Reader! is it not refreshing to the soul, to discover testimonies in every part of scripture, carrying with them such decided evidences to the truth as it is in Jesus? In this verse, also, God saith to Noah, Thee have I found righteous, etc. For the clear apprehension of this, consult Rom_4:3, and then compare it with Heb_11:7. No doubt but that the righteousness of Abraham and Noah was the same; believing in God, which was counted for righteousness.

HENRY, "Here is, I. A gracious invitation of Noah and his family into a place of safety, now that the flood of waters was coming, Gen_7:1.

1. The call itself is very kind, like that of a tender father to his children, to come in doors, when he sees night or a storm coming: Come thou, and all thy house, that small family that thou hast, into the ark. Observe, (1.) Noah did not go into the ark till God bade him; though he knew it was designed for his place of refuge, yet he waited for a renewed command, and had it. It is very comfortable to follow the calls of Providence, and to see God going before us in every step we take. (2.) God does not bid him go into the ark, but come into it, implying that God would go with him, would lead him into it, accompany him in it, and in due time bring him safely out of it. Note, Wherever we are, it is very desirable to have the presence of God with us, for this is all in all to the comfort of every condition. It was this that made Noah's ark, which was a prison, to be to him not only a refuge, but a palace. (3.) Noah had taken a great deal of pains to build the ark, and now he was himself preserved alive in it. Note, What we do in obedience to the command of God, and in faith, we ourselves shall certainly have the comfort of, first or last. (4.) Not he only, but his house also, his wife and children, are called with him into the ark. Note, It is good to belong to the family of a godly man; it is safe and comfortable to dwell under such a shadow. One of Noah's sons was Ham, who proved afterwards a bad man, yet he was saved in the ark, which intimates, [1.] That wicked children often fare the better for the sake of their godly parents. [2.] That there is a mixture of bad with good in the best societies in earth, and we are not to think it strange. In Noah's family there was a Ham, and in Christ's family there was a Judas. There is no perfect purity on this side heaven. (5.) This call to Noah was a type of the call which the gospel gives to poor sinners. Christ is an ark already prepared, in whom alone we can be safe when death and judgment come. Now the burden of the song is, “Come, come;” the word says, “Come;” ministers say, “Come;” the Spirit says, “Come, come into the ark.”

2. The reason for this invitation is a very honourable testimony to Noah's integrity: For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Observe, (1.) 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 searches the heart, and cannot be deceived in men's characters. (2.) God takes notice of and is pleased with those that are righteous before him: Thee have I seen. In a world of wicked people God could see one righteous Noah; that single grain of wheat could not be lost, no, not in so

Page 5: Genesis 7 commentary

great a heap of chaff. The Lord knows those that are his. (3.) God, that is a witness to, will shortly be a witness for, his people's integrity; he that sees it will proclaim it before angels and men, to their immortal honour. Those that obtain mercy to be righteous shall obtain witness that they are righteous. (4.) God is, in a special manner, pleased with those that are good in bad times and places. Noah was therefore illustriously righteous, because he was so in that wicked and adulterous generation. (5.) Those that keep themselves pure in times of common iniquity God will keep safe in times of common calamity; those that partake not with others in their sins shall not partake with them in their plagues; those that are better than others are, even in this life, safer than others, and it is better with them.

JAMISON, "Gen_7:1-24. Entrance into the Ark.

And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark —The ark was finished; and Noah now, in the spirit of implicit faith, which had influenced his whole conduct, waited for directions from God.

SBC. "I. The first fact that strikes us in the story of the flood is this: that God, on account of the wickedness to which the world had grown, had made up His mind to sweep it away, once and for all.

II. Out of the seed of Noah God had determined to people the earth once more with a race that would not be so wicked as the one He destroyed.

III. Noah was told to go into the ark because his life was to be saved from the flood. God has provided another ark for us; He tells us to go into it and be saved.

IV. Noah’s family was taken with him into the ark, showing the value God sets on family life.

V. God gave it as a reward to Noah for his righteousness that his children went with him into the ark. A holy and loving example preaches a sermon to those who watch it, and remains in the memory of the godless son and the godless daughter long after the parents have been laid in the grave.

Bishop Thorold, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 17.

CALVIN, "1.And the Lord said unto Noah. I have no doubt that Noah was confirmed, as he certainly needed to be, by oracles frequently repeated. He had already sustained, during one hundred years, the greatest and most furious assaults; and the invincible combatant had achieved memorable victories; but the most severe contest of all was, to bid farewell to the world, to renounce society and to bury himself in the ark. The face of the earth was, at that time, lovely; and Moses intimates that it was the season in which the herbs shoot forth and the trees begin to flourish. Winter, which binds the joy of sky and earth in sharp and rugged frost, has now passed away; and the Lord has chosen the moment for destroying the world, in the very season of spring. For Moses states that the commencement of the deluge was in the second month. I know, however, that different opinions prevail on this subject; for there are three who begin the year from the autumnal equinox; but that mode of reckoning the year is more approved, which makes it commence in the month of March. However this might be, it was no light trial for Noah to leave of his own accord, the life to which he had been accustomed during six

Page 6: Genesis 7 commentary

hundred years, and to seek a new mode of life in the abyss of death. He is commanded to forsake the world, that he may live in a sepulcher which he had been labouriously digging for himself through more than a hundred years. Why was this? Because, in a little while, the earth was to be submerged in a deluge of waters. Yet nothing of the kind is apparent: all indulge in feasts, celebrate nuptials, build sumptuous houses; in short, everywhere, daintiness and luxury prevail; as Christ himself testifies, that that age was intoxicated with its own pleasures, (Luke 17:26.) Wherefore, it was not without reason, that the Lord encouraged and fortified the mind of his servant afresh, by the renewal of the promise, lest he should faint; as if he would says ‘Hitherto thou hast labored with fortitude amid so many causes of offense; but now the case especially demands that thou shouldst take courage, in order to reap the fruit of thy labor: do not, however, wait till the waters burst forth on every side from the opened veins of the earth, and till the higher waters of heaven, with opposing violence, rush from their opened cataracts; but while everything is yet tranquil, enter into the ark, and there remain till the seventh day, then suddenly shall the deluge arise.’ And although oracles are not now brought down from heaven, let us know that continual meditation on the word is not ineffectual; for as new difficulties perpetually arise before us, so God, by one and another promise, establishes our faith, so that our strength being renewed, we may at length arrive at the goal. Our duty, indeed, is, attentively to hear God speaking to us; and neither through depraved fastidiousness, to reject those exercises, by which He cherishes, or excites, or confirms our faith, according as he knows it to be still tender, or languishing, or weak; nor yet to reject them as superfluous. For thee have I seen righteous. When the Lord assigns as his reason for preserving Noah, that he knew him to be righteous, he seems to attribute the praise of salvation to the merit of works; for if Noah was saved because he was righteous, it follows, that we shall deserve life by good works. But here it behaves us cautiously to weigh the design of God; which was to place one man in contrast with the whole world, in order that, in his person, he might condemn the unrighteousness of all men. For he again testifies, that the punishment which he was about to inflict on the world was just, seeing that only one man was left who then cultivated righteousness, for whose sake he was propitious to his whole family. Should any one object, that from this passage, God is proved to have respect to works in saving men, the solution is ready; that this is not repugnant to gratuitous acceptance, since God accepts those gifts which he himself has conferred upon his servants. We must observe, in the first place, that he loves men freely, inasmuch as he finds nothing in them but what is worthy of hatred, since all men are born the children of wrath, and heirs of eternal malediction. In this respect he adopts them to himself in Christ, and justifies them by his mere mercy. After he has, in this manner, reconciled them unto himself, he also regenerates them, by his Spirit, to new life and righteousness. Hence flow good works, which must of necessity be pleasing to God himself. Thus he not only loves the faithful but also their works. We must again observe, that since some fault always adheres to our works, it is not possible that they can be approved, except as a matter of indulgence. The grace, therefore, of Christ, and not their own dignity or merit, is that which gives worth to our works. Nevertheless, we do not deny that they come into the account before God: as he here acknowledges and accepts the righteousness of Noah which had proceeded from his own grace; and in this manner (as Augustine speaks) he will crown his own gifts. We nay further notice the expression, “I have seen thee righteous before me;” by which words, he not only annihilates all that hypocritical righteousness which is destitute of interior sanctity of heart, but vindicates his own authority; as if he would declare, that he alone is a competent judge to estimate righteousness. The clause, in this generation, is added, as I have said, for the sake of amplification; for so desperate was the depravity of that age,

Page 7: Genesis 7 commentary

that it was regarded as a prodigy, that Noah should be free from the common infection.

K&D, "in Gen_7:1 it is Jehovah who commands Noah to enter the ark, and in Gen_7:4Noah does as Elohim had commanded, whilst in Gen_7:16, in two successive clauses, Elohim alternates with Jehovah-the animals entering the ark at the command of Elohim, and Jehovah shutting Noah in. With regard to the entrance of the animals into the ark, it is worthy of notice, that in Gen_7:9 and Gen_7:15 it is stated that “they came two and two,” and in Gen_7:16 that “the coming ones came male and female of all flesh.” In this expression “they came” it is clearly intimated, that the animals collected about Noah and were taken into the ark, without his having to exert himself to collect them, and that they did so in consequence of an instinct produced by God, like that which frequently leads animals to scent and try to flee from dangers, of which man has no presentiment. The time when the flood commenced is said to have been the 600th year of Noah's life, on the 17th day of the second month (Gen_7:11). The months must be reckoned, not according to the Mosaic ecclesiastical year, which commenced in the spring, but according to the natural of civil year, which commenced in the autumn at the beginning of sowing time, or the autumnal equinox; so that the flood would be pouring upon the earth in October and November. “The same day were all the fountains of the great deep

broken up, and the sluices (windows, lattices) of heaven (the unfathomable ocean הום)

opened, and there was (happened, came) pouring rain (שם in distinction from טטר)

upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights.” Thus the flood was produced by the bursting forth of fountains hidden within the earth, which drove seas and rivers above their banks, and by rain which continued incessantly for 40 days and 40 nights.

COFFMAN, "Introduction

It is a quality of both the O.T. and the N.T. in descriptions of an event, whether of the creation of Adam and Eve or of the conversion of the apostle Paul, that they are described more than once, the total picture always including supplemental information from the multiple texts. Allis describes no less than eleven instances of this phenomenon, concluding from his extensive studies in this field that the critical fad of finding multiple sources for Genesis, "is not based upon careful examination,"[1] of the variations, but upon random choices of only those variations that can be pressed into service to maintain their theories. There is hardly anything that makes less sense than the documentary postulations regarding the alleged sources of Genesis. There has never been such a theory that has ever commended itself outside the particular theological circles of those advocating it.

Particularly, the finding of alleged contradictions in the so-called sources is most illogical and unreasonable. If there are contradictions, which we confidently deny, why are they there? Should we suppose that the ever-available "redactor" purposely included contradictions? The record as it comes to us might just as easily be attributed to Moses as to some anonymous "redactor." Besides that, uncounted generations of men have not been disturbed by any of these so-called "contradictions." Evidently, the author of Genesis, no matter how the question is viewed, did not think there were any

Page 8: Genesis 7 commentary

contradictions in the record produced. And we freely confess that we ourselves are also powerless to see any contradictions! Could it possibly be that there are NOT ANY? In the notes below we shall look at a couple of these cases and shall find that the "contradiction" is non-existent. It really rests upon misreading or misunderstanding what is written, or upon failure to observe the usual Scriptural method.

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Ver. 1. For thee have I seen righteous before me.] Not only before men, as Pharisees, [Luke 16:15] and civil justiciaries, [Romans 2:29] but before me who see the inside, and love "truth in the hidden man of the heart". [Psalms 51:6 1 Peter 3:5] And here Noah’s sincerity prevailed with God for his safety, as did likewise Lot’s, whom God hid in Zoar; and Abram’s, to whom God was a shield to save him from the deadly thrusts of destruction, when he pursued the four kings and foiled them, because he "walked before him, and was upright." [Genesis 15:1; Genesis 14:15] So true is that of Solomon, "He that walketh uprightly, walketh safely," [Proverbs 10:9] as if he were in a tower of brass, or town of war. And again, "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children have a place of refuge". [Proverbs 14:26] The old Rock is still ready to relieve them. [Isaiah 26:3]

In this generation.] Called by St Peter, "a world of ungodly ones," [2 Peter 2:5] far worse, no doubt, than those in Enoch’s days. The greater praise was it to Noah, that, by a holy antiperistasis, he kindled from their coldness, and became nothing the worse, but much the better (as it is the nature of true goodness) by their oppositions. It was an invincible faith, whereby he both conquered the world and "condemned" it. What else could have carried him over so many difficulties, as he must needs encounter? Well might the apostle say, "By faith he prepared an ark". [Hebrews 12:7] For if he had been led by sense, he would have fled as far as Jonah did, ere ever he had gone about it.

WHEDON, "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.

Page 9: Genesis 7 commentary

Hence we have the household baptisms in the Christian Church.” — Jacobus.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Noah enters the ark (Genesis 7:1-5); precise dating of the flood (Genesis 7:6-12); the prevailing of the waters in three degrees of intensity (Genesis 7:13-18); and the result and duration of the flood (Genesis 7:19-24).

Verse 1

"And Jehovah! said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."

It is stated in Genesis 7:4 that this event occurred a full week prior to the beginning of the Deluge; and it must be reckoned as a stupendous act of faith that Noah obeyed this injunction implicitly. It was one thing to build the ark, and quite another to enter it and live there a week without any sign whatever of the necessity for it. We are not told how his fellow mortals reacted to this, but human nature being what it is, it is a foregone certainty that such an action was met with all kinds of scornful mockery.

"Thee have I seen righteous before me ..." Noah's righteousness before God consisted of two things - his faith and his obedience. Noah had already been obeying God for a full 120 years while the ark was in preparation, his obedience consisting of his construction of the ark according to the pattern that God gave him, and his continual preaching to the wicked generation who were his contemporaries. Any effort to view Noah's "righteousness" as merely the existence of a subjective faith within himself should be resisted.

BI 1-3, "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark

The ark completed; or, the termination of definite moral service

I. THE TERMINATION OF AS ARDUOUS TASK.

1. This termination would be a relief to his physical energies.

2. This termination would be a relief to his mental anxieties.

3. This termination would inspire a sad but holy pride within his heart. And so Christian service often reviews its work, its calm faith, its patient energy, and its palpable result, with sacred joy, but when it is associated with the judgments of heaven upon the ungodly, the joy merges into grief and prayer. The best moral workman cannot stand unmoved by his ark, when he contemplates the deluge soon to overtake the degenerate crowds around, whom he would fain persuade to

Page 10: Genesis 7 commentary

participate in the refuge he has built.

II. THE INDICATION OF ABOUNDING MERCY (verse4).

1. This indication of mercy was unique. Its occasion was unique. Neither before or since has the world been threatened with a like calamity. And the compassion itself was alone in its beauty and meaning.

2. This indication of mercy was pathetic.

3. This indication of mercy was rejected. The people regarded not the completion of the ark, they heeded not the mercy which would have saved them at the eleventh hour.

III. THE SIGNAL FOR A WONDROUS PHENOMENON (Gen_7:8-9).

IV. THE PROPHECY OF AN IMPORTANT FUTURE. LESSONS:

1. Let the good anticipate the time when all the fatigue and anxiety of moral service shall be at an end.

2. Let them contemplate the joy of successful service for God.

3. Let them enter into all the meaning and phenomena of Christian service. (J. S.Exell, M. A.)

God’s invitation to the families of the good

I. THAT THE FAMILIES OF THE GOOD ARE EXPOSED TO MORAL DANGER.

1. This danger is imminent.

2. It is alarming.

3. It should be fully recognized.

4. It should be provided against.

II. THAT THE FAMILIES OF THE GOOD ARE INVITED TO MORAL SAFETY.

1. They are invited to this safety after their own effort, in harmony with the Divine purpose concerning them.

2. The purpose concerning them was—

(1) Divine in authority;

(2) merciful in intention;

(3) sufficient to its design.

III. THAT THE FAMILIES OF THE GOOD SHOULD BE IMMEDIATE IN THEIR RESPONSE TO THE DIVINE REGARD FOR THEIR SAFETY. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The house in the ark

I. AN EXHIBITION OF DIVINE CARE.

II. A MANIFESTATION OF PARENTAL LOVE.

III. THE IDEAL AND JOY OF DOMESTIC LIFE. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Page 11: Genesis 7 commentary

The ark; a word to parents

I. THERE IS AN AWFUL PERIL HANGING OVER YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN.

1. Divinely threatened.

2. Generally disbelieved.

3. Absolutely certain.

II. THERE IS SALVATION PROVIDED FOR YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN.

1. Divinely constituted.

2. All-sufficient.

3. Popularly neglected.

III. THERE IS A SOLEMN OBLIGATION RESTING UPON YOU IN RELATION TO YOUR CHILDREN.

1. If you do not care for them, who do you expect will?

2. If you cannot induce them to come, who do you expect can? (Homilist.)

The deluge

I. THE GLORY OF PURITY.

1. Uncontaminated in the midst of impurity.

2. Intrusted with the Divine intentions.

3. Employed in warning others of their danger.

4. Safe in the midst of dangers.

5. The true mark of distinction between man and man.

II. THE POWER OF EVIL.

1. Rapid in its increase.

2. Complete mastery over the heart.

3. Terrific in its results.

III. THE SAVING POWER OF GOD.

1. Employed wherever faith is found.

2. Employed in conjunction with man’s efforts.

3. Employed only in the ark. (Homilist.)

A whole family in heaven

I. GOD IN THE SCRIPTURES DEALS WITH FAMILIES BOTH IN SAVING AND DESTROYING.

Page 12: Genesis 7 commentary

II. SPECIAL OBLIGATION ON HEADS OF FAMILIES TO BRING THE HOUSEHOLD TO CHRIST.

III. UNSPEAKABLE JOY OF THE FAMILY REUNION AFTER THE STORMS AND SEPARATIONS OF EARTH. What greetings—memories—unalloyed fellowship—blissful employments. (The Homiletic Review.)

A family sermon

I. THE CALL.

1. It was a call from the Lord.

2. A personal call.

3. Effectual.

4. A call to personal action.

“Come thou.” Noah must come, and he must come to the ark too. For him there was only one way of salvation, any more than for anybody else. It was of no use his coming near it, but he must come into it. Come, make the Lord Jesus your refuge, your deliverance, and your habitation. Now it would have been of no use for Noah to have gone on making preparations for his dwelling in the ark: that he had done long enough. Neither would it have done for Noah to go round the ark to survey it again. No longer look at Christ externally, nor survey Him even with a grateful eye for what He has done for others, but come now and commit yourself to Him. There stands the door, and you have to go through it, and enter into the inner chambers, or you will find no safety. Neither would it have been of any use for Noah to go up to the ark and stand against the door and say, “I do not say that I am not going in, and I do not even say that I am not in already; I have got one foot in, but I am a moderate man, and like to be friendly with both sides. I am in and yet not in. If the door was shut I do not know but that it would cut me in halves; but, anyhow, I do not want to be altogether out, and I do not want to be quite in. I should like to stand where I could hurry in as soon as I saw the water coming up; but, still, while there is another opportunity of taking a walk on the dry land I may as well avail myself of it. There is no hurry about it, is there? You see, if a man keeps his finger on the latch of the door he can pop in as soon as ever he sees the first drop of rain descending, or the water coming up anywhere near him; but is there any reason for being so decided all at once? No, that would not do for Noah. God said to him, “Come into the ark,” and he went in at once. Noah must not hesitate, or linger, or halt, but in he must go: right in. Again, Noah must come into the ark never to go out again. “Come thou,” saith God, “into the ark.” He is not to make a visit, but he is to be shut in. As far as that world was concerned, Noah was to be in the ark as long as it lasted. When the new world came, then he walked out in joyful liberty. But you and I are in Christ, not to be there for a time, but to abide in Him forever and ever.

II. THE OBEDIENCE (Gen_7:7).

1. Unquestioning.

2. Immediate.

3. Once for all. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Page 13: Genesis 7 commentary

Safety in the ark

I. THERE IS A DELUGE OF WRATH COMING UPON SINNERS.

II. THERE IS AN ARK PROVIDED FOR PRESERVATION.

III. GOD GRACIOUSLY INVITES SINNERS TO COME INTO IT. (G. Burder.)

Noah and the ark

I. His INGRESS, or entrance into it.

II. His PROGRESS, or safe entertainment in it.

III. His EGRESS, or joyful departure out of it. (C. Ness.)

The eve of the flood

1. God gave special notice to Noah, saying, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous.” He who in well-doing commits himself into the hands of a faithful Creator, needs not fear being overtaken by surprise. What have we to fear, when He whom we serve hath the keys of hell and of death?

2. God gave him all his household with him. We are not informed whether any of Noah’s family at present followed his example: it is certain that all did not; yet all entered with him into the ark for his sake. This indeed was but a specimen of the mercy which was to be exercised towards his distant posterity on behalf of him, as we have seen in the former chapter. But it is of importance to observe, that though temporal blessings may be given to the ungodly children of a godly parent, yet without walking in his steps they will not be partakers with him in those which are spiritual and eternal.

3. It is an affecting thought, that there should be no more than Noah and his family to enter into the ark. Peter speaks of them as few; and few they were, considering the vast numbers that were left behind. Noah had long been a preacher of righteousness; and what—is there not one sinner brought to repentance by his preaching? It should seem not one: or if there were any, they were taken away from the evil to come. We are ready to think our ministry has but little success; but his, as far as appears, was without any: yet like Enoch, he pleased God.

4. The righteousness of Noah is repeated, as the reason of the difference put between him and the world. This does not imply that the favour shown to him is to be ascribed to his own merit; for whatever he was, he was by grace, and all his righteousness was rewardable only out of respect to Him in whom he believed; but being accepted for His sake, his works also were accepted and honoured. (A. Fuller.)

The closed ark

We can conceive an angel anxious for the rescue of the world, but unknowing of the exact time for the fulfilment of its doom, looking curiously down each morning of the seven days, and saying, as the open door presented itself first to his eager gaze, “Thank God, it is not yet shut”; and how, while the evening shadows are closing down around

Page 14: Genesis 7 commentary

the ark, the door still stands inviting any to enter within who are willing, and is the last object of which he loses sight, he again exclaims, “Thank God, it is yet open.” But conceive his sorrow when the seventh day arrives, and when, as he looks, lo! the door is shutting! The ark has folded itself up, as it were, for its plunge, and the bystanders and the shore are being left behind; the day of grace is about to close. No! one other offer yet, one other cry, one other half-opening of the half-shut door, but in vain; and then the angel shrieks, and returns to heaven, as he hears the thunder of the closing door, and as, alas! he perceives in the blackening sky, that while the ark shuts, the windows of heaven open. (G. Gilfillan.)

Christ not an insecure refuge

Some parts of the coast abound with caves. In one of these was found the body of a poor Frenchman. He had been a prisoner and had escaped from prison, and for a long time concealed himself there, probably in the hope of escaping by some vessel which might pass. Many a weary day passed, however, and he still remained a prisoner, till at last, not venturing to leave his retreat, he perished from want. So it is with those who seek refuge in insufficient places. “They make lies their refuge, and under falsehood hide themselves.” Alas! how often they find out their mistake when it is too late. (G. S. Bowes.)

The family in the ark

I should like to see every father in this room safe in the ark; and then I should like to see each one of you fathers bring your children in. There is no safety for them or for you outside. They will not come in unless someone tell them of the danger of remaining outside. Who can tell them so well as you? Who can teach them that sin biteth like a serpent, and that its fangs are deadly, but you? They need your help, your prayers, and your influence. I would say to each father as God said to Noah, “Come thou, and all thy house.” Come in yourselves, and be sure not to forget to bring your children in with you. (D. L. Moody.)

The whole family in the ark

“Come thou and all thy house into the ark.” You can’t spare any of them. Think of which one you would like to spare. On a western lake in America there was a father journeying with two daughters, and they were very poor. Their appearance told the story without a word of explanation. A very benevolent gentleman in that part came up to the father and said, “You seem to be very poor.” “Oh!” said the other, “if there’s a man in this world poorer than I am, God pity him, and pity me, and help us both.”—“Well,” said the benevolent man, “I will take one of those children and bring her up and make her very comfortable. I am a man of fortune, and you may find great relief in this way.” “What,” said the poor man. “What!—would it be a relief to have my hand chopped off my arm? Would it be a relief to have my heart torn out from my breast? What do you mean, sir? God pity us.” Ah! no, he could not give up either of them, and you cannot give up any of your family. Which one would you give up? The eldest? Or would it be the youngest? Would it be the one that was sick last winter? Would it be the husband? Would it be the wife? No, no. “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.” Let us join hands anew and

Page 15: Genesis 7 commentary

come into the ark. Come father, come mother, come sister, come brother, come son, come daughter. It is not the voice of a stormy blast, but the voice of an all-loving God, who says, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.” The Lord shut him in. (T. de Witt Talmage.)

Entering into Christ as into an ark

When I was in Manchester, I went into the gallery one Sunday night to have a talk with a few inquirers, and while I was talking a business man came in and took his seat on the outskirts of the audience. I think at first he had come merely to criticise, and that he was a little sceptical. At last I saw he was in tears. I turned to him and said: “My friend, what is your difficulty?” “Well,” he said: “Mr. Moody, the fact is, I cannot tell.” I said: “Do you believe you are a sinner?” He said: “Yes, I know that.” I said: “Christ is able to save you; “ and I used one illustration after another, but he did not see it. At last I used the ark, and I said: “Was it Noah’s feelings that saved him? Was it Noah’s righteousness that saved him, or was it the ark?” “Mr. Moody,” said he, “I see it.” He got up and shook hands with me, and said: “Goodnight. I have to go. I have to go away in the train tonight, but I was determined to be saved before I went. I see it now.” I confess it seemed almost too sudden for me, and I was almost afraid it could not live. A few days after, he came and touched me on the shoulder, and said: “Do you know me?” I said: “I know your face, but do not remember where I have seen you.” He said: “Do not you remember the illustration of the ark?” I said: “Yes.” He said: “It has been all light ever since. I understand it now. Christ is the ark; He saves me, and I must get inside Him.” When I went down to Manchester again, and talked to the young friends there, I found he was the brightest light among them. (D. L. Moody.)

For thee have I seen righteous before Me

True moral rectitude

I. TRUE MORAL RECTITUDE MAINTAINED IN DEGENERATE TIMES. Sinful companions and degenerate times are no excuse for faltering moral goodness. The goodness of Noah was—

1. Real.

2. Unique.

3. Stalwart.

II. TRUE MORAL RECTITUDE OBSERVED BY GOD.

1. It is personally observed by God.

2. It was observed by God in its relation to the age in which the good man lived. “In this generation.”

III. TRUE MORAL RECTITUDE REWARDED BY GOD.

1. Rewarded by distinct commendation. God calls Noah a righteous man.

2. Rewarded by domestic safety. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Page 16: Genesis 7 commentary

The illustrious one

I. THE CHARACTER WHICH NOAH SUSTAINED. “Righteous.”

1. Few of the ancient worthies are more frequently or more honourably mentioned than Noah (Eze_14:14; Luk_17:26; Heb_11:7).

2. The faith of Noah was a lively, active faith; it produced obedience to the Divine command.

3. He was a man of deep piety.

4. He was a genuine philanthropist (2Pe_2:5).

II. THE TIME WHEN HE SUSTAINED THIS CHARACTER. “In this generation.”

1. This generation was completely given up to infidelity and iniquity.

2. In this generation it is probable that Noah would meet with opposition and insult from all quarters.

III. THE CONSEQUENCE OF HIS SUSTAINING SUCH A CHARACTER. “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.”

1. While the flood was teeming upon the ungodly with dreadful impetuosity, Noah was safe in the ark, instructing his family, and communing with his God.

2. While the evil-doers were swept from the face of the earth and their names buried in eternal oblivion, Noah came safely out of the ark, became the father of a new race, and finally died in peace.

IV. APPLICATION.

1. Noah heard, believed, and obeyed God. Do we imitate him?

2. Noah was righteous in that generation of universal degeneracy, when he had every difficulty, and no encouragements. Are we as righteous in this generation, when we have but few obstacles and many advantages? (Benson Bailey.)

BENSON, "Genesis 7:1. 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.

EBC 1-24, "Verses 1-24

THE FLOOD

Page 17: Genesis 7 commentary

Genesis 5:1-32; Genesis 6:1-22; Genesis 7:1-24; Genesis 8:1-22; Genesis 9:1-29

THE first great event which indelibly impressed itself on the memory of the primeval world was the Flood. There is every reason to believe that this catastrophe was co-extensive with the human population of the world. In every branch of the human family traditions of the event are found. These traditions need not be recited, though some of them bear a remarkable likeness to the Biblical story, while others are very beautiful in their construction, and significant in individual points. Local floods happening at various times in different countries could not have given birth to the minute coincidences found in these traditions, such as the sending out of the birds, and the number of persons saved. But we have as yet no material for calculating how far human population had spread from the Original centre. It might apparently be argued that it could not have spread to the seacoast, or that at any rate no ships had as yet been built large enough to weather a severe storm; for a thoroughly nautical population could have had little difficulty in surviving such a catastrophe as is here described. But all that can be affirmed is that there is no evidence that the waters extended beyond the inhabited part of the earth; and from certain details of the narrative, this part of the earth may be identified as the great plain of the Euphrates and Tigris.

Some of the expressions used in the narrative might indeed lead us to suppose that the writer understood the catastrophe to have extended over the whole globe; but expressions of similar largeness elsewhere occur in passages where their meaning must be restricted: Probably the most convincing evidence of the limited extent of the Flood is furnished by the animals of Australia. The animals that abound in that island are different from those found in other parts of the world, but are similar to the species which are found fossilised in the island itself, and which therefore must have inhabited these same regions long anterior to the Flood. If then the Flood extended to Australia and destroyed all animal life there, what are we compelled to suppose as the order of events? We must suppose that the creatures, visited by some presentiment of what was to happen many months after, selected specimens of their number, and that these specimens by some unknown and quite inconceivable means crossed thousands of miles of sea, found their way through all kinds of perils from unaccustomed climate, food, and beasts of prey; singled out Noah by some inscrutable instinct, and surrendered themselves to his keeping. And after the year in the ark expired, they turned their faces homewards, leaving behind them no progeny, again preserving themselves intact, and transporting themselves by some unknown means to their island home. This, if the Deluge was universal, must have been going on with thousands of animals from all parts of the globe; and not only were these animals a stupendous miracle in themselves, but wherever they went they were the occasion of miracle in others, all the beasts of prey refraining from their natural food. The fact is, the thing will not bear stating.

But it is not the physical but the moral aspects of the Flood with which we have here to do. And, first, this narrator explains its cause. He ascribes it to the abnormal wickedness of the antediluvians. To describe the demoralised condition of society before the Flood, the strongest language is used. "God saw that the wickedness of man was great," monstrous in acts of violence, and in habitual courses and established usages. "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,"-there was no mixture of good, no relentings, no repentances, no visitings of compunction, no hesitations and

Page 18: Genesis 7 commentary

debatings. It was a world of men fierce and energetic, violent and lawless, in perpetual war and turmoil; in which if a man sought to live a righteous life, he had to conceive it of his own mind and to follow it out unaided and without the countenance of any.

This abnormal wickedness again is accounted for by the abnormal marriages from which the leaders of these ages sprang. Everything seemed abnormal, huge, inhuman. As there are laid bare to the eye of the geologist in those archaic times vast forms bearing a likeness to forms we are now familiar with, but of gigantic proportions and wallowing in dim, mist-covered regions; so to the eye of the historian there loom through the obscurity colossal forms perpetrating deeds of more than human savagery, and strength, and daring; heroes that seem formed in a different mould from common men.

However we interpret the narrative, its significance for us is plain. There is nothing prudish in the Bible. It speaks with a manly frankness of the beauty of women and its ensnaring power. The Mosaic law was stringent against intermarriage with idolatresses, and still in the New Testament something more than an echo of the old denunciation of such marriages is heard. Those who were most concerned about preserving a pure morality and a high tone in society were keenly alive to the dangers that threatened from this quarter. It is a permanent danger to character because it is to a permanent element in human nature that the temptation appeals. To many in every generation, perhaps to the majority, this is the most dangerous form in which worldliness presents itself; and to resist this the most painful test of principle. With natures keenly sensitive to beauty and superficial attractiveness, some are called upon to make their choice between a conscientious cleaving to God and an attachment to that which in the form is perfect but at heart is defective, depraved, godless. Where there is great outward attraction a man fights against the growing sense of inward uncongeniality, and persuades himself he is too scrupulous and uncharitable, or that he is a bad reader of character. There may be an undercurrent of warning; he may be sensible that his whole nature is not satisfied, and it may seem to him ominous that what is best within him does not flourish in his new attachment, but rather what is inferior, if not what is worst. But all such omens and warnings are disregarded and stifled by some such silly thought as that consideration and calculation are out of place in such matters. And what is the result? The result is the same as it ever was. Instead of the ungodly rising to the level of the godly, he sinks to hers. The worldly style, the amusements, the fashions once distasteful to him, but allowed for her sake, become familiar, and at last wholly displace the old and godly ways, the arrangements that left room for acknowledging God in the family; and there is one household less as a point of resistance to the incursion of an ungodly tone in society, one deserter more added to the already too crowded ranks of the ungodly, and the life-time if not the eternity of one soul embittered. Not without a consideration of the temptations that do actually lead men astray did the law enjoin: "Thou shalt not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, nor take of their daughters unto thy sons."

It seems like a truism to say that a greater amount of unhappiness has been produced by mismanagement, folly, and wickedness in the relation subsisting between men and women than by any other cause. God has given us the capacity of love to regulate this relation and be our safe guide in all matters connected with it. But frequently, from one cause or another, the government and direction of this relation are taken out of the hands of love and put into the thoroughly incompetent hands of convenience, or fancy,

Page 19: Genesis 7 commentary

or selfish lust. A marriage contracted from any such motive is sure to bring unhappiness of a long-continued, wearing, and often heartbreaking kind. Such a marriage is often the form in which retribution comes for youthful selfishness and youthful licentiousness. You cannot cheat nature. Just in so far as you allow yourself to be ruled in youth by a selfish love of pleasure, in so far do you incapacitate yourself for love. You sacrifice what is genuine and satisfying, because provided by nature, to what is spurious, unsatisfying, and shameful. You cannot afterwards, unless by a long and bitter discipline, restore the capacity of warm and pure love in your heart. Every indulgence in which true love is absent is another blow given to the faculty of love within you-you make yourself in that capacity decrepit, paralyzed, dead. You have lost, you have killed the faculty that should be your guide in all these matters, and so you are at last precipitated without this guidance into a marriage formed from some other motive, formed therefore against nature, and in which you are the everlasting victim of nature’s relentless justice. Remember that you cannot have both things, a youth of loveless pleasure and a loving marriage-you must make your choice. For as surely as genuine love kills all evil desire; so surely does evil desire kill the very capacity of love, and blind utterly its wretched victim to the qualities that ought to excite love.

The language used of God in relation to this universal corruption strikes every one as remarkable. "It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart." This is what is usually termed anthropomorphism, i.e., the presenting of God in terms applicable only to man; it is an instance of the same mode of speaking as is used when we speak of God’s hand or eye or heart. These expressions are not absolutely true, but they are useful and convey to us a meaning which could scarcely otherwise be expressed. Some persons think that the use of these expressions proves that in early times God was thought of as wearing a body and as being very like ourselves in His inward nature. And even in our day we have been ridiculed for speaking of God as a magnified man. Now in the first place the use of such expressions does not prove that even the earliest worshippers of God believed Him to have eyes and hands and a body. We freely use the same expressions though we have no such belief. We use them because our language is formed for human uses and on a human level, and we have no capacity to frame a better. And in the second place, though not absolutely true they do help us towards the truth. We are told that it degrades God to think of Him as hearing prayer and accepting praise; nay, that to think Of Him as a Person at all, is to degrade Him. We ought to think of Him as the Absolutely Unknowable. But which degrades God most, and which exalts Him most? If we find that it is impossible to worship an absolutely unknowable, if we find that practically such an idea is a mere nonentity to us, and that we cannot in point of fact pay any homage or show any consideration to such an empty abstraction, is not this really to lower God? And if we find that when we think of Him as a Person, and ascribe to Him all human virtue in an infinite degree, we can rejoice in Him and worship Him with true adoration, is not this to exalt Him? While we call Him our Father we know that this title is inadequate; while we speak of God as planning and decreeing we know that we are merely making shift to express what is inexpressible by us-we know that our thoughts of Him are never adequate and that to think of Him at all is to lower Him, is to think of Him inadequately; but when the practical alternative is such as it is, we find we do well to think of Him with the highest personal attributes we can conceive. For to refuse to ascribe such attributes to Him because this is degrading Him, is to empty our minds of any idea of Him which can stimulate either to worship or to duty. If by ridding our minds of all anthropomorphic ideas and refusing to think of God as feeling, thinking, acting as men do, we could thereby get to a really higher

Page 20: Genesis 7 commentary

conception of Him, a conception which would practically make us worship Him more devotedly and serve Him more faithfully, then by all means let us do so. But if the result of refusing to think of Him as in many ways like ourselves, is that we cease to think of Him at all or only as a dead impersonal force, then this certainly is not to reach a higher but a lower conception of Him. And until we see our way to some truly higher conception than that which we have of a Personal God, we had better be content with it.

In short, we do well to be humble, and considering that we know very little about existence of any kind, and least of all about God’s, and that our God has been presented to us in human form, we do well to accept Christ as our God, to worship, love, and serve Him, finding Him sufficient for all our wants of this life, and leaving it to other times to get the solution of anything that is not made plain to us in Him. This is one boon that the science and philosophy of our day have unintentionally conferred upon us. They have laboured to make us feel how remote and inaccessible God is, how little we can know Him, how truly He is past finding out; they have laboured to make us feel how intangible and invisible and incomprehensible God is, but the result of this is that we turn with all the stronger longing to Him who is the Image of the Invisible God, and on whom a voice has fallen from the excellent glory, "This is My beloved Son, hear Him."

The Flood itself we need not attempt to describe. It has been remarked that though the narrative is vivid and forcible, it is entirely wanting in that sort of description which in a modern historian or poet would have occupied the largest space. "We see nothing of the death-struggle; we hear not the cry of despair; we are not called upon to witness the frantic agony of husband and wife, and parent and child, as they fled in terror before the rising waters. Nor is a word said of the sadness of the one righteous man, who, safe himself, looked upon the destruction which he could not avert." The Chaldean tradition which is the most closely allied to the Biblical account is not so reticent. Tears are shed in heaven over the catastrophe, and even consternation affected its inhabitants, while within the ark itself the Chaldean Noah says, "When the storm came to an end and the terrible water-spout ceased, I opened the window and the light smote upon my face. I looked at the sea attentively observing, and the whole of humanity had returned to mud, like seaweed the corpses floated. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and wept and my tears fell upon my face."

There can be little question that this is a true description of Noah’s feeling. And the sense of desolation and constraint would rather increase in Noah’s mind than diminish. Month after month elapsed; he was coming daily nearer the end of his food, and yet the waters were unabated. He did not know how long he was to be kept in this dark, disagreeable place. He was left to do his daily work without any supernatural signs to help him against his natural anxieties. The floating of the ark and all that went on in it had no mark of God’s hand upon it. He was indeed safe while others had been destroyed. But of what good was this safety to be? Was he ever to get out of this prison house? To what straits was he to be first reduced? So it is often with ourselves. We are left to fulfil God’s will without any sensible tokens to set over against natural difficulties, painful and pinching circumstances, ill health, low spirits, failure of favourite projects and old hopes-so that at last we come to think that perhaps safety is all we are to have in Christ, a mere exemption from suffering of one kind purchased by the endurance of much suffering of another kind: that we are to be thankful for pardon on any terms; and

Page 21: Genesis 7 commentary

escaping with our life, must be content though it be bare. Why, how often does a Christian wonder whether, after all, he has chosen a life that he can endure, whether the monotony and the restraints of the Christian life are not inconsistent with true enjoyment?

This strife between the felt restriction of the Christian life and the natural craving for abundant life, for entrance into all that the world can show us, and experience of all forms of enjoyment-this strife goes on unceasingly in the heart of many of us as it goes on from age to age in the world. Which is the true view of life, which is the view to guide us in choosing and refusing the enjoyments and pursuits that are presented to us? Are we to believe that the ideal man for this life is he who has tasted all culture and delight, who believes in nature, recognising no fall and seeking for no redemption, and makes enjoyment his end; or he who sees that all enjoyment is deceptive till man is set right morally, and who spends himself on this, knowing that blood and misery must come before peace and rest, and crowned as our King and Leader, not with a garland of roses, but with the crown of Him Who is greatest of all, because servant of all-to Whom the most sunken is not repulsive, and Who will not abandon the most hopeless? This comes to be very much the question, whether this life is final or preparatory?-whether, therefore, our work in it should be to check lower propensities and develop and train all that is best in character, so as to be fit for highest life and enjoyment in a world to come-or should take ourselves as we find ourselves, and delight in this present world? whether this is a placid eternal state, in which things are very much as they should be, and in which therefore we can live freely and enjoy freely; or whether it is a disordered, initial condition in which our main task should be to do a little towards putting things on a better rail and getting at least the germ and small beginnings of future good planted in one another? So that in the midst of all felt restriction, there is the highest hope, that one day we shall go forth from the narrow precincts of our ark, and step out into the free bright sunshine, in a world where there is nothing to offend, and that the time of our deprivation will seem to have been well spent indeed, if it has left within us a capacity permanently to enjoy love, holiness, justice, and all that is delighted in by God Himself.

The use made of this event in the New Testament is remarkable. It is compared by Peter to baptism, and both are viewed as illustrations of salvation by destruction. The eight souls, he says, who were in the ark, "were saved by water." The water which destroyed the rest saved them. When there seemed little hope of the godly line being able to withstand the influence of the ungodly, the Flood came and left Noah’s family in a new world, with freedom to order all things according to their own ideas. In this Peter sees some analogy to baptism. In baptism, the penitent who believes in the efficacy of Christ’s blood to purge away sin, lets his defilement be washed away and rises new and clean to the life Christ gives. In Christ the sinner finds shelter for himself and destruction for his sins. It is God’s wrath against sin that saves us by destroying our sins; just as it was the Flood which devastated the world, that at the same time, and thereby, saved Noah and his family.

In this event, too, we see the completeness of God’s work. Often we feel reluctant to surrender our sinful habits to so final a destruction as is implied in being one with Christ. The expense at which holiness is to be bought seems almost too great. So much that has given us pleasure must be parted with; so many old ties sundered, a condition of

Page 22: Genesis 7 commentary

holiness presents an aspect of dreariness and hopelessness; like the world after the flood, not a moving thing on the surface of the earth, everything levelled, prostrate, and washed even with the ground; here the corpse of a man, there the carcase of a beast: here mighty forest timber swept prone like the rushes on the banks of a flooded stream, and there a city without inhabitants, everything dank, dismal, and repellent. But this is only one aspect of the work; the beginning, necessary if the work is to be thorough. If any part of the sinful life remain it will spring up to mar what God means to introduce us to. Only that is to be preserved which we can take with us into our ark. Only that is to pass on into our life which we can retain while we are in true connection with Christ, and which we think can help us to live as His friends, and to serve Him zealously.

This event then gives us some measure by which we can know how much God will do to maintain holiness upon earth. In this catastrophe every one who strives after godliness may find encouragement, seeing in it the Divine earnestness of God-for good and against evil. There is only one other event in history that so conspicuously shows that holiness among men is the object for which God will sacrifice everything else. There is no need now of any further demonstration of God’s purpose in this world. and His zeal for carrying it out. And may it not be expected of us His children, that we stand in presence of the cross until our cold and frivolous hearts catch something of the earnestness, the "resisting unto blood striving against sin," which is exhibited there? The Flood has not been forgotten by almost any people under heaven, but its moral result is nil. But he whose memory is haunted by a dying Redeemer, by the thought of One Whose love found its most appropriate and practical result in dying for him, is prevented from much sin, and finds in that love the spring of eternal hope, that which his soul in the deep privacy of his most sacred thoughts can feed upon with joy, that which he builds himself round and broods over as his inalienable possession.

LANGE, "THE FLOOD. PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. The Literature.—See Com. on Matthew, p6. The present work, p119. Walch.: Bibl. Theol., iii. p100. Danz: “Universal Lexicon,” p918. Winer, Real Lexicon, article, Noah. Herzog, Real Encyclopedia, article, Noah. Kurtz: “History of the Old Testament,” i. p81. Knobel, p81.—[Article, Deluge, Kitto: “Bib. Encyc” vol. i. p542.—Article, Noah, Smith’s “Bib. Dict.” vol. ii, p562.—T. L.]

The Hebrew name of the Great Flood (מל) Luther rendered by the word Sin-flut, or Sindflut. The latest edition of the German Bible contains still this designation. Through a misunderstanding of the expression it became afterwards Sündflut. Pischon in the “Theological Studies and Criticisms,” 1834, III. Delitzsch, p628. In old German the word sin is found only at the beginning of compounds: it has the meaning ever, everywhere, complete. For example, sin-grün means ever-green.

2. The Stories of the Flood. No fact of Sacred History reflects itself in a more universal and manifold manner throughout the heathen legendary world than the Noachic flood. Compare here the copious account of Lücken: “The Traditions of the Human Race,” p170; also Knobel, p75; Delitzsch, p242. It is especially interesting to study how the

Page 23: Genesis 7 commentary

different nations have heathenized, mythologized, in other words, nationalized or localized the sacred and universal tradition (since by the very nature of heathenism the patriarch of the flood belongs to particular nations who received the account from him, and who also regarded him as their national middle point), and how they have confounded it with the story of Paradise, or of the creative days. From this comes the varied deification of this flood-patriarch. Delitzsch distinguishes, 1. the West Asiatic stories of the flood. The Babylonian flood of Xisuthrus: “the last of the ten antediluvian chiefs, as given by Berosus and Abydenus, and the Phoenician story of the victory of Pontus over Demarus, the earth sphere, as given by Sanchoniathon.” With the Babylonian story of the flood he compares the narrative of the flood as given in the first of the Sibylline books, which, in its ground features, has some resemblance to the biblical. Next “the Phrygian story of King ’Αννακός or Ναννακός (that Isaiah, Enoch) in Iconium, who, when over three hundred years old, announced the flood, and prayed with lamentation for his people; with which are connected coins of Apamea of the times of Septimius Severus, Macrinus, and Philippians, representing a floating ark and bearing the partial inscription, ΝΩ.” So also the Armenian, which, as might be expected, agrees in its locality with the biblical (Nicol. Damascen, Strabo). Then a Syrian legend of which Lucian makes mention (De Syra Dea, Genesis 13). 2. East Asiatic stories of the flood. The Persian, the Chinese; the Indian of Menu, to whom Vishnu, taking the form of a fish, announces the flood, and whose ship, drawn by this fish, lands upon Himarat. It presents itself to us in many forms. The oldest, yet the latest known to us, is the story in Çatapatha-Brahmana (Weber, “Indian Studies,” 1850). Next to that is the story in Mahâbhârata (Bopp, “Diluvium,” 1829), and in the Purâna; its latest form is presented in the Bhâgavata-Purana (ed. Bournout, 1827), which, according to Wilson, does not go back of the twelfth century after Christ. (In respect to all these forms of the story, see Felix Nave: La Tradition Indienne du Déluge, Paris, 1851.) 3. Grecian stories of the flood. “In the first place the story of Ogyges (Plato, in the Timœus,)[FN1] and the more enlarged account of Deucalion and Pyrrha (first in Pindar, then by Apollodorus, brought nearer to the biblical account, also given by Plutarch, Lucian, and Ovid,[FN2]—both, in their ground features, stories of one and the same flood, but wholly Hellenized.” 4. The stories of the people who were outside the commerce or intercourse of the Old World. The Celtic story of Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who, in the flood that arose from the outbreaking of the sea of Llion, and which swallowed up all men, made their escape in a bare boat (without sails), and again peopled Britain. More remote still, the flood-stories of the Mexicans, of the island inhabitants of Cuba, of the Peruvians, of the races on the upper Orinoco, of the Tahitians, and other insular peoples of the Society Islands Archipelago. To make an arrangement according to the facts narrated, we may distinguish, 1. Stories of the flood which identify it with the creative catastrophes, namely: the Germanic story of the blood of the slain Ymer, which deluged the earth, and destroyed the oldest giant race. The Persian story of the rain of Zistar, which flooded the earth, and caused the death of the beasts of Ahriman. The Chinese story of Riuhoa (Lücken, p193; see on the other hand Bunsen, vol. ii. p61). 2. Stories of the flood in which the Bible flood is specifically and distinctly reflected, such as the Babylonian, the Phrygian, the Indian, the Chinese story of Jao, the Celtic stories (Lücken, p204). 3. Stories of the flood which seem to connect or to confound it with the deluge accounts of later floods. The stories of the Egyptians and the Greeks (Lücken, pp209, 196). In the submersion of the island Atlantis, as given in Plato’s Timœus, there seems to be reflected likewise the tradition of the lost Paradise. In respect to the facts that lie at the foundation of the latter stories, compare the pamphlet of Unger, entitled “The Sunken Island of Atlantis.” Vienna, 1860. The fundamental view here indicates revolutions of the earth, upheavings and depressions of its surface, whose effect is also of importance in the history of the Bible deluge4. Stories of floods in which the Bible flood forms the

Page 24: Genesis 7 commentary

central point, towards which all traditions and legends of early terrestrial catastrophes flow together, and in which the original tradition cannot always be separated from later modification through Christian and Mohammedan elements. Interior African and American, or insular flood stories. It is well worthy of remark, that the ethical interpretation of the flood, according to which it comes as a judgment upon a condemned human race, everywhere prominently appears in the stories of the deluge. The purest copy of our Bible history is given in the Chaldaic narrative of Berosus, the ancient priest of Bel and the Dragon, about260 years before Christ. Xisuthrus, the last of the ten primitive kings, beheld in a dream the appearance of Cronos (in Greek the same as Bel or Baal), who announced to him, that on the 15 th day of the month Däsio, men would be destroyed by a flood. It was commanded him to write down all the sciences and inventions of mankind, and to conceal the writings in Syparis, the city of the Sun; thereupon he was to build a ship, and to embark on the same with all his companions, kindred, and nearest friends; he was to put in it provisions and drink, and to take with him the animals, the birds, as well as the quadrupeds. If any one should ask him whereto he was bound, he was to answer: To the gods; to implore good for men. He obeyed, and made an ark five stadia in length, and two in breadth, put together what was commanded, and embarked with wife, children, and kindred. As the flood subsided, Xisuthrus let fly a bird, which, when it neither found nourishment nor place to light, returned back into the ark. After some days he let fly another bird; this came back with slime upon its foot. The third bird sent forth never returned. Then Xisuthrus perceived that land was becoming visible, and after that he had broken an opening in the ship, he sees it driven upon a mountain, whence he descends with wife, daughter, and pilot, and when he had saluted the earth, built an altar, and offered sacrifice to the gods, he disappeared. Those who were left in the ship, when they saw that Xisuthrus did not return, went forth to seek him, and called him by name. Xisuthrus was seen no more, but a voice sounded from the air, bidding them to fear god, and telling them that on account of his piety he had been taken away to dwell with the gods; and that the same honor was given to his wife, daughter, and pilot. (This disappearance has relation to his deification, or probably to his translation among the stars, where the forms of the waterman, the young woman, and the carrier (the wagoner) still present themselves to us). They were commanded to return back to Babylon) where it was appointed to them to take the writings from Syparis, and impart the knowledge they contained to men. The country where they found themselves was Armenia. In respect to the ship, which had landed in Armenia, Berosus adds that there was still a portion of it on the mountains of Kordyäer (or the Kurdistan mountains) in Armenia, from which some persons cut off pieces, took them to their houses, and used them as amulets (according to Lücken). Amid all the similarity which this story presents to the Bible history, there is no mistaking the mythological coloring; for example, in the huge size of the ark. Just as little do we fail to hear the echo of the history of Enoch.

3. The Fact of the Flood.—The narrative of the flood, like the history of Paradise, has in a special measure the character of all the Bible histories—that Isaiah, it is at the same time fact and symbol; and it is the symbolical significance of this history that has formed the significant expression of the fact. In regard to the fact itself, the view is rendered in a high degree difficult by reason of the mingling with it of the following representations, resting solely on the literal interpretation: 1. the supposition that the history narrates not merely the extermination of the first human race, and, therefore, the overflowing of the earth according to the geographical extension of that race, but an absolute universal submersion of the whole earth itself; 2. the idea that the terrestrial relations were the same at that time that they are now, that the mountain elevations were completed, and

Page 25: Genesis 7 commentary

that the mountain Ararat was just as high as at the present time; 3. that the branching of the animal species had become as great at that day as it is now: add to these a 4 th, the ignoring of every symbolical imprint in the representation. As to what concerns the first two points, it is argued by Ebrard, for example (“Belief in the Holy Scriptures,” p73), that Ararat was16,000 feet high. The waters stand fifteen cubits above Ararat; consequently must the whole earth have been covered, though it may still remain a question whether single peaks, like the Dhawalagiri, might not have projected above the water-surface (in a literal construction of the text, however, such a doubt cannot remain), since a banking limitation of so high a flood would be inconceivable. This conclusion depends upon a supposition wholly uncertain, namely, that the peak of Ararat was in that day16,000 feet high. In regard to the first point, the remark of Nägelsbach (Art. “Noah,” Herzog’s Real-Encyclopedie) coincides wholly with the view of Delitzsch, namely, that the theological interest does not demand the universality of the flood in itself, but only the universality of the judgment that was executed by it. In respect to the second point, it is to be remarked, that the mountain formations of the earth had been, indeed, begun in the creative period, but were not yet fully completed. The history of the deluge Isaiah, without doubt, the history of a catastrophe in which the terrain of the earth experienced important modifications through the cooperation of fire. The deep sinking of the land in the neighborhood of the Armenian paradisaical region, which is denoted by the Caspian Sea, might alone have brought on a deluge catastrophe analogous to that which must have had a connection with the ruin of the legendary island of Atlantis. In respect to the third representation, the Darwin theory of the progressive origin of races, though in itself untenable, does nevertheless contain an indication of the truth that the countless unfolding of organic memberships in the animal life goes back to great individual anti-types, as science theoretically sets forth. For each species, perhaps, there may have been a ground type in the ark, out of which all varieties of the same have proceeded. In respect to the fourth false representation, which confounds the style of the Holy History with the notarial expression of a worldly pragmatism, we refer to the Introduction.

On the side of the mythologizing of the deluge history there are similar untenable representations that call for remark1. The apprehension in respect to the possibility of building the ark. It is historically established that, at all times, a necessity fundamentally perceived, has, under the guidance of God, brought to discovery the helps required for the accomplishment. Necessity learns to pray, learns to build2. The difficulty of assembling such a multitude of beasts in the ark. In reply to this, allusion has been made to the instinct of animals, which, in a presentiment of natural catastrophe, seek an asylum, sometimes, almost in violation of their natural habits. Birds, in a storm, fly to the ships; wolves come into the villages, etc3. The difficulty of the animal provisioning. Answer: This would be of least weight in respect to animals like those of the marmot and badger species, whose winter torpor in the easiest manner keeps them through the wintry storm-period. But the deluge, in like manner, supposes, in the main, a slumbering, dead-like transition from the old existence into the new. Darkness, the roaring and rocking of the waters in so peculiar a manner, must bring on a benumbing torpor, and, in the case of many animals, a winter sleep, whereby the feeding would be rendered unnecessary. The ground ideas of the deluge history are as high above the popular representations on the right, as they are beyond the scholastic thinking on the left. They may be regarded as something like the following: 1. At the moment when the first human race, through the commingling of an angel like elevation of the Sethic line with the demonic corruption of the Cainitic, is ripe for judgment, there is a corresponding catastrophe, having its ground in the earth’s development, forming an echo to the creation catastrophes, and, at the same time, imposed by God as a judgment doom

Page 26: Genesis 7 commentary

upon that human corruption2. The prophetic spirit of a pious patriarch, in whom there is concentrated the heart of the old world’s piety, takes into its belief not only the revelation of the impending judgment, but also the deliverance which out of that judgment is to go forth for this world itself as represented in his person, and in his family, whilst it denotes thereby the progress of faith in Revelation, from the assurance of salvation in the other world (which Enoch already had), to the confidence of salvation in this3. The inspiring of necessity teaches him, under the divine guidance, to build an ark, which, in its commencement, is to be a preaching of repentance to the cotemporaries of the builder, but which, in its completion, is distinguished neither by oar nor helm, but only by its great spaciousness and water-tight construction4. In this use of the ark, as a common asylum, the instincts of the beasts act in harmony with the prophetic presentiment of chosen men, whilst the rest follows through God’s care and a peculiar success5. The history of the flood is an ἅπαξ λεγόµενον in the world’s history, analogous to the creation of Adam, the birth and history of Christ, and the future history of the world’s end. Even Bunsen (ii. p63) affirms, in general, the historicalness of the biblical tradition.

Therefore is this unparalleled fact in the highest degree symbolic or ideal, whilst it Isaiah, at the same time, a typical prophecy1. It is a prophecy of the deliverance of Israel as the people of God in the passage through the Red Sea; 2. a prophecy of the deliverance of the Christian church from the corruption of the world, through the washing of baptism ( 1 Peter 3:21); 3. a prophecy of the deliverance of the congregation of Christ, at the world’s end, out of the fire-flood of the world’s judgment. The ark is especially reflected in the ark of Moses, in the ark of the covenant which was carried through the Jordan, in the household of the church, and in the congregation of faith at the end of the world. Knobel thinks that in the narration before us there is to be recognized an Elohistic foundation which the Jehovist must have elaborated, not without a contradiction of its fundamental ground. Thus the description of the corruption, in Genesis 6:11-12, he says, does not agree with the Jehovist, who represents the wickedness in human life as having commenced at a much earlier day. As though the origin of evil and an incurable corruption were not two distinct grades! Song of Solomon, according to the Jehovist, it is (as Knobel would have it) that the human life-period after the flood sinks down to one hundred and twenty years—an idea that rests upon a false interpretation. Moreover, it would seem not to agree with the ground-scripture, that of many kinds of beasts Noah took more than a pair ( Genesis 7:2-3; Genesis 7:8). Knobel supposes, therefore, that the special enlargement was a contradiction to the more general appointment. In regard to the fact itself, says Knobel: Unanswerable are the questions, how Noah came to expect the great flood, and was led to the building of the ark. So also would it be incapable of an answer, how at any time one could attain to a prophetic prevision. The question he regards as still more difficult to answer: “How he was enabled to produce such a structure,”—that Isaiah, such a great quadrangular box. Further: “How he got the beasts in his power?” Experience shows, that in extraordinary catastrophes of nature, the wildest animals take refuge with men. Lastly: “How could they all, together with the necessary provisioning for a whole year, find room in the ark?” This point carries us back to a primitive time, when, as yet, the species were comparatively less divided, and to a stormy death of nature, which intensified to its most extreme degree the phenomenon of the winter’s sleep; to say nothing of the point, that to the symbolical expression there is needed only the general fact of the saving of the animal world, along with Prayer of Manasseh, by means of the ark. When Ebrard admits that possibly the highest mountain-peaks may have projected above the surface of the waters of the deluge, it would allow the consequence of an Alpine fauna existing outside of the ark. The point mainly in view is the destruction of the human race, and the saving

Page 27: Genesis 7 commentary

of the Noachian family, in the deluge. Notwithstanding his objections, Knobel supposes an actual ground of fact in the narration, even as an after-piece to the great earth revolutions of the creative period (p78). This last point of view carries us beyond the supposition of mere partial historical inundations. A concussion of the earth permits the conclusion that a displacement occurred in its continental relations, whence there might have arisen a deluge of a very wide character, without our having to assume a corresponding inundation of the whole earth’s surface. Stormy deluges do not obey the law of standing waters. Such a deluge might have passed over the whole inhabited part of the earth, without making a like height of water as standing over the whole sphere.

“The grounds,” remarks Delitzsch, “on which the Thora (the Pentateuch) dwells so emphatically upon the flood, consist in their significancy for the history of God’s kingdom in general, and the history of the Old Testament theocracy in particular. The flood is an act of deepest significance, whether regarded as one of judgment or of salvation. It is a common judgment, making an incision in history so deep and so wide, of such force and universality, that nothing can be compared with it but the final judgment at the extreme limit of this world’s history. But the act of judgment Isaiah, at the same time, an act of salvation. The sin-deluge Isaiah, at the same time, a grace-deluge,[FN3] and so far a type of holy baptism ( 1 Peter 3:21), and of life rising out of death; therefore it Isaiah, that old ecclesiastical art was so fond of distinguishing chapels of burial by a representation of it. The destruction has in view the preservation, the drowning has in view the purification, the death of the human race has in view the new birth; the old corrupted earth is buried in the flood of water, that out of this grave there may emerge a new world. In this way Ararat points to Sinai. The covenant of Elohim, which God then made with the saved holy seed, and with the universal nature, points to the covenant of Jehovah.”

4. The Geological Effects of the Deluge.—In earlier times, the traces of earth revolutions that took place in the creative days (for example, the mountain formations, the shells on the highest hills, and similar phenomena) were brought forth as proofs of the flood. Such a mode of reasoning must now be laid aside by those who would reconcile revelation with science. Neither can the assumption be proved, that it rained for the first time in the flood, and that, with the change in the atmosphere, human life suddenly sunk in its duration, nor the supposition that at that time a sudden transformation took place in the animal world, or that new animals were originated. The following suppositions, however, may be regarded as more or less safely entertained: 1. As the great flood denoted an epoch in the life of humanity, so also must it have done in the life of the earth; and through this epoch the giant-like in the human natural powers seems to have been moderated, whilst, on the contrary, the development in the earth’s life becomes more conformable to law2. The historical indications and signs of great changes in the earth’s surface, such as volcanic mountain formations, surface transformations (Caspian Sea, and island Atlantis, for example), may be connected, in some special measure, with the catastrophe of the flood3. The flood in itself may, perhaps, have been partial (see F. Pfaff, “The Creative History,” p646), but the earth-crisis, on which it was conditioned, must have been universal. With the opening of the fountains of the deep stands the opening of the windows of heaven in polar contrast. An extraordinary rain-storm and fall of water over the Noachian earth-circle, was probably conditioned by an extraordinary evaporation in other regions of the globe. This must have been followed by an extraordinary congelation on the same side. Does the “ice-period,” the period of the wandering boulders, stand in any relation to this? As an earth-crisis, the flood was

Page 28: Genesis 7 commentary

probably universal.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Noah and his House, in contrast with the Contemporaries of Noah ( Genesis 6:9-11). The history that follows is distinguished by the name Tholedoth, or Generations of Noah. For Noah is not only the last of the Sethic patriarchs, as the end of the antediluvian period; he Isaiah, moreover, the first of the new, through the patriarchal line that goes on in Shem, and, in this representation, is he also a type of the future Christ, the finisher of the old, the author of the new, world. In a typical sense, Noah is the second ancestor of the human race, as Christ, the Man from Heaven, is such in a real sense ( 1 Corinthians 15). As a continuer of the old time, Noah is virtually a repetition of Adam; as a beginner of the new time, he is a type of Christ. He was a righteous man. According to Knobel, the author (of this account of the flood) knew nothing of any fall of Adam. One might deduce a like conclusion from Luke in his account of Zacharias and Elisabeth ( Genesis 1:6). But evidently the righteousness here meant is that which represents him as justified in view of the judgment of the flood, by reason of his faith ( Hebrews 11:7). Therefore was the explanation added: he was מיםm, guiltless, perfect, blameless among his cotemporaries who perished in the judgment. The ground of this was: he walked with God as Enoch did. That he begat three eons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, is here again related, as in Genesis 5:32, because in them the continuance of a new race is secured; with Noah, therefore, must his family also be saved. But, moreover, to Noah, and his house, there is formed a contrast in the race of his time, and in the old form of the earth that had been corrupted by it.

LANGE, "The approach of the Flood, and the Divine Direction to Noah for entering into the Ark ( Genesis 7:1-9). And the Lord said unto Noah.—Here Elohim appears as the covenant-God; therefore is he named Jehovah.—Come thou into the ark.—The signal of the approaching judgment. Enter, my people, into thy chamber ( Isaiah 26:20) for thee have I seen righteous! In the divine forum of the judgment of the deluge, Noah is justified before God by means of the righteousness of faith through the word of the promise; therefore is he saved, together with his whole family, because his faith is imputed for their good.—Before me (Heb. before my face) denotes the divine sentence of justification.—In his generation, denotes the opposite sentence of God against that generation.—Of every clean beast—by sevens.—This appointment is a special carrying out of the more universal one, Genesis 6:20; it Isaiah, therefore, wholly in correspondence with the advancing prophecy, and not in contradiction of it, as Knobel thinks. Of the unclean beasts it says, “by two, a male and a female;” according to the analogy of this expression, the number seven (as used of the clean beasts) would denote also the number of individuals (Calvin, Delitzsch, Keil, and others), not seven pair (Vulgate, Aben Ezra, Michaelis, De Wette, Knobel). The prescription, therefore, is three pair and one over. This one was probably destined for a thank-offering. “The distinction between clean and unclean beasts is not first made by Moses, but only becomes fixed in the law as corresponding to it, though existing long before. Its beginnings reach back to the primitive time, and ground themselves on an immediate conscious feeling of the human spirit not yet clouded by any unnatural and ungodly culture, under the influence of which feeling it sees in many beasts pictures of sin and corruption which fill it with aversion and abhorrence.” Keil. But such a distinction, so grounded, might make an analogous division a permanent law for Christendom. The contrast of clean and unclean

Page 29: Genesis 7 commentary

cannot, surely, have here the Levitical significance. More to the purpose would be the contrast of beasts tame and wild,—of beasts that are utterly excluded from the society of men, and roam about independent of them, although this contrast is limited by the physiological conception of cleanness and uncleanness (see Delitzsch, p256). The interchange of the divine names Jehovah and Elohim in our section makes trouble, as might well be inferred, for the documentary hypothesis (see Keil, p94, and the opposing view of Delitzsch, p256).—For yet seven days.—After seven days must the flood break out; there is appointed, therefore, a week for the marching into the ark.—Rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.—This is more widely expressed, Genesis 7:11, where the phenomenon of the deluge is referred back to its original cause, the breaking up of the fountains of the deep.—And Noah was six hundred years old.—According to Genesis 5:32, he was five hundred years old at the beginning of his married life. The120 years, therefore, of Genesis 6:3, go back beyond this.—And Noah went into the ark.—That the members of his household went in with him, denotes their connection with him in obedience, and in their fitness to be saved; with which the behavior of Lot’s sons in-law, and of his wife, forms a contrast. That the beasts follow him into the ark, shows a wonderful docility proceeding from their instinctive presentiment of the catastrophe.

2

Take with you seven[1] of every kind of clean

animal, a male and its mate, and two of every

kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,

BARES, "Gen_7:2-3

Of all clean cattle. - Here the distinction of clean and unclean animals meets us without any previous notice. How it became known to Noah we are not informed. From the former direction it appears that the animals were to enter by pairs. Now it is further arranged that there are to be seven pairs of the clean cattle and fowl, and only one pair of the unclean.

Of all clean cattle. - Here the distinction of clean and unclean animals meets us without any previous notice. How it became known to Noah we are not informed.

Page 30: Genesis 7 commentary

From the former direction it appears that the animals were to enter by pairs. Now it is further arranged that there are to be seven pairs of the clean cattle and fowl, and only one pair of the unclean.

CLARKE, "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 Leviticus 11.

GILL, "Gen 7:2 - Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens,....

From hence it appears, that the distinction of clean and unclean beasts, at least for sacrifice, if not for food, was known before the flood, and so before the law of Moses; though some think this is said by anticipation, and as providing a large stock of such creatures for the propagation of their species; because they would be most serviceable to men both for food and sacrifice: but as it is certain that sacrifices were offered ever since the fall of man; by the same way, namely, by divine revelation, that men were taught to sacrifice creatures as typical of the sacrifice of Christ, they were directed what sort of creatures to offer, as were most suitable figures of him; those beasts that were clean, and used under the law, and so no doubt, at this time, were oxen, sheep, and goats: and these were to be taken into the ark by "sevens", or "seven seven" (p); either only three pairs, male and female, for procreation, and the seventh a male for sacrifice, when the flood was over; or rather fourteen, seven couple, an equal number of male and female, as Aben Ezra and Ben Gersom, that there might be enough for propagation; since a large number of them would be consumed, both for food and sacrifice:

the male and his female, or "the man and his wife" (q); which confirms the sense given, that there were seven pairs, or otherwise, if there had been an odd seventh, there would not have been a male and his female:

and of beasts that are not clean by two, or only two:

the male and his female, or "the man and his wife"; which was a number sufficient for the propagation of creatures neither used for food nor sacrifice; and many of which are harmful to mankind, as lions, wolves, tigers, bears, &c.

HENRY 2-3, "Here are necessary orders given concerning the brute-creatures that were to be preserved alive with Noah in the ark, Gen_7:2, Gen_7:3. They were not capable of receiving the warning and directions themselves, as man was, who herein is taught more than the beasts of the earth, and made wiser than the fowls of heaven -that he is endued with the power of foresight; therefore man is charged with the care of them: being under his dominion, they must be under his protection; and, though he could not secure every individual, yet 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, for his comfort and benefit. We do not find that Noah was solicitous of himself about this matter; but God consults our happiness more than we do ourselves. Though God saw that the old world was very provoking, and foresaw that the

Page 31: Genesis 7 commentary

new one would be little better, yet he would preserve the brute creatures for man's use. Doth God take care for oxen? 1Co_9:9. Or was it not rather for man's sake that this care was taken? 2. Even the unclean beasts, which were least valuable and profitable, were preserved alive in the ark; for God's tender mercies are over all his works, and not over those only that are of most eminence and 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, Gen_8:20. God gives us six for one in earthly things, as in the distribution of the days of the week, that in spiritual things we should be all for him. What is devoted to God's honour, and used in his service, is particularly blessed and increased.

JAMISON 2-3, "Of every clean beast ... fowls — Pairs of every species of animals, except the tenants of the deep, were to be taken for the preservation of their respective kinds. This was the general rule of admission, only with regard to those animals which are styled “clean,” three pairs were to be taken, whether of beasts or birds; and the reason was that their rapid multiplication was a matter of the highest importance, when the earth should be renovated, for their utility either as articles of food or as employed in the service of man. But what was the use of the seventh? It was manifestly reserved for sacrifice; and so that both during Noah’s residence in the ark, and after his return to dry land, provision was made for celebrating the rites of worship according to the religion of fallen man. He did not, like many, leave religion behind. He provided for it during his protracted voyage.

CALVIN, "2.Of every clean beast. He again repeats what he had before said concerning animals, and not without occasion. For there was no little difficulty in collecting from woods, mountains, and caves, so great a multitude of wild beasts, many species of which were perhaps altogether unknown; and there was, in most of them, the same ferocity which we now perceive. Wherefore, God encourages the holy man, lest being alarmed with that difficulty, and having cast aside all hope of success, he should fail. Here, however, at first sight, appears some kind of contradiction, because whereas he before had spoken of pairs of animals, he now speaks of sevens. But the solution is at hand; because, previously, Moses does not state the number, but only says that females were added as companions to the males; as if he had said, Noah himself was commanded not to gather the animals promiscuously together, but to select pairs out of them for the propagation of offspring. Now, however, the discourse is concerning the actual number. Moreover, the expression, by sevens, is to be understood not of seven pairs of each kind, but of three pairs, to which one animal is added for the sake of sacrifice. (276) Besides, the Lord would have a threefold greater number of clean animals than of others preserved, because there would be a greater necessity of them for the use of man. In which appointment, we must consider the paternal goodness of God towards us, by which he is inclined to have regard to us in all things.

BENSON, "Genesis 7:2. 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

Page 32: Genesis 7 commentary

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.

COKE, "Genesis 7:2. Of every clean beast—by sevens—male and female— Seven pair of clean beasts were to be taken; the Hebrew is seven seven; by sevens. Of unclean beasts only one pair was to be taken: the reason for taking each sort is added, Genesis 7:3 to keep seed alive upon the earth, to preserve the several species. And here we may remark God's goodness in providing so superior a number of the clean or useful animals; a remark, which we cannot fail making, whenever we contemplate the animal world. "It is very evident from hence," says Mr. Locke, "that the distinction of beasts, clean and unclean, was not first made by the law of Moses." This appears also from Genesis 8:20. The distinction indeed seems founded, in a great measure, in nature itself: but it is most probable, that God gave Adam directions concerning it, when he instituted sacrifice, and the other branches of religion relating to divine worship.

COFFMAN, "Verse 2

"Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female; and of the beasts that are not clean two, the male and his female: of the birds also of the heavens, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive upon the face of the earth."

Right here is where the critics start screaming contradiction! They assert that this is from a different source, and that another source to which they ascribe Genesis 6:20 mentions only "two of every sort." The very next verse (Genesis 6:21), however, stressed that "food of every sort" was also to be taken into the ark; and, if as seems likely (though disputed by some) that animal flesh had been a source of food long prior to the flood, then the multiple pairs of clean beasts and fowl were inherently included previously in God's revelation that ample food supplies were to be taken aboard. So where is the contradiction? Even if their use as food is denied, this verse cannot logically be viewed otherwise than as supplemental instruction. It is altogether reasonable to view this passage as merely a detail "not mentioned,"Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Zondervon Publishing House, 1981). p. 167.">[2] earlier.

ELLICOTT, "(2) Of every clean beast—Heb., of all clean cattle—thou shalt take to thee by sevens—Heb., seven seven.—This probably does not mean seven pairs of each, though many commentators so interpret it, but seven of each kind. If, however, seven pairs be the right interpretation, but few species could have been included, as to attend properly to so large a number of animals would have been beyond the power of Noah and his sons. But which were the clean beasts? There can be no reference here to the Levitical law, which had respect to human food; nor to animals tamed and untamed, as all alike are called cattle; but probably the clean cattle were such as from the days of Adam ‘and Abel had been offered in sacrifice. Thus provision was made for Noah’s sacrifice on his egress from the ark, and also for his possession of a small herd of such animals as would be most useful to him amid the desolation which must have existed for a long time after

Page 33: Genesis 7 commentary

the flood. The clean beasts would therefore be oxen, sheep, goats; the unclean, camels, horses, asses, and such other animals as stood in some relation to man. Of birds, the dove would especially be clean.

It has been pointed out that these more full and specific orders are given in the name of Jehovah, whereas most of the narrative of the flood is Elohistic, and hence it has been assumed that some Jehovist narrator added to and completed the earlier narrative. These additions would be Genesis 7:1-6. the last clause of Genesis 7:16, Noah’s sacrifice in Genesis 8:20-22, and the cursing of Canaan in Genesis 9:18-27. Now, it is remarkable that the sacrifice is as integral a portion of the Chaldean Genesis as the sending forth of the birds (Chaldean Genesis, p. 286), and is thus indubitably older than the time of Moses. Still, there is nothing improbable in Moses having two records of the flood before him, and while the division of Genesis into Elohistic and Jehovistic portions usually breaks down, there is a primâ facie appearance of the combination of two narratives in the present history, or, at least, in this one section (Genesis 7:1-6).

PETT, "Genesis 7:2

“You shall take seven and seven of every clean animal, male and female, and two of the animals that are not clean, male and female. Of the birds of the air also, seven and seven, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the earth.”

It is not certain whether seven and seven means ‘seven pairs’ or seven of each kind, although Genesis 7:7 suggests the former, but either way provision is made for sacrificial offerings and later possibly for food. Already it is clear that there are distinct types of animals and birds considered suitable for sacrifice and for eating.

Such distinctions would in fact be necessary from the beginnings of the cult, unless it was accepted that anything could be offered, so that this is not an indication of late authorship. Views on sacrifice were complicated and widespread from the earliest times. This instruction on clean animals and birds could be given at the last moment as they would be to hand. How the numbers were originally indicated we do not know. Possibly by a hand of fingers plus two extra which may have had a name for it (as we say ‘twelve’ -‘two eleph’ = 2 extra on top of ten - see article, "The use of Numbers in the Ancient Near East and in Genesis").

WHEDON, "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

Page 34: Genesis 7 commentary

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.’” Genesis 7:9. 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.

TRAPP, "Verse 2

Genesis 7:2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that [are] not clean by two, the male and his female.

Ver. 2. Of every clean beast thou shalt take by sevens.] Three pair for generation, and a single one for sacrifice, after the flood was past. Genesis 8:20 God must have a share; and good reason. But that two only of a sort, of the unclean hurtful creatures were preserved, note his fatherly providence. To this day we see, though sheep and birds be so killed up for man’s use, yet there are far more of them, than of other unserviceable or cruel creatures. Besides, the weaker creatures go in herds together, the stronger and more savage go alone. For if they should go in multitudes, no man nor beast could stand before them. This you shall find set down to your hand. Job 37:8, Psalms 104:17-30 Ammianus Marcellinus writeth, "that in Chaldea there are a huge number of lions, which were like enough to devour up both men and beasts throughout the country. But withal, he saith, that by reason of the store of water and mud thereof, there breed yearly an innumerable company of gnats, whose property is to flee into the eye of the lion, as being a bright and orient thing, where, biting and stinging the lion, he teareth so fiercely with the claws, that he puts out his own eyes; and by that means many are drowned in the rivers, others starve for want of prey, and many the more easily killed by the inhabitants. Bodin (a) telleth us, that the wolf never seeth his sire, his dam, nor his young: for that the herd of wolves set upon, and killeth that wolf, which by the smell they perceive to have coupled with the she wolf; which unless they did, what a deal of mischief would be done by them everywhere among cattle!

Page 35: Genesis 7 commentary

3

and also seven of every kind of bird, male and

female, to keep their various kinds alive

throughout the earth.

GILL, "Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and his female,.... That is, of such as were clean; seven couple of these were to be brought into the ark, for the like use as of the clean beasts, and those under the law; and so at this time, and here meant were turtledoves, and young pigeons that were for sacrifice; and the rest were for food: and the design of bringing both into the ark was:

to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth; that the species of creatures might be continued, both of beasts and birds, clean and unclean.

CALVIN, "3.To keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. That is, that hence offspring might be born. But this is referred to Noah; for although, properly speaking, God alone gives life, yet God here refers to those duties which he had enjoined upon his servant: and it is with respect to his appointed office, that God commands him to collect animals that he may keep seed alive. Nor is this extraordinary, seeing that the ministers of the gospel are said, in a sense, to confer spiritual life. In the clause which next follows, upon the face of all the earth, there is a twofold consolation: that the waters, after they had covered the earth for a time, would again cease, so that the dry surface of the earth should appear; and then, that not only should Noah himself survive, but, by the blessing of God, the number of animals should be so increased, as to spread far and wide through the whole world. Thus, in the midst of ruin, future restoration is promised to him. Moses is very earnest in showing that God took care, by every means, to retain Noah in obedience to his word, and that the holy man entirely acquiesced. This doctrine is very useful, especially when God either promises or threatens anything incredible, since men do not willingly receive what seems to them improbable. For nothing was less accordant with the judgment of the flesh, than that the world should be destroyed by its Creator; because this was to subvert the whole order of nature which he had established. Wherefore, unless Noah had been well admonished of this terrible judgment of God, he never would have ventured to believe it; lest he should conceive of God as acting in contradiction to himself. The word היקום (hayekom,) which Moses here uses has its origin from a word signifying to stand; but it properly means whatever lives and flourishes.

PETT, "Genesis 7:3

“For there are only seven more days, and then I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty

Page 36: Genesis 7 commentary

days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”The number of days given for getting all the living creatures aboard is seven, the number of divine perfection, God’s perfect time. The world began in seven ‘days’, now preparations for its decease will also take ‘seven days’.

The ‘seven days’ may be literal, or they may indicate a God-given length of time, while not tying Noah down too strictly (compare the ‘seven-day journey’ which appears regularly in Genesis). As with Cain, so now the world are to be driven from the ‘face of the ground’, but this time with more finality, for they will be ‘blotted out’. The seven days was needed in order to get all the living things into the ark in readiness for the Flood, and it would seem to have taken up the whole time, for once they were in ‘on that very day’ the Flood came (Genesis 7:11-13).

“Forty days and forty nights” will later be significant as a period when men of God wait on God at special moments in history (Moses - Exodus 24:18; Exodus 34, 28; Deuteronomy 9:9; Deuteronomy 9:18; Elijah - 1 Kings 19:8; and Jesus Himself -Matthew 4:2 and parallels). Perhaps that idea looks back to this time. The mention of both days and nights shows the intensity of the experience. It is unceasing. ‘Forty days’ had probably already begun to mean an unspecified period of a little over a month, as it certainly would later as a period of waiting for judgment (Ezekiel 4:6; Jonah 3:4) or as a more general period of waiting (Numbers 13:25; 1 Samuel 17:16 - both significant periods of waiting for Israel). So what God is saying here (and what He probably originally said before it was translated into numbers) is that it will rain for over a moon period of days and nights. But the mention of nights stresses the continuity of it.

“I will cause it to rain -- I will blot out”. In Genesis 2:5 when God was mentioned as ‘causing it to rain’ on the earth it was, by inference, to bring for man the means of survival. Now God will cause it to rain to bring judgment on man. Previously it had brought life. Now it will bring death.

4

Seven days from now I will send rain on the

earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will

wipe from the face of the earth every living

creature I have made."

Page 37: Genesis 7 commentary

BARES, "Gen_7:4

Seven days after the issue of the command the rain is to commence, and continue for forty days and nights without ceasing. “Every standing thing” means every plant and animal on the land.

GILL, "Gen 7:4 - For yet seven days,.... Or one week more, after the above orders were given, which, the Jews say, were for the mourning at Methuselah's death; others, that they were an additional space to the one hundred and twenty given to the old world for repentance; in which time some might truly repent, finding that the destruction of the world was very near, and who might be saved from everlasting damnation, though not from perishing in the flood: but it rather was a space of time proper for Noah to have, to settle himself and family, and all the creatures in the ark, and dispose of everything there, in the best manner, for their sustenance and safety:

and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights: this was not an ordinary but an extraordinary rain, in which the power and providence of God were eminently concerned, both with respect to the continuance of it, and the quantity of water that fell:

and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth: not every substance that has a vegetative life, as plants, herbs, and trees, which were not destroyed, see Gen_8:11 but every substance that has animal life, as fowls, cattle, creeping things, and men.

CLARKE, "Gen 7:4 -

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, Deu_9:9, Deu_9:11; so did Elijah, 1Ki_19:8; so did our Lord, Mat_4:2. Forty days’ respite were given to the Ninevites that they might repent, Jon_3:4; and thrice forty (one hundred and twenty) years were given to the old world for the same gracious purpose, Gen_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.

HENRY, "Here is notice given of the now imminent approach of the flood: Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain, Gen_8:4. 1. “It shall be seven days yet, before I do it.” After the hundred and twenty years had expired, God grants them a reprieve of seven days longer, both to show how slow he is to anger and that punishing work is his strange work, and also to give them some further space for repentance: but all in vain; these seven days were trifled away, after all the rest; they continued secure and sensual until

Page 38: Genesis 7 commentary

the day that the flood came. 2. “It shall be but seven days.” While Noah told them of the judgment at a distance, they were tempted to put off their repentance, because the vision was for a great while to come; 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, but one sabbath more to improve, to see if that will now, at last, awaken them to consider the things that belong to their peace, which otherwise will soon be hidden from their eyes. But it is common for those that have been careless of 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.

JAMISON, "For yet seven days — A week for a world to repent! What a solemn pause! Did they laugh and ridicule his folly still? He whose eyes saw and whose heart felt the full amount of human iniquity and perverseness has told us of their reckless disregard (Luk_17:27).

COKE, "Verse 4

Genesis 7:4. Yet seven days.— This frequent reference to the period of seven days, shews that it was usual to calculate by weeks, a custom prevailing, as is reasonable to suppose, from the very beginning of the world. See ch. Genesis 8:10; Genesis 8:12. on which place Bishop Patrick observes, in agreement with Mr. Henry and Mr. Chais, that, by sending out the dove on the seventh day, Noah expected a blessing on that day rather than another, it being the day devoted from the beginning to religious services; which he having (it is likely) performed, thereupon sent out the dove that day, as he had done before, with hopes of good tidings.

REFLECTIONS.—When the work was finished, and the one hundred and twenty years at an end, then God begins to fulfil his faithful word.

1. Noah is commanded to enter with his family, and all the creatures. "Come into the ark." Sweet voice of mercy, thus inviting to a sure refuge from the impending storm. Such is the gracious call of Jesus to the sinful soul: "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." And shall we be obdurate, as blind to our own interest as insensible to the Saviour's love! Surely then we deserve to perish. His family were not all like their father; one, we are assured, was wicked enough, yet his father's mercies descend upon him. Learn, (1.) There is no pure society under the sun: in the ark was a reprobate, and, among the twelve apostles, a traitor. (2.) A bad child fares often the better for his parents sake.

2. A comfortable testimony repeated of his integrity. It is a blessed thing to have God's attestation to our simplicity before him: and it is the Lord's delight to behold it; his care to reward it. He will preserve such from the plagues of the ungodly, and reserve them as monuments of his distinguished mercy.

3. The regulations concerning the beasts, their nature and number. Of clean and unclean both must come, for none must be lost; yet their number differs, not only because the clean are most serviceable for man, and therefore shall be most numerous, (behold the wise providence of God!) but also because of them he must offer unto the Lord. Note;

Page 39: Genesis 7 commentary

man, in the provision which is made for his comfort, should never lose sight that the greater end still proposed in all God's works is his own glory.

4. Another respite of seven days. A moment more, another call, and the last. They who will not regard the judgment at their door, must perish without remedy.

5. Noah was not disobedient to the heavenly admonition. (1.) He went in, and all his, and the creatures God had brought him. (2.) As soon as he was safely lodged, the flood came. Note; when God's last saint is gathered in, and the number of the redeemed is accomplished, then a more terrible deluge of fire shall descend upon the ungodly.

COFFMAN, "Verse 4

"For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground."

Two things of special interest here are the use of the number "forty," and the destruction of animals, which may not be considered sinful, along with the punishment of human wickedness. Regarding the first of these, Unger pointed out that "forty" appears in both O.T. and N.T. as "the sacred number of trial and patience,"[3] there being many examples of it: Jesus' fasting for forty days, the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness for forty years, etc.

Regarding the second, Jamieson pointed out that such was necessary in order to preserve the ecological balance on the earth.[4] At a time when the human family was being reduced so drastically in numbers, the unlimited proliferation of the lower creation would have become a threat to the lives of men. In addition to this, God's punishment usually extended beyond the strict boundaries of the offense. Thus, Achan was not only destroyed, but his house also (Joshua 7:24f).

ELLICOTT, "(4) Forty days.—Henceforward forty became the sacred number of trial and patience, and, besides the obvious places in the Old Testament, it was the duration both of our Lord’s fast in the wilderness and of His sojourn on earth after the Resurrection.

Every living substance.—The word “living” is found neither in the Hebrew nor in the ancient versions, and limits the sense unnecessarily. The word is rare, being found only thrice, namely, here, in Genesis 7:23, and in Deuteronomy 11:6. It means whatever stands erect. Thus God “destroys”—Heb., blots out (see on Genesis 6:7)—not man and beast only, but the whole existent state of things—“from the face of the earth”—Heb., the adâmâh, the cultivated and inhabited ground. This section is much more limited in the extent which it gives to the flood, not including reptiles, or rather, small animals, among those saved in the ark, and confining the overflow of the waters to the inhabited region.

TRAPP, "Verse 4

Genesis 7:4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

Page 40: Genesis 7 commentary

Ver. 4. For yet seven days, &c.] God could have destroyed them by water, or otherwise, in a far shorter space: But, of his free grace, he gives them yet seven days further, and then rains upon the earth forty days, as, not willing that any should "eternally perish, but that all should come to repentance". [2 Peter 3:9] The Hebrew doctors are very injurious to Noah, because we read not that he prayed for the old world, but only took care of himself, and his own family, censuring him therefore of self-love and hard-heartedness. So they judge very uncharitably of those that perished in the flood; sending them all to hell, and wresting some scriptures thereunto; as, that in this present verse, God saith, he will destroy them, or blot them out; that is, say they, (a) out of the land of the world to come, the land of the living. I deny not, but many of their "spirits are in prison"; so saith St Peter. [1 Peter 3:19] But withal, in the next chapter, the same apostle tells us, that "for this cause the gospel was preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit". [1 Peter 4:6] Compare these words with those in 1 Peter 3:18-20, and it will appear, the apostle speaks of these antediluvians. All were not saved that were in the ark, nor all damned, we may well think, that were out of it. Could they see their "foundation overflown with a flood," as the phrase is, [Job 22:16] and "not lay for themselves a good foundation" by "laying hold on eternal life"? [1 Timothy 6:19] St Ambrose conceiveth, that Noah was seven days in the Ark, before the flood came; that as God was six days in creating the world, and rested the seventh; so these perishing persons, admonished by the number of the days of the creation, might "remember their creator," [Ecclesiastes 12:1] and make their peace. Nunquam sero, si serio .

BI, "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth.

The Divine threat of destruction

I. VERY SOON TO BE EXECUTED.

II. VERY MERCIFUL IN ITS COMMENCEMENT.

III. VERY TERRIBLE IN ITS DESTRUCTION. “And every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.”

1. The destruction was determined.

2. The destruction was universal.

3. The destruction was piteous.

IV. VERY SIGNIFICANT IN ITS INDICATION. The Fatherhood of God is not incompatible with the punishment of sinners. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Divine threatenings

1. That they will surely be executed.

2. At the time announced.

3. In the manner predicted.

4. With the result indicated. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Page 41: Genesis 7 commentary

BENSON, "Genesis 7:4. 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?

5

And oah did all that the LORD commanded him.

BARES 5-9, "Gen_7:5-9

The execution of the command is recorded and fully particularized with the additional circumstance of the age of Noah. “The son of six hundred years,” in his six hundredth year. “Went they unto Noah.” They seem to have come under the influence of a special instinct, so that Noah did not require to gather them. Seven days were employed in receiving them, and storing provisions for them.

GILL, "And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him,.... He prepared for his entrance into the ark, and all the creatures with him; got everything ready for them, the rooms for their habitation, and food for their sustenance.

HERY,Gen 7:5-10 -

Page 42: Genesis 7 commentary

Here is Noah's ready obedience to the commands that God gave him. Observe, 1. He went into the ark, upon notice that the flood would come after seven days, though probably as yet there appeared no visible sign of its approach, no cloud arising that threatened it, nothing done towards it, but all continued serene and clear; for, as he prepared the ark by faith in the warning given that the flood would come, so he went into it by faith in this warning that it would come quickly, though he did not see that the second causes had yet begun to work. In every step he took, he walked by faith, and not by sense. During these seven days, it is likely, he was settling himself and his family in the ark, and distributing the creatures into their several apartments. This was the conclusion of that visible sermon which he had long been preaching to his careless neighbours, and which, one would think, might have awakened them; but, not obtaining that desired end, it left their blood upon their own heads. 2. He took all his family along with him, his wife, to be his companion and comfort (though it should seem that, after this, he had no children by her), his sons, and his sons' wives, that by them not only his family, but the world of mankind, might be built up. Observe, Though men were to be reduced to so small a number, and it would be very desirable to have the world speedily repeopled, yet Noah's sons were each of them to have but one wife, which strengthens the argument against having many wives; for from the beginning of this new world it was not so: as, at first, God made, so now he kept alive, but one woman for one man. See Mat_19:4, Mat_19:8. 3. 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. The ox now knew his owner, and the ass his protector's crib, nay, even the wildest creatures flocked to it; but man had become more brutish than the brutes themselves, and did not know, did not consider, Isa_1:3.

CALVIN, "5.And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded. This is not a bare repetition of the former sentence; but Moses commends Noah’s uniform tenor of obedience in keeping all God’s commandments; as if he would say, that in whatever particular it pleased God to try his obedience, he always remained constant. And, certainly, it is not becoming to obey one or another commandment of God only, so that when we have performed a defective obedience, we should feel at liberty to withdraw; for we must keep in memory the declaration of James,

‘He who forbade thee to kill, forbade thee also to steal, and to commit adultery,’ (James 2:11.)

HAWKER, "And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

Sweet view, this, of Noah’s obedience. In this act let it be observed, that the patriarch quitted house and land, and all that he had, to rely upon the Divine assurance alone, in the security of the ark. Is not this similar to the faith of the believer in the present hour, in renouncing all self-confidences and self-attainments, to rest for salvation alone on the righteousness of the Lord Jesus? And what greater authority than the command of Jehovah? Is not this the warrant?

COFFMAN, "Verse 5

"And Noah did according unto all that God commanded him."

Page 43: Genesis 7 commentary

This is a reference to Noah's fulfilling the terms of God's covenant with him regarding the preservation of him and his house through the disaster about to come upon the world.

The fact of Genesis 7:4, mentioning only the forty days of rain with no reference to the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep is another alleged support of the multiple sources theories regarding Genesis. Regarding this, we are glad to note, as Hobbs said, that there is an increasing dissatisfaction with these theories, and that many today "distrust such scissors and paste methods" imposed upon the Bible.[5] It should always be remembered in connection with such mishandling of Scripture that there is no textual basis for it. It is founded solely in the imaginations of Biblical enemies. This verse is only more supplemental information.

LANGE, "Genesis 7:5. To represent the wickedness of Prayer of Manasseh, our text goes further, and expresses the incurable perdition of the old earth itself, as having been produced by it. It was utterly corrupt, in that it was filled with wickedness, acts of violence, and pride. But it was corrupt before the eye of God in its most manifest form, so that its judgment was imperatively demanded.—And God looked upon the earth, and lo.—Delitzsch correctly points out the contrast of these words to Genesis 1:31. “Everything stood in sharpest contradiction with that good state which God the creator had established.” God’s looking (or seeing) denotes a final sentence. The earth was incurably corrupt because all flesh had corrupted its way, that Isaiah, its normal way of life, upon the corrupted earth. Herein lies the indication, that as men grew wild and savage, the animal world also threatened to become wild. If, however, we suppose, with Delitzsch, an universal corruption of the animal world, whence could Noah have taken the good specimens for his ark? Moreover, it cannot be concluded, from Genesis 9:4, that men, in their greediness for flesh, cut out pieces from the yet living animal. According to Knobel, the text denotes the beasts, inasmuch as they originally lived upon vegetables, but now had partly degenerated into flesh-eaters. This, however, would be all the same as introducing a representation into the text, just as Delitzsch maintains, that the eating of flesh had not yet been permitted. Keil understands the words in question as referring generally to men only. Thereby, however, there is loosened that organic connection of Prayer of Manasseh, beast, and earth, on which the text lays stress. More correct is the emphasis he lays on the words “all flesh:” humanity had become flesh ( Genesis 7:3).

TRAPP, "Verse 5

Genesis 7:5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

Ver. 5. And Noah did according unto all.] This "All," is a little word, but of large extent. He doth not his master’s but his own will, that doth no more than himself will. A dispensatory conscience is an evil conscience. God cries to us, η ολως, η µη ολως. He will have universal obedience both for subject and object. ( Quicquid propter Deum sit, aequaliter sit .) We must be entirely willing in all things to please God, or we utterly

Page 44: Genesis 7 commentary

displease him. Herod did many things, and was not a button the better. Jehu’s golden calves made an end of him, though he made an end of Baal’s worship. He that doth some, and not "all God’s will," with David, θεληµατα, Acts 13:22 in desire and affection at least, doth but as Benhadad, recover of one disease, and die of another: yea, if he take not a better course for himself, he doth but take pains to go to hell. Then shall we not be ashamed, when we have respect, at least, to all God’s commandments. [Psalms 119:6]

BI, "Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him

The obedience of Noah to the commands of God

I. IT WAS OBEDIENCE RENDERED UNDER THE MOST TRYING CIRCUMSTANCES.

II. IT WAS OBEDIENCE RENDERED IN THE MOST ARDUOUS WORK.

III. IT WAS OBEDIENCE RENDERED IN THE MOST HEROIC MANNER. (J. S.Exell, M. A.)

Safely kept by God

When Paul was in danger from the forty men who laid wait to kill him, Providence shut him up in Caesarea, where he was free from the peril. When Luther would probably have been slain by wicked Papists, he was taken by force to a strong castle, where he was in good keeping till it was safe for him to go abroad. Jesus, too, as a babe, was taken into Egypt for His preservation from death.

The entrance of the animals into the ark

At last the allotted time is fully or nearly expired. Noah has laid the last planks of the ark, which now stands up like a mountain, relieved against the sky. But that sky is as yet serene and cloudless, and there seems as little prospect of a deluge as there was a hundred and twenty years ago. The general interest in the matter has languished and nearly expired, when it is suddenly awakened into an intense glow by an extraordinary occurrence. The people bad laughed at the immense size of the ark, at its many rooms, at the quantity of food Noah had collected, and had asked, “Whence are the animals to come that are to fill these corners and to consume these stores?” But now a strange rumour flies abroad; it is, that a vast and motley throng of birds, beasts, and creeping things are thronging from every quarter toward the ark. There are cries, indeed, in contradiction to this “It cannot be, it is a mere report got up by Noah”; but soon it forces itself as a fact upon the conviction of all, and the most obstinately incredulous have to stand dumb beside; and worse, have no power to obstruct the passage. It is a sight the sublimity of which they are compelled to admire, even while they tremble thereat; being, indeed, a repetition on a larger scale of the passage of the animals before Adam. The lion and the lioness come, loth, it would seem in a degree, to circumscribe their wild freedom and majesty, yet unable to resist the pressure of the power above. The tiger and his mate, like fiends chained, but the chains not seen; the rhinoceros, buffalo, and mammoth, causing the earth to groan beneath their tread; panthers and leopards swiftly advancing; the slow-moving bear and the “solemn” elephant; the bull, the stag, and the elk, with their flashing horns; the horse, the glory of his nostrils terrible still, although tamed somewhat in the shadow of his unseen rider, God; the antelope and the wolf met together; the fox and the lamb embracing each other; the hyena, horrible even in his

Page 45: Genesis 7 commentary

transient tameness; besides fifty more forms of brutal life, clean or unclean, beneath whose ranks you see thick streams of reptile existence, from the serpent to the scorpion, from the boa constrictor to the lizard, wriggling on their ark-ward way. And high overhead are flights of birds, here all oracular of doom, winging their courses—the earnest eagle, the gloom glowing raven, the reluctant vulture, the heavy kite, the fierce-eyed falcon, the high-soaring hawk, the lark with her lyric melody, the dove with her spotless plumage, the humming bird with her sparkling gem-like shape, the nightingale with her sober plumage and melting song, the swallow with the dark-light glance and shivered beauty of her wing, and a hundred more of those skiey demons or angels now sweep past to their prepared nests in the ark, even as spirits from a thousand deaths on a battlefield find their winged way to the “land of souls”! Surely you might have expected that such a throng of nature’s children, all subdued into one harmony, aiming at one mark, and animated by one spirit, as by one supernatural soul, should have not only awed, but convinced and converted the multitude who saw their passage. But it was not so. In what way or through means of what sophistry they contrived to evade the impression made by such a startling event, we cannot tell; but evade it they did—proving that there have sometimes been hearts so hard and consciences so seared that the most stupendous miracles have been unable to move them or melt them into repentance. (G. Gilfillan.)

The ark open for all

On the morning when the ark door was opened you might have seen in the sky a pair of eagles, a pair of sparrows, a pair of vultures, a pair of ravens, a pair of humming birds, a pair of all kinds of birds that ever cut the azure, that ever floated on wing, or whispered their song to the evening gales. In they came. But, if you had watched down on the earth, you would have seen come creeping along a pair of snails, a pair of snakes, and a pair of worms. There ran along a pair of mice; there came a pair of lizards; and in there flew a pair of locusts. There were pairs of creeping creatures, as well as pairs of flying creatures. Do you see what I mean by that? There are some of you that can fly so high in knowledge that I should never be able to scan your great and extensive wisdom; and others of you so ignorant that you can hardly read your Bibles. Never mind: the eagle must come down to the door, and you must go up to it. There is only one entrance for you all; and, as God saved the birds that flew, so He saved the reptiles that crawled. Are you a poor, ignorant, crawling creature, that never was noticed—without intellect, without repute, without fame, without honour? Come along, crawling One! God will not exclude you. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

NISBET, "OBEDIENCE TO GOD

‘Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.’

Genesis 7:5

‘Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him.’ A world goes to wreck. Sin ruins rapidly. Sin is death. Only one family is fit to survive, and that not on account of known excellence in the family, but in the head, and he far from perfect.

I. The one saving element left in the world is Noah’s obedience to God. Therein lies the possibility of his being taken out of the catastrophic ruin, and of his taking others with

Page 46: Genesis 7 commentary

him. This is the last lingering conformity to conditions of best existence left in the world. His obedience is based on a prodigious faith. He spends vast sums and one hundred and twenty years building, on land, such a ship as was never known, for seas never seen. He was to gather animals and food, was to enter himself, and be shut in from the storm, when as yet the sky was clear.

II. What way had men of knowing God’s will then, that we have not to-day? None that prevented the exercise of a supreme faith. And the faith of the ancient worthies left unreached the better things reserved for ours. Did their faith ever compass the eternal salvation of the families of the whole earth? Noah’s faith only reached to the temporal salvation of one family. Could not the ark that saved beasts have saved more than eight persons, if Noah could have asked for them? God is always ready to do more than we can ask, or even think.

III. What a wonder that God should take such pains to save eight grains of wheat from a world full of chaff! The bruised reed He will not break. God’s plans are infinite; it is not to be expected that we should understand, but His agencies are omnipotent, hence we can obey. Luther said he would rather obey than work miracles. But whoever obeys does work miracles; for ‘God’s biddings are enablings.’ Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.

Illustration

(1) ‘The moral of this whole story of Noah is very evident. This history enforces the necessity of instant repentance and obedience to the commands of God. Now is the day of salvation. God will not wait always. Eternity calls. Events are rushing on, and men are caught in their rush. Destiny must be decided now. Time flies. The Judgment is coming. Yet still the door of mercy is open. Enter into the ark.’

(2) ‘We want faith not only to stand against evil, but to enter the Ark of Safety. This we do when we come to Jesus Christ, and give ourselves right up to Him, in an act of complete self-surrender. To have been outside the ark, even if seeing it and touching it, would have been of no avail when the Flood came. Another day of retribution is coming. The wrath of God will again be revealed against all unrighteousness. Flee to the one Ark of Safety. A man to whom a Bible had for the first time been given, eagerly read it. Turning to his wife he said: “Wife, if this Book be true, we are lost.” Then he read it for days more earnestly than before, till he exclaimed, “Wife, if this Book be true, we may be saved!”’

PETT, "Genesis 7:1

‘And Yahweh said to Noah, “Come, both you and all your household into the ark, for I have seen you as righteous before me in this generation”.’

We now see a reversion from Elohim to Yahweh because God is now dealing with Noah personally as one who is within His covenant and not primarily as Judge and Creator.

Page 47: Genesis 7 commentary

The long period of activity required in Genesis 6:22 is over and the time has come for them to take refuge in the ark. Again the reason is stressed, it is because Noah is the only one of his generation to be acceptable to God through his faithfulness and his faith in God.

Now Yahweh gives more detailed instructions. In the previous verses He had stated that two of every kind of creature must enter the ark, so that their kinds might be preserved, for He was speaking as Elohim, the Creator, now He deals with the more practical element that it is necessary for more to be preserved of the ‘clean’ animals, and also of the ‘clean’ birds, which are both suitable for food and sacrificial offerings, for He is speaking as Yahweh, the covenant God, ensuring the maintenance of worship and the preservation of His people. This was clearly necessary or else the family would be unable to offer sacrifices to God until there had been time for the clean animals and birds to breed sufficiently, nor would they have sufficient milk and food. Genesis 7:3 almost certainly refers to clean birds rather than all birds, being a parallel with Genesis 7:2 in abbreviated form.

6

oah was six hundred years old when the

floodwaters came on the earth.

GILL, "And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth,.... When it began, for he was in his six hundred and first year when it ended, Gen_8:13 his eldest son was now an hundred years old, since when Noah was five hundred years old he begat children, Gen_5:32.

CALVIN, "6.And Noah was six hundred years old. It is not without reason that he again mentions the age of Noah. For old age has this among other evils, that it renders men more indolent and morose; whence the faith of Noah was the more conspicuous, because it did not fail him in that advanced period of life. And as it was a great excellence, not to languish through successive centuries, so big promptitude deserves no little commendation; because, being commanded to enter the ark, he immediately obeyed. When Moses shortly afterwards subjoins, that he had entered on account of the waters of the deluge, the words ought not to be expounded, as if he were compelled, by the

Page 48: Genesis 7 commentary

rushing of the waters, to flee into the ark; but that he, being moved with fear by the word, perceived by faith the approach of that deluge which all others ridiculed. Wherefore, his faith is again commended in this place, because, indeed, he raised his eyes above heaven and earth.

COFFMAN, "Verse 6"And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth."

The exact beginning of the flood is pinpointed more definitely in Genesis 7:11, where it is placed in the second month on the seventeenth day of the month of the year when Noah was 600 years old. Unfortunately, no one knows just how the years mentioned here were reckoned.[6] Of course, his sons would have been about a hundred years of age, as they were born in Noah's 500th year.

TRAPP, "Verse 6Genesis 7:6 And Noah [was] six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

Ver. 6. And Noah was six hundred years old.] He was five hundred old when God first foretold the flood, and promised the old world one hundred and twenty years’ respite: but, wearied out with their obstinacy in sin, he "cut the work short in righteousness," [Romans 9:28] and brought the flood upon them twenty years sooner: as it is said of Christ’s second coming, that, "for the elect’s sake, those days shall be shortened"; [Matthew 24:22] so, for the contumacy of these ungodly sinners, their judgment was hastened. For God is not asleep, or gone a journey, as the prophet said of Baal, &c. [1 Kings 18:27]

7

And oah and his sons and his wife and his

sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters

of the flood.

COFFMA, "Verse 7

"And oah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into

the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are

Page 49: Genesis 7 commentary

not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creepeth upon the ground, there went

in two and two unto oah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded

oah."

We find full agreement with Unger that the animals "were taken in by God... by

implanted instinct."[7] oah did not have to round up the animals and corral them

and drive them into the ark; they "went in unto oah."

"Because of the waters of the flood ..." This does not mean that they waited until it

started raining, and then went in, but their knowledge, through faith, of what was to

occur was the cause of their entry. This is clear enough from the statement in the

very next verse. The supernatural nature of this whole narrative should not be

overlooked. This is not the record, merely, of God's warning of a great natural

disaster, which oah heeded, but it is an account of divine punishment sent upon

mankind for willful wickedness, a punishment nevertheless tempered with mercy in

that God did preserve the seed, both of men and of the lower creations, for a new

beginning.

The source of this record should not be sought in some local flood, as some have

attempted. Evidence of great floods have been pointed out as occurring in the lower

Mesopotamian valley,[8] but none of those findings are of sufficient dimensions to

warrant mistaking them for what is in evidence here. Furthermore, the geological

evidences of great floods here and there in the earth have in all likelihood,

themselves been disturbed, rearranged, and scrambled by the countless geological

disturbances that succeeded them. The theory that the present status of the

continents would necessarily preserve any readable record of the events in this

chapter is unfounded. The local flood idea cannot be harmonized with the epic

dimensions so dramatically displayed here. Here is the record of a cosmological

disturbance unlike any ever occurring on earth, either before or since.

GILL, "And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark,.... Within the space of the seven days, between the command of God to go into it, and the coming of the flood; or rather on the seventh day, on which it began to rain; when he saw it was coming on, see Gen_7:11.

because of the waters of the flood; for fear of them, lest, before he entered into the ark with his family, he and they should be carried away with them; or "from the face of the waters" (r), which now began to appear and spread; or rather, "before the waters" (s), before they came to any height.

PETT, "Genesis 7:7

Page 50: Genesis 7 commentary

‘And Noah went in with his sons and his wife and his son’s wives with him into the ark because of the waters of the cataclysm.’There is as yet no rain, but in full obedience Noah and his sons carry out the task of entering the ark, a process which clearly took seven days with all the creatures to get aboard, and they take their wives with them. This links the sons in obedience with their father. It was as well they obeyed promptly. Although they were not to know it there would be more than rain in the cataclysm to come.

Notice the change of emphasis as regards the Flood. In Genesis 6:17 and Genesis 7:6 (‘cataclysm of waters’) the emphasis is on the cataclysm, God’s judgment, which is by water, which will destroy the earth. Here and in Genesis 7:10 (‘waters of the cataclysm’) the emphasis is on Noah and his sons being saved from the waters of the cataclysm. They will endure the cataclysm but will be saved from the waters.

TRAPP, "Verse 7Genesis 7:7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

Ver. 7. And Noah went in, and his sons, &c.] Not till he was compelled by the coming in of the flood, say the Jews: of no good will, but because there was no other remedy. Thus they belie the good old preacher. Let no man think much to be misjudged. Novit sapiens ad hoc scamma se productum, ut depuguet cure iis, qui maledictis aluntur, ut venenis capreae . a

And his wife, and his sons’ wives.] Here some have noted, that when they entered into the ark, the Holy Ghost puts the men by themselves, and the women by themselves; as, when they went out, God joined them together; to teach us, say they, that in a common calamity "those that have wives, must be as they that have none". [1 Corinthians 7:5; 1 Corinthians 7:29]

BI, "Because of the waters of the flood

Popular reasons for a religious life

There are many motives urging men to seek the safety of their souls.

I. BECAUSE RELIGION IS COMMANDED. Some men are good because God requires moral rectitude from all His creatures, they feel it right to be pure. They wish to be happy, and they find that the truest happiness is the outcome of goodness.

II. BECAUSE OTHERS ARE RELIGIOUS. Multitudes are animated by a desire to cultivate a good life because their comrades do. They enter the ark because of the crowds that are seen wending their way to its door.

III. BECAUSE RELIGION IS A SAFETY. We are told that Noah’s family went into the ark “because of the waters of the flood.” Many only become religious when they see the troubles of life coming upon them; they regard piety as a refuge from peril. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Page 51: Genesis 7 commentary

Noah and the ark

I. THE WARNED ACCEPTING ADMONITION. The warning we have corresponds with the warning Noah had, in—

1. Its source;

2. Its medium;

3. Its subject;

4. Its design.

II. THE IMPERILLED SEEKING REFUGE.

1. The urgently-needed refuge.

2. The divinely-appointed refuge.

3. The wisely-adapted refuge.

4. The only-existing refuge (Act_4:12).

III. THE INVITED TRUSTING PROMISE.

IV. THE OBEDIENT SECURING SAFETY. (J. Poulter, B. A.)

8

Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and

of all creatures that move along the ground,

GILL, "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean,.... Seven couple of the one, and a couple of the other:

and of fowls, clean and unclean, also a like number:

and of everything that creepeth upon the earth; and upon that only, not in the water, for these had no need of the ark, they could live in the waters.

Page 52: Genesis 7 commentary

CALVIN, "8.Of clean beasts. Moses now explains, — what had before been doubtful, — in which manner the animals were gathered together into the ark, and says that they came of their own accord. If this should seem to any one absurd, let him recall to mind what was said before, that in the beginning every kind of animals presented themselves to Adam, that he might give them names. And, truly, we dread the sight of wild beasts from no other cause than this, that seeing we have shaken off the yoke of God, we have lost that authority over them with which Adam was endued. Now, it was a kind of restoration of the former state of things when God brought to Noah those animals which he intended should be preserved through Noah’s labor and service. For Noah retained the untamed animals in his ark, in the very same way in which hens and geese are preserved in a coop. And it is not superfluously added, that the animals themselves came, as God had instructed Noah; for it shows that the blessing of God rested on the obedience of Noah, so that his labor should not be in vain. It was impossible, humanly speaking, that in a moment such an assemblage of all animals should take place; but because Noah, simply trusting the event with God, executed what was enjoined upon him; God, in return, gave power to his own precept, that it might not be without effect. Properly speaking, this was a promise of God annexed to his commands. And, therefore, we must conclude, that the faith of Noah availed more, than all snares and nets, for the capture of animals; and that, by the very same gate, lions, and wolves, and tigers, meekly entered, with oxen, and with lambs, into the ark. And this is the only method by which we may overcome all difficulties; while, — being persuaded, that what is impossible to us is easy to God, — we derive alacrity from hope. It has before been stated that the animals entered in by pairs. We have also related the different opinions of interpreters respecting the month in which the deluge took place. For since the Hebrews begin their year in sacred things from March, but in earthly affairs from September; or, — which is the same thing, — since the two equinoxes form with them a double commencement of the year, some think that the sacred year, and some the political, is here intended. But because the former method of reckoning the years was Divinely appointed, and is also more agreeable to nature, it seems probable that the deluge began about the time of spring.

PETT, "Genesis 7:8-9

‘Of clean animals and unclean animals, of birds and of everything that creeps on the ground, there went in two and two to Noah into the ark, male and female as God (Elohim) commanded Noah.’The emphasis here is on the fact that the creatures were in pairs, both male and female, whether pairs of two or pairs of sevens, to stress God’s determination to repopulate the earth. Previously it had been ‘two of every sort’, compared with ‘two and two’ here. Elohim is used in order to refer the reader back to God’s command in Genesis 6:19 with Genesis 7:22. (Note however that it was as Yahweh that God referred to the distinction between clean and unclean (Genesis 7:2) - thus both names are in use by the one writer).

TRAPP, "Verse 8

Genesis 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that [are] not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

Ver. 8. And of those that are not clean.] So a Doeg may set his foot as far within the sanctuary as a David: A "generation of vipers" may come to John’s baptism, [Matthew 3:7] as well as better men. But as these beasts came unclean to the ark, and went thence

Page 53: Genesis 7 commentary

as unclean; so do most men to the holy ordinances; which yet are the heavenly exchange betwixt God and his elect: they present duty, He confers mercy. "The just Lord is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: … but the unjust knoweth no shame"; [Zephaniah 3:5] he that is "filthy," will "be filthy still". [Revelation 22:11]

9

male and female, came to oah and entered the

ark, as God had commanded oah.

GILL, "There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark,.... Of themselves, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, being impressed with an instinct from God so to do; or by the ministry of angels, as observed See Gill on Gen_6:20 there were two of a sort, and some think four:

the male and the female; and of some seven, or seven pairs, as before observed:

as God commanded Noah; which respects his own and his family's entrance and the creatures; both were commanded by God, and attended to by Noah, who was obedient in all things.

JAMISON, "There went in two and two — Doubtless they were led by a divine impulse. The number would not be so large as at first sight one is apt to imagine. It has been calculated that there are not more than three hundred distinct species of beasts and birds, the immense varieties in regard to form, size, and color being traceable to the influence of climate and other circumstances.

TRAPP, "Verse 9

Genesis 7:9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

Ver. 9. There went in two and two.] Of their own accord, by divine instinct. Noah was not put to the pains of hunting after them, or driving them in. Only he seems to have been six days in receiving and disposing of them in their various cells, and fetching in food. When God bids us do this or that, never stand to cast perils; but set upon the work, yield "the obedience of faith," and fear nothing. The creatures came in to Noah, without

Page 54: Genesis 7 commentary

his care or cost. He had no more to do, but to take them in, and place them. The prophet alludes hereto in Isaiah 11:6-7, - all bloodiness and rapine aside.

10

And after the seven days the floodwaters came

on the earth.

BARES, "Gen 7:10-16 -

- 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.

GILL, "And it came to pass after seven days,.... Were ended, or on the seventh day, after God had given the orders to Noah, to prepare for his going into the ark, with his family, and all the creatures:

that the waters of the flood were upon the earth: that is, they began to be upon the earth; for it continued to rain from hence forty days and forty nights; and still the waters continued to increase, and it was an hundred and fifty days before they began to ebb.

COFFMAN, "Verse 10"And it came to pass after the seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the

Page 55: Genesis 7 commentary

earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights."

Genesis 7:11 here, is for the purpose of precisely dating the coming of the Flood. Of course, the exact manner of counting years referred to is unknowable in the light of what information we have; and, therefore, we do not know if it began in the Fall or the Spring. Even the duration of it is ambiguous. Willis' chart placing the duration at a period of one year and ten days is as good as any.[9]

"Were all the fountains of the great deep broken up ..." Some strange ideas surface with reference to this, for example, the understanding of these "fountains of the great deep" as being under the rivers and the earth generally. It appears, to the contrary, that "the great deep" could hardly refer to anything other than the ocean. Unger read this as "the primeval ocean"[10], and what is suggested seems to be that the waters of the great seas themselves were instrumental in such a super-colossal deluge. Such a thing might have been due to the sudden swelling and lifting of the ocean floor; which, if it returned later, would also have expedited the draining off of the flood waters. It is, of course, explicit that men cannot know HOW it happened.

"The windows of heaven were opened ..." The meaning of this is adequately explained in the very next line, "The rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights!" The expression is a metaphor for the rain.

LANGE 10-24, "The Flood and the Judgment

Genesis 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 11 In 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,[FN7] and the windows[FN8] of heaven were opened 12 And the rain[FN9] [גשם, heavy rain, imber, cloud-bursting] was upon the earth forty days and forty nights 13 In the selfsame day[FN10] 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 14 They, and every beast[FN11] 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 15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life 16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in 17 And 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 went19[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 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered 21 And 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 23 And every living thing was destroyed [Lange reads ימח in Kal, and renders, he destroyed] which was Upon the face of the ground,[FN12] both man and

Page 56: Genesis 7 commentary

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 24 And 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 Isaiah, in the year when the six hundredth year of his life would be completed. The number600 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 ( Exodus 23:16; Exodus 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. i3, 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 17 th of the second month, to the 17 th of the seventh month, a period of five months, or150 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 Genesis 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 17 th 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 for150 days ( Genesis 7:24). Then began the waters to fall, and, on the 17 th 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 10 th month, that Isaiah, 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 ( Genesis 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 of365 days, but that the Hebrew narrator, reckoning by lunar years, transposes the account to one year and eleven days (p81). 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

Page 57: Genesis 7 commentary

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 ( Genesis 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 (p257) 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, 354days, other nations by solar months, making365 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 (p244) are worthy of attention. The mythologically enlarged numbering of the Babylonians, Delitzsch and others, reduce to the 2500 th year before Christ. In respect to the day when the flood commenced, the Babylonian legend gives the 15 th of Dasio.[FN13] This statement favors the Bible reckoning of the year from Nisan (that Isaiah, according to the theocratic reckoning), not from Tisri. For a table of the different monthly suns, see Delitzsch, p246.

2. Genesis 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; Proverbs 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.[FN14] The expression, too, “the windows of heaven,” is not to be too literally pressed.—In the selfsame day entered Noah, etc.—That Isaiah, by the time of the breaking out of the flood was the difficult embarkation accomplished—happily accomplished. הxח 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 Isaiah, 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.

TRAPP, "Verse 10Genesis 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. [Zephaniah 3:5] The wicked think them but wind, but shall feel them

Page 58: Genesis 7 commentary

to be "fire". [Jeremiah 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". [Zechariah 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". [Luke 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," [Proverbs 14:16] "passeth on and is punished," [Proverbs 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.

11

In the six hundredth year of oah's life, on the

seventeenth day of the second month--on that

day all the springs of the great deep burst forth,

and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

GILL, "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

Page 59: Genesis 7 commentary

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

Page 60: Genesis 7 commentary

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.)

HERY, "Gen 7:11-12 -

Here is, I. The date of this great event; this is carefully recorded, for the greater certainty of the story.

1. It was in the 600th year of Noah's life, which, by computation, appears to be 1656 years from the creation. The years of the old world are reckoned, not by the reigns of the giants, but the lives of the patriarchs; saints are of more account with God than princes. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. Noah was now a very old man, even as men's years went then. Note, (1.) The longer we live in this world the more we see of the miseries and calamities of it; it is therefore spoken of as the privilege of those that die young that their eyes shall not see the evil which is coming, 2Ki_22:20. (2.) Sometimes God exercises his old servants with extraordinary trials of obedience patience. The oldest of Christ's soldiers must not promise themselves a discharge from their warfare till death discharge them. Still they must gird on their harness, and not boast as though they had put it off. As the year of the deluge is recorded, so,

2. We are told that it was 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.

II. The second causes that concurred to this deluge. Observe,

1. In the self-same day that Noah was fixed in the ark, the inundation began. Note, (1.) Desolating judgments come not till God has provided for the security of his own people; see Gen_19:22, I can do nothing till thou be come thither: and we find (Rev_7:3) that the winds are held till the servants of God are sealed. (2.) When good men are removed judgments are not far off; for they are taken away from the evil to come, Isa_57:1. When they are called into the chambers, hidden in the grave, hidden in heaven, then God is coming out of his place to punish, Isa_26:20, Isa_26:21.

2. See what was done on that day, that fatal day to the world of the ungodly. (1.) The fountains of the great deep were broken up. Perhaps there needed no new creation of waters; what were already made to be, in the common course of providence, blessings to the earth, were now, by an extraordinary act of divine power, made the ruin of it. God has laid up the deep in storehouses (Psa_33:7), and now he broke up those stores. As our bodies have in themselves those humours which, when God pleases, become the

Page 61: Genesis 7 commentary

seeds and springs of mortal diseases, so the earth had in it bowels those waters which, at God's command, sprang up and flooded it. God had, in the creation, set bars and doorsto the waters of the sea, that they might not return to cover the earth (Psa_104:9; Job_38:9-11); and now he only removed those ancient land-marks, mounds, and fences, and the waters of the sea returned to cover the earth, as they had done at first, Gen_1:9. Note, All the creatures are ready to fight against sinful man, and any of them is able to be the instrument of his ruin, if God do but take off the restraints by which they are held in during the day of God's patience. (2.) 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, Job_38:33. The rain, which ordinarily descends in drops, then came down in streams, or spouts, as they call them in the Indies, where clouds have been often known to burst, as they express it there, when the rain descends in a much more violent torrent than we have ever seen in the greatest shower. 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 nor since, in such abundance and of such continuance: the thick cloud was not, as ordinarily it is, wearied with waterings (Job_37:11), that is, soon spent and exhausted; but still the clouds returned after the rain, and the divine power brought in fresh recruits. It rained, without intermission or abatement, forty days and forty nights(Gen_7:12), and that upon the whole earth at once, not, as sometimes, upon one city and not upon another. God made the world in six days, but he was forty days in destroying it; for he is slow to anger: but, though the destruction came slowly and gradually, yet it came effectually.

3. Now learn from this, (1.) That all the creatures are at God's disposal, and that he makes what use he pleases of them, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy,as Elihu speaks of the rain, Job_37:12, Job_37:13. (2.) That God often makes that which should be for our welfare to become a trap, Psa_69:22. That which usually is a comfort and benefit to us becomes, when God pleases, a scourge and a plague to us. Nothing is more needful nor useful than water, both the springs of the earth and the showers of heaven; and yet now nothing was more hurtful, nothing more destructive: every creature is to us what God makes it. (3.) That it is impossible to escape the righteous judgments of God when they come against sinners with commission; for God can arm both heaven and earth against them; see Job_20:27. God can surround men with the messengers of his wrath, so that, if they look upwards, it is with horror and amazement, if they look to the earth, behold, trouble and darkness, Isa_8:21, Isa_8:22. Who then is able to stand before God, when he is angry? (4.) In this destruction of the old world by water God gave a specimen of the final destruction of the world that now is by fire. We find the apostle setting the one of these over against the other, 2Pe_3:6, 2Pe_3:7. As there are waters under the earth, so Aetna, Vesuvius, and other volcanoes, proclaim to the world that there are subterraneous fires too; and fire often falls from heaven, many desolations are made by lightning; so that, when the time predetermined comes, between these two fires the earth and all the works therein shall be burnt up, as the flood was brought upon the old world out of the fountains of the great deep and through the windows of heaven.

CLARKE, "Gen 7:11 -

In the six hundredth year, etc. - This must have been in the beginning of the six hundredth year of his life; for he was a year in the ark, Gen_8:13; and lived three

Page 62: Genesis 7 commentary

hundred and fifty years after the flood, and died nine hundred and fifty years old, Gen_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 Marcheshvan, 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 Genesis 5 at the end, Gen_5:32 (note).

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 center 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 the note on Gen_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, Gen_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 the note on Gen_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 מבול

mabbul, translated flood, which is derived from בל bal ,or balal, to mix, mingle בלל

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

Page 63: Genesis 7 commentary

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, etc. 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.

CALVIN, "11.The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up. Moses recalls the period of the first creation to our memory; for the earth was originally covered with water; and by the singular kindness of God, they were made to recede, that some space should be left clear for living creatures. And this, philosophers are compelled to acknowledge, that it is contrary to the course of nature for the waters to subside, so that some portion of the earth might rise above them. And Scripture records this among the miracles of God, that he restrains the force of the sea, as with barriers, lest it should overwhelm that part of the earth which is granted for a habitation to men. Moses also says, in the first chapter, that some waters were suspended above in the heaven; and David, in like manner, declares, that they are held enclosed as in a bottle. Lastly, God raised for men a theater in the habitable region of the earth; and caused, by his secret power, that the subterraneous waters should not break forth to overwhelm us, and the celestial waters should not conspire with them for that purpose. Now, however, Moses states, that when God resolved to destroy the earth by a deluge, those barriers were torn up. And here we must consider the wonderful counsel of God; for he might have deposited, in certain channels or veins of the earth, as much water as would have sufficed for all the purposes of human life; but he has designedly placed us between two graves, lest, in fancied security, we should despise that kindness on which our life depends. For the element of water, which philosophers deem one of the principles of life, threatens us with death from above and from beneath, except so far as it is restrained by the hand of God. In saying that the fountains were broken up, and the cataracts opened, his language is metaphorical, and means, that neither did the waters flow in their accustomed manner, nor did the rain distil from heaven; but that the distinctions which we see had been established by God, being now removed, there were no longer any bars to restrain the violent irruption.

COKE, "Verse 11

Genesis 7:11. Second month—seventeenth day, &c.— The sacred historian is exact in pointing out the period of this awful event; which came to pass on the seventeenth day of the second month of that year, which was the six hundredth of Noah's life. Now, before

Page 64: Genesis 7 commentary

the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, the second month was Marchesvan, which begins about the middle of our October, and ends about the middle of November: so that the seventeenth day of the second month, according to the generality of expositors, is about the beginning of our November: the sixth of November, says Mr. Locke.

The fountains of the great deep broken up— In the original account of the disposal of the water, we are told, that all which was created was either carried aloft in clouds, or gathered together in the great communicating receptacle, called sea. See ch. 1: And, agreeable to this account, we are informed, that the deluge was occasioned by the union of the water from above and below: the fountains of the great deep were broken up: and the windows, or flood-gates, of heaven were opened. Thus the waters again prevailed over the face of the earth, as at the beginning they covered the chaotic mass. The original word for the windows of heaven, or flood-gates, as the margin of our Bibles has it, is

aruboth, which properly signifies openings, cracks, or fissures of any kind, as will appear by ארבת

referring to 2 Kings 7:19 and Malachi 3:10.

REFLECTIONS.—Two secondary causes are here assigned for the deluge; the deeps were

broken up, and the windows of heaven opened. When God pleases to avenge his quarrel, all

creatures above, below, around us, are ready instruments for his judgments.

(1.) The fountains of the great deep were broken up. The earth is founded upon the floods; its

bowels contain enough to destroy it, if God lets loose the waters from their prisons. (2.) The

windows of heaven were opened: the clouds poured down incessant torrents forty days and

nights. Learn here, 1. The greatest blessings may quickly be made the heaviest judgments. 2. To

look beyond second causes to the first. If floods deluge, or earthquakes swallow up, there is one

who gives each element its commission, and each judgment its orders. 3. That there are in the

earth, as in the heavens above, storehouses of fire, as well as water; and that this world is doomed

one day to experience their fatal influence. Be it our care, then, to secure a covert from the

impending storm in Him who is the only refuge; and then, When thou passest through the waters,

they shall not overflow thee; and when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt.

Isaiah 43:2.

ELLICOTT, "(11) In the second month.—That is, of the civil year, which commenced in Tisri, at the autumnal equinox. The flood thus began towards the end of October, and lasted till the spring. The ecclesiastical year began in Abib, or April; but it was instituted in remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt (Exodus 12:2; Exodus 23:15), and can have no place here. The year was evidently the lunar year of 360 days, for the waters prevail for 150 days (Genesis 7:24), and then abate for 150 days (Genesis 8:3). Now, as the end of the first period of 150 days is described in Genesis 8:4 as the seventeenth day of the seventh month, whereas the flood began on the seventeenth of the second month,

Page 65: Genesis 7 commentary

it is plain that the 150 days form five months of thirty days each. But see farther proof on Genesis 8:14.

The fountains of the great deep broken up (Heb., cloven), and the windows (lattices) of heaven were opened.—This is. usually taken by commentators as a description of extraordinary torrents of rain, related in language in accordance with the popular ideas of the time and of the narrator himself. The rains poured down as though the flood-gates which usually shut in the upper waters were thrown open, while from the abysses of the earth the subterranean ocean burst its way upwards. But the words at least suggest the idea of a great cosmic catastrophe, by which some vast body of water was set loose. Without some such natural convulsion it is very difficult to understand how the ark, a vessel incapable of sailing, could have gone against the current up to the water-shed of Ararat. As the annual evaporation of the earth is also a comparatively fixed quantity, the concentrated downpour of it for forty days and nights would scarcely have produced a flood so vast as the deluge of Noah evidently was. It is thus probable that there was, besides the rains, some vast displacement of water which helped in producing these terrific effects.

We shall have occasion subsequently to notice the exactness of the dates (Genesis 8:14). Tradition might for a short time hand them down correctly, but they must soon have been committed to writing, or confusion would inevitably have crept in.

PETT, "Genesis 7:11-12

‘In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the covered openings of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.’

Notice how precise is the statement which confirms that we have here a memory of an eventful day. Indeed, who, who was there, could forget that day? For on that day it all happened, and its date was remembered precisely.

The description confirms that there was more to it than rain. Waters flooded up as well as down. The seas rose as well as the rains falling. A huge tidal wave swept over the land to combine with the continual torrential rain from the heavens.

But there really is no justification for talking about fountains and windows as though they were intended to be taken literally. These people well knew that the rain came from the clouds, and that the seas had been there from the beginning. But huge amounts of water came flowing up as from giant springs, and water came down in torrents of which they had never seen the like, released they knew not how, for forty days and forty nights (see on Genesis 7:4), yet in a way that they knew it was controlled by God. Language failed in the attempt to describe the situation, so they had to turn to metaphor. But it was not intended to be ‘a scientific description’ or to be taken literally (we still say ‘the rain came down in bucketfuls’!). They were not trying to describe the cosmos. Apart from a few learned men at a later time, no one even gave a thought to the mechanics of the world. They described what they saw, as best they could, in terms of everyday things in their everyday lives.

Page 66: Genesis 7 commentary

We do not know how the date was originally passed down, but the ancients worked on phases of the moon and the seasons of the year, and would certainly have had names for them, and possibly had names for each day in the moon cycle. When the account was written down the writer interpreted this as above.

TRAPP, "Verse 11

Genesis 7:11 In the six 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, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Ver. 11. In the second month.] In April, as it is thought; then when everything was in its prime and pride; birds chirping, trees sprouting, &c., nothing less looked for than a flood; then God "shot at them with an arrow suddenly," [Psalms 64:7] as saith the psalmist. So shall "sudden destruction" [1 Thessalonians 5:3] come upon the wicked at the last day, when they least look for it. So the sun shone fair upon Sodom the same day wherein, ere night, it was fearfully consumed. What can be more lovely to look on, than the grain field a day before harvest, or a vineyard before the vintage?

All the fountains of the great deep, &c.] So, we live continually betwixt two deaths, the waters above and below us. (a) "Serve the Lord with fear."

BENSON, "Genesis 7:11. 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, Psalms 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, Psalms 104:9; Job 38:9-11; 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. 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,

Page 67: Genesis 7 commentary

and such rains descended as were never known before or since.

WHEDON, '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 ( תהום )

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.

BI 11-15, "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened

The deluge; or, the judgments of God upon the sin of man

I. THAT THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS IS IMPORTANT, AND SHOULD BE CAREFULLY NOTED AND REMEMBERED.

1. The chronology of Divine retribution is important as a record of history.

2. The chronology of Divine retribution is important as related to the moral life and destinies of men.

3. The chronology of Divine retribution is important, as the incidental parts of Scripture bear a relation to those of greater magnitude.

II. THAT GOD HATH COMPLETE CONTROL OVER ALL THE AGENCIES OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE, AND CAN READILY MAKE THEM SUBSERVE THE PURPOSE OF HIS WILL. “The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up.”

1. The Divine Being can control the latent forces and the unknown possibilities of the

Page 68: Genesis 7 commentary

universe.

2. The Divine Being can control all the recognized and welcome agencies of the material universe, so that they shall be destructive rather than beneficial.

3. That the agencies of the material universe frequently cooperate with the providence of God.

III. THAT THE RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENTS OF GOD ARE A SIGNAL FOR THE GOOD TO ENTER UPON THE SAFETY PROVIDED FOR THEM. “In the self-same day entered Noah,” etc.

IV. THAT THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS, THE AGENCIES OF RETRIBUTION, WHICH ARE DESTRUCTIVE TO THE WICKED, ARE SOMETIMES EFFECTIVE TO THE SAFETY AND WELFARE OF THE GOOD.

V. THAT IN THE RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENTS OF GOD WICKED MEN ARE PLACED WITHOUT ANY MEANS OF REFUGE OR HOPE.

VI. THAT THE MEASURE AND LIMITS OF THE RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENTS OF GOD ARE DIVINELY DETERMINED (Gen_7:20; Gen_7:24). LESSONS:

1. That the judgments of heaven are long predicted.

2. That they are commonly rejected.

3. That they are woefully certain.

4. That they are terribly severe.

5. They show the folly of sin. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

An important and eventful day

1. The fulfilment of the promise.

2. The commencement of retribution.

3. The time of personal safety.

4. The occasion of family blessing. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The deluge

I. THE DELUGE ITSELF.

1. Its reality.

(1) Christ refers to it (Mat_24:37).

(2) It rests on the traditions of all nations.

2. The means by which it was effected. Some suppose it was effected by a comet; others, that by one entire revolution of the earth, the sea was moved out of its place, and covered the face of the earth, and that the bed of the ancient sea became our new earth. There is one simple means by which it might have been easily effected. Water is composed of two gases or airs, oxygen and hydrogen—eighty-five parts of oxygen, and fifteen hydrogen. An electric spark passing through decomposes them and

Page 69: Genesis 7 commentary

converts them into water. So that God, by the power of lightning, could change the whole atmosphere into water, and thus the resources of the flood are at once provided. But read carefully the account given by Moses Gen_7:11, etc.).

3. Consider its universality extended to the whole earth.

4. Consider its terrific character.

II. THE PROCURING CAUSE OF THE DELUGE.

1. Universal wickedness.

2. Impious rejection of Divine influences.

3. Final impenitency.

III. THE DELIVERANCE OF NOAH AND HIS FAMILY. APPLICATION:

1. Learn how fearful is the wrath of God. See a world destroyed.

2. How dreadful is a state of carnal presumption and security. It is a deadly opiate, destroyer of the soul.

3. The distinctions and rewards which await the righteous. (J. Burns, D. D.)

Chaldean narrative of the deluge

In general we may say that we have two Chaldean accounts of the flood. The one comes to us through Greek sources, from Berosus, a Chaldean priest in the third century before Christ, who translated into Greek the records of Babylon. This, as the less clear, we need not here notice more particularly. But a great interest attaches to the far earlier cuneiform inscriptions, first discovered and deciphered in 1872 by Mr. G. Smith, of the British Museum, and since further investigated by the same scholar. These inscriptions cover twelve tablets, of which as yet only part has been made available. They may broadly be described as embodying the Babylonian account of the flood, which, as the event took place in that locality, has a special value. The narrative is supposed to date from two thousand to two thousand five hundred years before Christ. The history of the flood is related by a hero, preserved through it, to a monarch whom Mr. Smith calls Izdubar, but whom he supposes to have been the Nimrod of Scripture. There are, as one might have expected, frequent differences between the Babylonian and the Biblical account of the flood. On the other hand, there are striking points of agreement between them, which all the more confirm the Scriptural account, as showing that the event had become a distinct part of the history of the district in which it had taken place. There are frequent references to Ereeh, the city mentioned in Gen_10:10; allusions to a race of giants, who are described in fabulous terms; a mention of Lamech, the father of Noah, though under a different name, and of the patriarch himself as a sage, reverent and devout, who, when the Deity resolved to destroy by a flood the world for its sin, built the ark. Sometimes the language comes so close to that of the Bible that one almost seems to read disjointed or distorted quotations from Scripture. We mention, as instances, the scorn which the building of the ark is said to have called forth on the part of contemporaries; the pitching of the ark without and within with pitch; the shutting of the door behind the saved ones; the opening of the window, when the waters had abated; the going and returning of the dove since “a resting place it did not find,” the sending of the raven, which, feeding on corpses in the water, “did not return”; and, finally, the building of an altar by Noah. We sum up the results of this discovery in the words of Mr.

Page 70: Genesis 7 commentary

Smith: “Not to pursue this parallel further, it will be perceived that when the Chaldean account is compared with the Biblical narrative, in their main features the two stories fairly agree; as to the wickedness of the antediluvian world, the Divine anger and command to build the ark, its stocking with birds and beasts, the coming of the deluge, the rain and storm, the ark resting on a mountain, trial being made by birds sent out to see if the waters had subsided, and the building of an altar after the flood. All these main facts occur in the same order in both narratives, but when we come to examine the details of these stages in the two accounts, there appear numerous points of difference; as to the number of people who were saved, the duration of the deluge, the place where the ark rested, the order of sending out the birds, and other similar matters.” We conclude with another quotation from the same work, which will show how much of the primitive knowledge of Divine things, though mixed with terrible corruptions, was preserved among men at this early period: “It appears that at that remote age the Babylonians had a tradition of a flood which was a Divine punishment for the wickedness of the world; and of a holy man, who built an ark, and escaped the destruction; who was afterwards translated and dwelt with the gods. They believed in hell, a place of torment under the earth, and heaven, a place of glory in the sky; and their description of the two has, in several points, a striking likeness to those in the Bible. They believed in a spirit or soul distinct from the body, which was not destroyed on the death of the mortal frame; and they represent this ghost as rising from the earth at the bidding of one of the gods, and winging its way to heaven.”

Indian tradition

The seventh king of the Hindoos was Satyavrata, who reigned in Dravira, a country washed by the waves of the sea. During his reign, an evil demon (Hayagriva) furtively appropriated to himself the holy books (Vedas), which the first Manu had received from Brahman; and the consequence was, that the whole human race sank into a fearful degeneracy, with the exception of the seven saints and the virtuous king, Satyavrata. The divine spirit, Vishnu, once appeared to him in the shape of a fish, and addressed him thus: “In seven days, all the creatures which have offended against me shall be destroyed by a deluge; thou alone shalt be saved in a capacious vessel, miraculously constructed. Take, therefore, all kinds of useful herbs, and of esculent grain for food, and one pair of each animal; take also the seven holy men with thee, and your wives. Go into the ark without fear; then thou shalt see God face to face, and all thy questions shall be answered.” After seven days, incessant torrents of rain descended, and the ocean gave forth its waves beyond the wonted” shores. Satyavrata, trembling for his imminent destruction, yet piously confiding in the promises of the god, and meditating on his attributes, saw a huge boat floating to the shore on the waters. He entered it with the saints, after having executed the divine instructions. Vishnu himself appeared, in the shape of a vast horned fish, and tied the vessel with a great sea serpent, as with a cable, to his huge horn. He drew it for many years, and landed it at last, on the highest peak of Mount Himavan. The flood ceased; Vishnu slew the demon and received the Vedas back; instructed Satyavrata in all heavenly sciences, and appointed him the seventh Manu, under the name of Vaivaswata. From this Manu the second population of the earth descended in a supernatural manner, and hence man is called manudsha (born of Manu, Mensch). The Hindoo legend concludes, moreover, with an episode resembling in almost every particular that which resulted in the curse of Ham by his father Noah. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)

Page 71: Genesis 7 commentary

Greek traditions

The whole human race was corrupted, violence and impiety prevailed, oaths were broken, the sacredness of hospitality was shamelessly violated, suppliants were abused or murdered, and the gods mocked and insulted. Infamy and nefariousness were the delight of the degenerated tribes. Jupiter resolved, therefore, to destroy the whole human race, as far as the earth extends and Poseidon encircles it with the girdle of the waves. The earth opened all her secret springs, the ocean sent forth its floods, and the skies poured down their endless torrents. All creatures were immersed in the waves, and perished. Deucalion alone, and his wife Pyrrha, both distinguished by their piety, were, in a small boat which Deucalion had constructed by the advice of his father Prometheus, carried to the lofty peaks of Mount Parnassus, which alone stood out of the floods. They were saved. The waters subsided. The surviving pair sacrificed to Jupiter the flight-giving, and consulted the gods, who again, through them, populated the earth by an extraordinary miracle. This tradition appears in a still more developed form in Lucian. There was a very old temple in Hieropolis, which was universally asserted to have been built by Deucalion the Scythian, when he had been rescued from the general deluge. For it is related that enormous crimes, prevalent through the whole human race, had provoked the wrath of Jupiter and caused the destruction of man. Deucalion alone was found wise and pious. He built a large chest, and brought into it his wives and children; and when he was about to enter it, boars, lions, serpents, and all other animals came to him by pairs. Jupiter removed all hostile propensities from their breasts, and they lived together in miraculous concord. The waves carried the chest along till they subsided. After this an immense gulf opened itself, which only closed after having totally absorbed the waters. This wonderful incident happened in the territory of Hieropolis; and above this gulf Deucalion erected that ancient temple, after having offered many sacrifices on temporary altars. In commemoration of these events, twice every year water is brought into the temple, not only by the priests, but by a large concourse of strangers from Syria, Arabia, and the countries of the Jordan. This water is fetched from the sea, and then poured out in the temple in such a manner that it descends into the gulf. The same tradition assumed, indeed, under different hands a different local character; Hyginus mentions the AEtna in Sicily as the mountain where Deucalion grounded; the Phrygians relate that the wise Anakos prophesied concerning the approaching flood; and some coins struck under the Emperor Septimius Severus and some of his successors in Apamea, and declared genuine by all authorities in numismatics, represent a chest or ark floating on the waves and containing a man and a woman. On the ark a bird is perched, and another is seen approaching, holding a twig with its feet. The same human pair is figured on the dry land with uplifted hands; and on several of those pieces even the

name NO (ΝΩ) is clearly visible. A legend, perhaps as old as that of Deucalion, though

neither so far spread nor so developed, is that of Ogyges, who is mostly called a Boeotian autochthon, and the first ruler of the territory of Thebes, called after him Ogygia. In his time the waters of the lake Copais are said to have risen in so unusual a degree that they at last covered the whole surface of the earth, and that Ogyges himself directed his vessel on the waves through the air. Even the dove of Noah bears an analogy to the dove which Deucalion is reported to have dispatched from his ark, which returned the first time, thus indicating that the stores of rain were not yet exhausted, but which did not come back the second time, and thereby gave proof that the skies had resumed their usual serenity. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)

Page 72: Genesis 7 commentary

The flood

The sky now at last blackens into pitchy gloom, and hoarse are the thunders which seem to crash against the sides of the sky as if against iron bars. The rain comes down in solid torrents, cleaving the thick air as with wedges. Lightnings

“run crossing evermore,

Till like a red bewildered map the sky is scribbled o’er.”

Rivers rush down in fury, overflowing their banks, sweeping away the crops, undermining the rocks, tearing up the woods, and rising above the lesser hills, till they meet with the streams which have swollen aloft from neighbouring valleys, and embrace in foam and wild commotion on the summit. Oceans are stirred up from their depths, and distant seas on the top of aerial mountains, each bringing the ruin of whole lands for a dowry. The inhabitants of a city have fallen asleep, thinking that it is only a night of unusual severity of storm, till in the morning they find themselves cut off on all sides, and a hungry sea crying with the tongues of all its waters, “Give! give!” and there is no escape for them; and climbing the highest towers and idol temples only protracts for a little their doom; and soon the boom of the waves, wantoning uncontrolled and alone in the market place, takes the place of the hum of men. A gay marriage party, in order to enjoy themselves more, have shut out the gloomy daylight, are dancing to the light of torches, and are finding a luxury and a stimulus to greater gaiety in the lashing of the rain on the roof and the sides of the dwelling, when suddenly the angry waters burst in, and their joy is turned into the howl of expiring women and men. In another place a funeral has reached the place of tombs amidst drenching rains and paths rendered difficult by the storm, and the bearers are about to commit the corpse to the earth, when, lo! the water bursts up through the grave, and the waves gather on all sides around, and instead of one, forty are buried, and instead of a silent sepulchre, there are shrieks and outcries of grief and of desperate sorrow—the sorrow of multitudinous death. A village among the mountains issurprised by the fierce and sudden uprise of the neighbouring stream, and the inhabitants have just time to avoid its avenging path by betaking themselves to the hills. From point to point they hurry, from the wooded steeps to the bald crags, thence to the heathy sides of the larger hills, and thence to their sky-striking summits; and to every point they are faithfully followed by the bloodhound of the flood, too certain of coming up with his prey to be hurried in his motions, and whose voice is heard, in an awful ascending gamut, climbing steep after steep, here veiled amidst thick woodlands, there striking sharp and shrill against craggy obstacles, and anon from hollow defiles, sounding low in the accents of choked and restrained wrath, but always approaching nearer and nearer, and from the anger echoed in which no escape is possible. Conceive their emotions as, standing at last on the supreme summit, they listen to this cry! Inch after inch rises the flood up the precipice, the cry swelling at every step, till at last it approaches within a few feet of the top, where hundreds are huddled together, and then

“Rises from earth to sky the wild farewell;

Then shriek the timid, and stand still the brave;

And some leap overboard with dreadful yell,

As eager to anticipate their grave,

And the sea yawns around them like a hell.”

Husbands and wives clasped in each other’s arms sink into the waves; mothers holding

Page 73: Genesis 7 commentary

their babes high over the surge are sucked in, children and all; the grey hairs of the patriarch meet with the tresses of the fair virgin in the common grave of the waters, which sweep by one wild lash all the tenants of the rock away, and roll across a shout of triumph to the hundred surges, which on every side of the horizon have mounted their hills, and gained their victories at once over the glory of nature and the life of man. From this supposed peak, “Fancy with the speed of fire” flies to other regions of the earth, and sees “all the high hills under the whole heaven covered; “ the Grampian range surmounted; and Ben Nevis sunk fathoms and fathoms more under the waves; the Pyrenees and the “infant kips” or Apennines lost to view; the Cervin’s sharp and precipitous horn seen to pierce the blue-black ether no more; the eye of Mont Blanc darkened; old “Taurus” blotted out; the fires of Cotopaxi extinguished; the tremendous chasm of snow which yawns on the side of Chimborazo filled up with a sea of water; the hell of Hecla’s burning entrails slaked, and the mountains of the Himalayah overtopt; till at last, the waves rolling over the summit of Mount Everest, and violating its last particle of virgin snow, have accomplished their task, have drowned a world! (G. Gilfillan.)

Flood traditions in America

It is a singular confirmation of the deluge as a great historical event that it is found engraven in the memories of all the great nations of antiquity; but it is still more striking to find it holding a place in the traditions of the most widely spread races of America, and indeed of the world at large. Thus Alfred Maury, a French writer of immense erudition, speaks of it as “a very remarkable fact that we find in America traditions of the deluge coming infinitely nearer those of the Bible and of the Chaldean religion than the legends of any people of the old world.” The ancient inhabitants of Mexico had many variations of the legend among their various tribes. In some, rude paintings were found representing the deluge. Not a few believe that a vulture was sent out of the ship, and that, like the raven of the Chaldean tablets, it did not return, but fed on the dead bodies of the drowned. Other versions say that a humming bird alone, out of many birds sent off, returned with a branch covered with leaves in its beak. Among the Cree Indians of the present day in the Arctic circle in North America, Sir John Richardson found similar traces of the great tradition. “The Crees,” he says, “spoke of a universal deluge, caused by an attempt of the fish to drown one who was a kind of demigod with whom they had quarrelled. Having constructed a raft, he embarked with his family, and all kinds of birds and beasts. After the flood had continued some time, he ordered several waterfowls to dive to the bottom, but they were all drowned. A musk rat, however, having been sent on the same errand, was more successful, and returned with a mouthful of mud.” From other tribes in every part of America, travellers have brought many variations of the same worldwide tradition, nor are even the scattered islands of the great Southern Ocean without versions of their own. In Tahiti, the natives used to tell of the god Ruahatu having told two men “who were at sea fishing—Return to the shore, and tell men that the earth will be covered with water, and all the world will perish. Tomorrow morning go to the islet called Toamarama; it will be a place of safety for you and your children. Then Ruahatu caused the sea to cover the lands. All were covered, and all men perished except the two and their families.” In other islands we find legends recording the building of an altar after the deluge; the collection of pairs of all the domestic animals, to save them, while the Fiji islanders give the number of the human beings saved as eight. Thus the story of the deluge is a universal tradition among all branches of the human family with the one exception, as Lenormant tells us, of the black. How else could this arise but from the ineradicable remembrance of a real and terrible event. It

Page 74: Genesis 7 commentary

must, besides, have happened so early in the history of mankind that the story of it could spread with the race from their original cradle, for the similarity of the versions over the earth point to a common source. It is, moreover, preserved in its fullest and least diluted form among the three great races, which are the ancestors of the three great families of mankind—the Aryans, from whom sprang the populations of India, Persia, and Europe; the Turanians, and the Semitic stock, who were the progenitors of the Jew, the Arab, and other related races, including the Cushite and Egyptian. These, it is striking to note, were the specially civilized peoples of the early world, and must have learned the story before they separated from their common home in western Asia. (C. Geikie, D. D.)

The extent of the flood

Thoughtful men of all shades of religious opinion have come to the conclusion that the Noachian deluge was only a local one, though sufficiently extensive in its area to destroy all the then existing race of men. In support of this view many arguments have been offered, of which a few may be briefly stated. The stupendous greatness of the miracle involved in a universal deluge seems a strong reason to doubt the likelihood of God having resorted to a course wholly unnecessary to effect the end mainly in view—the judgment of mankind for their sins. There could certainly be no apparent reason for submerging the vast proportion of the world which was then uninhabited, or of raising the waters above the tops of mountains to which no living creature could approach. It is to be remembered, moreover, that the addition of such a vast mass of water to the weight of the earth—eight times that contained in the ocean beds—would have disarranged the whole solar system, and even the other systems of worlds through the universe; for all are interbalanced with each other in their various relations. Then this immeasurable volume of water, after having served its brief use, must have been annihilated to restore the harmony of the heavenly motions: the only instance in the whole economy of nature of the annihilation of even a particle of matter. Nor could any part of either the animal or vegetable worlds have survived a submersion of the planet for a year; and hence everything, except what the ark contained, must have perished; including even the fish; of which many species would die out if the water were fresh, others, if it were brackish, and others, again, if it were salt. Men of the soundest orthodoxy have further urged that physical evidences still exist which prove that the deluge could only have been local. Thus Professor Henslow supports De Candolle’s estimate of the age of some of the baobab trees of Senegal as not less then 5,230 years, and of taxodium of Mexico as from 4,000 to 6,000; periods which carry still living trees beyond that of the flood. There is, moreover, in Auvergne, in France, a district covered with extinct volcanoes, marked by cones of pumice stone, ashes, and such light substances as could not have resisted the waters of the deluge. Yet they are evidently more ancient than the time of Noah; for since they became extinct rivers have cut channels for themselves through beds of columnar basalt, that is, of intensely hard crystallized lava, of no less than 150 feet in thickness, and have even eaten into the granite rocks beneath. And Auvergne is not the only part where similar phenomena are seen. They are found in the Eifel country of the Prussian Rhine province, in New Zealand, and elsewhere. Nor is the peculiarity of some regions in their zoological characteristics less convincing. Thus the fauna of Australia is entirely exceptional; as, for example, in the strange fact that quadrupeds of all kinds are marsupial, that is, provided with a pouch in which to carry their young. The fossil remains of this great island continent show, moreover, that existing species are the direct descendants of similar races of extreme antiquity, and that the surface of Australia is the oldest land, of any

Page 75: Genesis 7 commentary

considerable extent, yet discovered on the globe—dating back at least to the Tertiary geological age; since which it has not been disturbed to any great extent. But this carries us to a period immensely more remote than Noah. Nor is it possible to conceive of an assemblage of all the living creatures of the different regions of the earth at any one spot. The unique fauna of Australia—survivors of a former geological age—certainly could neither have reached the ark nor regained their home after leaving it; for they are separated from the nearest continuous land by vast breadths of ocean. The polar bear surely could not survive a journey from his native icebergs to the sultry plains of Mesopotamia; nor could the animals of South America have reached these except by travelling the whole length northwards of North America and then, after miraculously crossing Behring Straits, having pressed westwards across the whole breadth of Asia, a continent larger than the moon. That even a deer should accomplish such a pedestrian feat is inconceivable, but how could a sloth have done it—a creature which lives in trees, never, if possible, descending to theground, and able to advance on it only by the slowest and most painful motions? Or, how could tropical creatures find supplies of food in passing through such a variety of climates, and over vast spaces of hideous desert? Still more—how could any vessel, however large, have held pairs and sevens of all the creatures on earth, with food for a year, and how could the whole family of Noah have attended to them? There are at least two thousand mammals; more than seven thousand kinds of birds, from the gigantic ostrich to the humming bird; and over fifteen hundred kinds of amphibious animals and reptiles; not to speak of 120,000 kinds of insects, and an unknown multitude of varieties of ingusoria. Nor does this include the many thousand kinds of mollusca, radiata, and fish. Even if the ark, as has been supposed by one writer, was of 80,000 tons burden, such a freightage needs only be mentioned to make it be felt impossible. Look which way we like, gigantic difficulties meet us. Thus, Hugh Miller has noticed that it would have required a continuous miracle to keep alive the fish for whom the deluge water was unsuitable, while even spawn would perish if kept unhatched for a whole year, as that of many fish must have been. Nor would the vegetable world have fared better than the animal, for of the 100,000 known species of plants, very few would survive a year’s submersion. That a terrible catastrophe like that of the flood—apart from the all-sufficient statements of Scripture—is not outside geological probability, is abundantly illustrated by recorded facts. The vast chains of the Himalayah, the Caucasus, the Jura mountains, and the Alps, for example, were all upheaved in the Pliocene period, which is one of the most recent in geology. A subsidence or elevation of a district, as the case might be, would cause a tremendous flood over vast regions. Nor are such movements of the earth’s surface on a great scale unknown even now. Darwin repeatedly instances cases of recent elevation and depression of the earth’s surface. On one part of the island of St. Maria, in Chili, he found beds of putrid mussel shells still adhering to the rocks, ten feet above high-water mark, where the inhabitants had formerly dived at low-water spring tides for these shells. Similar shells were met with by him at Valparaiso at the height of 1,300 feet. And at another place a great bed of now-existing shells had been raised 350 feet above the level of the sea. No difficulty on geological grounds can therefore be urged against such a catastrophe having happened in the early ages of our race as would have swept the whole seat of human habitation with a deluge in whose waters all mankind must have perished. The great cause, without question, of the belief that the flood was universal has been the idea that the words of Scripture taught this respecting that awful visitation. But it by no means does so. The word translated “earth” in our English version has not only the meaning of the world as a whole, but others much more limited. Thus it often stands for Palestine alone, and even for the small district around a town, or for a field or plot of land. Besides, we must not forget that such words are always to be understood according

Page 76: Genesis 7 commentary

to the meaning attached to them by the age or people among whom they are used. But what ideas the ancient Hebrews had of the world has been already shown, and the limited sense in which they used the most general phrases—just as we ourselves often do when we wish to create a vivid impression of wide extent or great number—is seen from the usage of their descendants, in the New Testament. When St. Luke speaks of Jews dwelling at Jerusalem out of “every nation under heaven,” it would surely be wrong to press this to a literal exactness. When St. Paul says that the faith of the obscure converts at Rome was spoken of throughout the whole world, he could not have meant the whole round orb, but only the Roman Empire. And would anyone think of taking in the modern geographical sense his declaration that already, when he was writing to the Colossians, the gospel had been preached to every creature under heaven? (C. Geikie, D. D.)

CONSTABLE 11-24, "The Flood proper7:11-24

There are two views among evangelicals as to the extent of the Flood.

1. The flood was universal in that it covered the entire earth. Here is a summary of the evidence that supports this view.

a. The purpose of the Flood ( Genesis 6:5-7; Genesis 6:11-13).

b. The need for an ark ( Genesis 6:14).

c. The size of the ark ( Genesis 6:15-16).

d. The universal terms used in the story ( Genesis 6:17-21; Genesis 7:19; Genesis 7:21-23). Context must determine whether universal terms are truly universal or limited (cf. Luke 2:1; Matthew 28:19-20).

e. The amount of water involved ( Genesis 7:11; Genesis 7:20; Genesis 8:2).

f. The duration of the Flood: 371days ( Genesis 7:11; Genesis 8:14).

g. The testimony of Peter ( 2 Peter 3:3-7).

h. The faithfulness of God ( Genesis 8:21).

This view has been the most popular with conservative interpreters throughout history.

Page 77: Genesis 7 commentary

"By and large, the tradition of the Christian church is that the context requires a universal flood, and many Christian scholars have maintained this position knowing well the geological difficulties it raises." [Note: Davis, p124. See Whitcomb and Morris; Boice, 1:278-88; Ariel A. Roth, "Evidences for a worldwide flood," Ministry (May1984), pp12-14; Donald Patten, "The Biblical Flood: A Geographical Perspective," Bibliotheca Sacra128:509 (January-March1971):36-49; and Wolf, pp101-6.]

2. The flood was local and covered only part of the earth. The evidence is as follows.

a. The main arguments rest on modern geology and the improbability of a universal flood in view of consequent global changes.

b. Advocates take the universal statements in the text as limited to the area where Moses said the Flood took place.

This view has gained wide acceptance since the modern science of geology has called in question the credibility of the text.

"The principle concern of those advocating a local flood is to escape the geological implications of a universal flood." [Note: Davis, p124. See Ramm, pp229-40; and Kidner; et al.; who advocated a local flood.]

"Since the distorted concept of special creation used by the originator of the geologic column was never truly Creationistic, and organic evolution has long since become the conceptual basis for time-equivalence of index fossils, modern Creationists can justifiably point out that organic evolution is the basis for the geological column." [Note: John R. Woodmorappe, "A Diluviological Treatise on the Stratigraphic Separation of Fossils," Creation Research Society Quarterly (December1983):135.]

Basically, this controversy, like that involving the creation account, involves presuppositions about the credibility of Scripture or science and the possibility of supernatural occurrences. The scientific community seems to be more open to catastrophism of some kind than it used to be. [Note: See Henry Morris, "Biblical Catastrophism and Modern Science," Bibliotheca Sacra125:498 (April-June1968):107-15. An interesting article on some ancient non-biblical accounts of the Flood is Jack P. Lewis, "Noah and the Flood in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Tradition," Biblical Archaeologist47:4 (December1984):224-39. See also J. Randall O"Brien, "Flood Stories of the Ancient Near East," Biblical Illustrator13:1 (Fall1986):60-65. ]

Some interpreters have understood the opening of the "floodgates of the sky" ( Genesis 7:11) as a breaking up of a water vapor canopy that some say covered the earth before the Flood. [Note: See my comments on2:5-6.] Advocates of this "canopy theory" believe that

Page 78: Genesis 7 commentary

it may account for longevity before the Flood.

"The water for Noah"s Flood came from the release of great underground sources of water (the fountains of the great deep which continued pouring forth for150 days), and from the collapse of the waters above (presumably a vast water vapor blanket or canopy above the atmosphere), giving the40 days and nights of rain. Psalm 104indicates that after the Flood, the mountains were upthrust to their present positions, with associated deepening of the ocean basins, which now hold the waters of the Flood.

"These waters would not have been enough to cover today"s highest mountains. Genesis indicates no rain or rainbows before the Flood, which is consistent with the absence of high mountains that are important to the triggering of rainfall. Also, the absence of large temperature differences between poles and equator under such a greenhouse blanket of water vapor would mean an absence of the vast winds which are also necessary (now, but not before the Flood) for the rainfall cycle. Genesis describes how the earth before the Flood was watered by mists and/or springs and geysers." [Note: Ham, et al, p15. Cf. also pp117-29 for further discussion.]

"We have shown earlier that the flood narrative points ahead to Moses and the escape of the Hebrews through the Red Sea. This is evidenced again by the term "dry land" (haraba) in our passage ( Genesis 7:22) rather than the customary "dry ground" (yabasa). This infrequent term occurs eight times, only once more in the Pentateuch at Exodus 14:21, where it describes the transformation of the sea into "dry land" by a "strong east wind." This exodus parallel is confirmed by Genesis 8:1 b, which speaks of God"s sending a "wind" upon the waters. Later Israel identified itself with Noah and the tiny group of survivors who escaped the wicked by the awesome deeds of God." [Note: Mathews, pp381-82.]

12

And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

CLARKE, "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.

Page 79: Genesis 7 commentary

GILL, "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights,.... So long it was falling upon it, after the windows of heaven were opened. Aben Ezra would have it, that all things were in such confusion, during the flood, that there was no difference between day and night, since, it is said, "day and night shall not cease any more"; and that after the waters ceased, then Noah knew that forty days and nights had passed, for God had revealed this secret to him; but the text seems more to make against him than for him.

CALVIN, "12.And the rain was upon the earth. Although the Lord burst open the floodgates of the waters, yet he does not allow them to break forth in a moment, so as immediately to overwhelm the earth, but causes the rain to continue forty days; partly, that Noah, by long meditation, might more deeply fix in his memory what he had previously learned, by instruction, through the word; partly, that the wicked, even before their death, might feel that those warnings which they had held in derision, were not empty threats. For they who had so long scorned the patience of God, deserved to feel that they were gradually perishing under that righteous judgment of his, which, during a hundred years, they had treated as a fable. And the Lord frequently so tempers his judgments, that men may have leisure to consider with more advantage those judgments which, by their sudden eruption, might overcome them with astonishment. But the wonderful depravity of our nature shows itself in this, that if the anger of God is suddenly poured forth, we become stupefied and senseless; but if it advances with measured pace, we become so accustomed to it as to despise it; because we do not willingly acknowledge the hand of God without miracles; and because we are easily hardened, by a kind of superinduced insensibility, at the sight of God’s works.

13

On that very day oah and his sons, Shem, Ham and

Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his

three sons, entered the ark.

BARES, "Gen_7:13-16

There is a simple grandeur in the threefold description of the entrance of Noah and

Page 80: Genesis 7 commentary

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.

GILL, "Gen 7:13 - In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham,

and Japheth, the sons of Noah,.... That is, on the seventeenth day of the second month; See Gill on Gen_7:11 the names of Noah and his three sons are expressed, but not the names of his wife, and of the wives of his sons; they are only described by their relation as follows:

and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons, into the ark: but other writers pretend to give us their names; Berosus (c) calls the wife of Noah "Tytea", the great, and Aretia, plainly from "Tit", clay, and "Aerets", the earth; and his sons' wives Pandora, Noela, and Noegla: according to Sanchoniatho (d), the name of Noah was "Epigeus", a man of the earth, see Gen_9:20 and afterwards "Ouranus", heaven; and he had a sister whom he married, called "Ge", earth; and with this agrees the account that the Allantes give of their deities; the first of which was Uranus, and his wife's name was Titaea; who, after her death, was deified, and called "Ge" (e): so the Jewish writers say (f), the wife of Noah was called Titzia, and others say Aritzia, from the word "Eretz", earth (g); though others will have it, that she was Naamah, the daughter of Lamech: the Arabic writers (h)tell us, that the name of Noah's wife was Hancel, the daughter of Namusa, the son of Enoch; that the name of Shem's wife was Zalbeth, or, as other copies, Zalith or Salit; that the name of Ham's Nahalath; and of Japheth's Aresisia; who were all three the daughters of Methuselah; and they also relate (i), that when Noah entered the ark, he took the body of Adam with him, and placed it in the middle of the ark.

HERY, "Gen 7:13-16 -

Here is repeated what was related before of Noah's entrance into the ark, with his family and creatures that were marked for preservation. Now,

I. It is thus repeated for the honour of Noah, whose faith and obedience herein shone so brightly, by which he obtained a good report, and who herein appeared so great a favourite of Heaven and so great a blessing to this earth.

II. Notice is here taken of the beasts going in each after his kind, according to the phrase used in the history of the creation (Gen_1:21-25), to intimate that just as many kinds as were created at first were saved now, and no more; and that this preservation

Page 81: Genesis 7 commentary

was as a new creation: a life remarkably protected is, as it were, a new life.

III. Though all enmities and hostilities between the creatures ceased for the present, and ravenous creatures were not only so mild and manageable as that the wolf and the lamb lay down together, but so strangely altered as that the lion did eat straw like an ox(Isa_11:6, Isa_11:7), yet, when this occasion was over, the restraint was taken off, and they were still of the same kind as ever; for the ark did not alter their constitution. Hypocrites in the church, that externally conform to the laws of that ark, may yet be unchanged, and then it will appear, one time or other, what kind they are after.

IV. It is added (and the circumstance deserves our notice), The Lord shut him in,Gen_7:16. As Noah continued his obedience to God, so God continued his care of Noah: and here it appeared to be a very distinguishing care; for the shutting of this door set up a partition wall between him and all the world besides. God shut the door, 1. To secure him, and keep him safe in the ark. The door must be shut very close, lest the waters should break in and sink the ark, and very fast, lest any without should break it down. Thus God made up Noah, as he makes up his jewels, Mal_3:17. 2. To exclude all others, and keep them for ever out. Hitherto the door of the ark stood open, and if any, even during the last seven days, had repented and believed, for aught I know they might have been welcomed into the ark; but now the door was shut, and they were cut off from all hopes of admittance: for God shutteth, and none can open.

V. There is much of our gospel duty and privilege to be seen in Noah's preservation in the ark. The apostle makes it a type of our baptism, that is, our Christianity, 1Pe_3:20, 1Pe_3:21. Observe then, 1. It is our great duty, in obedience to the gospel call, by a lively faith in Christ, to come into that way of salvation which God has provided for poor sinners. When Noah came into the ark, he quitted his own house and lands; so must we quit our own righteousness and our worldly possessions, whenever they come into competition with Christ. Noah must, for a while, submit to the confinements and inconveniences of the ark, in order to his preservation for a new world; so those that come into Christ to be saved by him must deny themselves, both in sufferings and services. 2. Those that come into the ark themselves should bring as many as they can in with them, by good instructions, by persuasions, and by a good example. What knowest thou, O man, but thou mayest thus save thy wife (1Co_7:16), as Noah did his? There is room enough in Christ for all comers. 3. Those that by faith come into Christ, the ark, shall by the power of God be shut in, and kept as in a strong-hold by the power of God,1Pe_1:5. God put Adam into paradise, but he did not shut him in, and so he threw himself out; but when he put Noah into the ark he shut him in, and so when he brings a soul to Christ he ensures its salvation: it is not in our own keeping, but in the Mediator's hand. 4. The door of mercy will shortly be shut against those that now make light of it. Now, knock and it shall be opened; but the time will come when it shall not, Luk_13:25.

K&D, "Gen_7:13-16

“In the self-same day had Noah...entered into the ark:” אU, pluperfect “had come,” not

came, which would require יבא. The idea is not that Noah, with his family and all the

animals, entered the ark on the very day on which the rain began, but that on that day he had entered, had completed the entering, which occupied the seven days between the giving of the command (Gen_7:4) and the commencement of the flood (Gen_7:10).

CALVIN, "13.In the self-same day entered Noah, and Shem, etc. A repetition follows, sufficiently particular, considering the brevity with which Moses runs through the

Page 82: Genesis 7 commentary

history of the deluge, yet by no means superfluous. For it was the design of the Spirit to retain our minds in the consideration of a vengeance too terrible to be adequately described by the utmost severity of language. Besides, nothing is here related but what is difficult to be believed; wherefore Moses the more frequently inculcates these things, that however remote they may be from our apprehension, they may still obtain credit with us. Thus the narration respecting the animals refers to this point; that by the faith of holy Noah they were drawn from their woods and caverns and were collected in one place from their wandering courses, as if they had been led by the hand of God. We see, therefore, that Moses does not insist upon this point without an object; but he does it to teach us that each species of animals was preserved, not by chance, nor by human industry, but because the Lord reached out and offered to Noah himself, from hand to hand, (as they say,) whatever animal he intended to keep alive.

COFFMAN, "Verse 13

"In the selfsame day 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; they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark; two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him; and Jehovah shut him in."

There is repetition here, of course, but much more; there is important supplemental information. Note the following:

"And they went in unto Noah ..." This emphasizes and makes definite the truth that Noah did not seek out and drive all of those creatures into the ark; they went in unto him. This is clearly an act of God, having nothing whatever to do with Noah's independent activity.

"And the three wives of his sons ..." This is restrictive regarding the number of people entering the ark. Genesis 7:7 revealed that his "sons' wives" entered, leaving out of sight how many wives his sons had. There were only three, one for each son.

"Every creeping thing that creepeth ..." This is also more definite and extended information about which creatures were included.

"And Jehovah shut him in ..." Schaeffer described this as a "hard verse,"[11] and so it is. There may have been some of those souls to whom he preached so long and so faithfully for whom Noah still had hope that they would enter and be spared; and he would have found it difficult indeed to close the door of hope; but God spared him that act of sorrow by himself sealing the gate of life. The day of grace was then over. The long deserved destruction of rebellious mankind would appear at once. So it is today. Man can neither open nor close the way of salvation, either for themselves or for others. "Behold, I have set before thee a door opened, which no man can shut" (Revelation 3:24). Our Lord Jesus Christ is described as, "He that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth" (Revelation 3:7b).

Page 83: Genesis 7 commentary

"In the selfsame day ..." The Hebrew text here is somewhat ambiguous, this expression being capable of two meanings. It might mean all of the beings in the ark entered on a single day, or it might just as well mean that the "day" here was that upon which their entry into the ark "was completed."[12] Keil understood the passage to mean that the rain began on the very day that final entry was achieved for all on board.[13] Whitelaw also pointed out this is not at all inconsistent with Genesis 7:4,5, which do not require the understanding that the total entry into the ark was achieved a full week ahead of the Deluge, but that seven days prior to the onset of it, "Noah then began to carry out the Divine instructions."[14]

Of special significance in this chapter is that the discriminatory use of the various names for God is evident. Thus, it is Jehovah who commanded Noah to enter the ark (Genesis 7:1), but Noah did as [~Elohiym] commanded him (Genesis 7:4). A similar use of both names occurs in Genesis 7:16, and the reason for this has nothing whatever to do with diverse documentary sources. Jehovah is the covenant name of God, and it is used in connection with actions and events that are particularly related to covenant. [~Elohiym] signifies the eternal power and authority of God; and it is used where such attributes of God appear. Many, many examples of this same selective use of God's titles are evident in Genesis, and we agree with Keil that the, "Variations in the name of God furnish no criterion by which to detect different documents."[15]

LANGE 13-22, "The Announcement of the Judgment, and the Direction for the Building of the Ark ( Genesis 7:13-22).—And God said to Noah.—The revelation of the divine displeasure with the human race, which appears first, Genesis 7:3, as a conditional and veiled threatening of judgment with the granting of a space for repentance, and which, in its second utterance, has already become a resolution to destroy the human race ( Genesis 7:7), becomes here an absolute announcement of approaching doom. There had, perhaps, been previous Revelation, in the form of a preaching of repentance, made by other patriarchs (such as Methuselah and Lamech), as they, one after the other, left the world. These had been gradually extended in time; but now are they all concentrated in the one revelation made to Noah. With this there was, at the same time, connected the promise that Noah and his family should be saved. As God’s acts of deliverance are connected in time with his acts of judgment (since his judgments are ever separations of the godly from the ungodly, and, in this sense, salvations and deliverances), so also are the revelations of judgment at the same time revelations of deliverance, and the faith of the elect which corresponds to them Isaiah, at the same time, both a faith in judgment and a faith in salvation.—The end of all flesh.—An expression which strongly conveys the idea, that the positive judgment of God is indicated through a judgment immanent in the corruption of men. The self-abandonment in this corruption, the clearly visible end of the same, is so fearfully depicted, that the positive end which God is about to impose takes the appearance, not of a judgment merely, but of redress. Still is the first conception the predominant one, as appears from the expression which tells us that God saw the end, the extreme end of the world’s corruption (Keil).—Is filled with violence through them (Lange renders more correctly, from their faces, or, before them. Vulg, a facie eorum). As it is said, in immediate connection, “before the face of God,” we hold it

unsatisfactory here to render מפניהם from them, or through them. The flood of wickedness

that comes up before God’s face goes out from their face; that Isaiah, it is a wickedness openly

Page 84: Genesis 7 commentary

perpetrated; the moral judgment, the conscience, goes utterly out in the direct beholding and

approbation of evil.—I will destroy them with the earth.—Destruction as set against corruption (

1 Corinthians 5:5). The earth as such can, indeed, suffer no penal destruction. As one with Prayer

of Manasseh, the destruction becomes to it a total destruction, which comes upon men along with

their earth. And so in the renewal of humanity must the earth also receive a renovation of its

form.—Make thee an ark.—An indication of the mode of salvation, in which he himself must co-

operate. Baumgarten: “He must be not only the preserved, but also the preserver.” בה,

according to Delitzsch, probably (if the word is Shemitic), from וב= אוב , to be hollow.[FN4]

Chaldaic, יבותא, Sept. κιβωτός, Vulg. arca (other meanings see in Delitzsch). Keil and Rödiger

conjecture that the word is of Egyptian origin. So Knobel: “In Egyptian, boat is called tept.” It is

likewise used of the small ark in which Moses was saved (but which in the Septuagint is rendered

θίβις or θίβη.—Of gopher-wood [Lange, resinous wood]. Hieronymus: ligna bituminata.

“Probably, cypress-wood.” Keil (פר, cognate to פרq and κυπάρισσος).—Rooms shalt thou make

[Lange, cells].—Properly in cells, as cells (literally, nests—little cabins), or cell-containing.—

With pitch.—Sept. xσφαλτός, Vulg. bitumen.—And this is which (what) thou shalt make it.—

“The most probable supposition Isaiah, that the ark was built, not in the form of a ship, but after

the manner of a box, without keel, with a flat deck, more like a four-sided moving house than a

ship, since it was destined not for sailing, but only for floating upon the water. Thus regarded, the

measures300 cubits long, 50 cubits broad, and30 cubits high, give a ground-surface of15,000

cubits square, and a cubical content of450,000 cubits solid, taking the usual measure of the cubit (

Deuteronomy 3:11), as the length from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about18

inches.” Keil. Knobel remarks: “The building surpasses in magnitude the greatest ships-of-the-

line. Its arrangement, however, according to experiments made in Holland, would be found in

harmony with its design.” In the year1609, at Hoorn, in Holland, the Netherlandish Mennonite,

P. Jansen, produced the model of a vessel after the pattern of the ark, only in smaller

proportions, whereby he proved, that although it was not appropriate for a ship-model, it was

well adapted for floating, and would carry a cargo greater by one third than any other form of

like cubical content.[FN5] See Delitzsch, p250.—A window shalt thou make in the ark.—צהר, not

in the roof (Rosenmüller and others), but a light-opening (צהרים, dual, a double light); see

Genesis 8:6. Baumgarten supposes that it must be regarded as a light-opening of a cubit’s

breadth, extending above the whole upper length of the ark; Knobel and Keil, on the contrary,

suppose that the window was fixed on the side, to the extent of a cubit, under the ridge of the

roof. Then, indeed, according to Tuch, would only one cabin have received light, perhaps that of

Noah; at all events, only the highest story would have had a dim twilight. We suppose, therefore,

Page 85: Genesis 7 commentary

with Baumgarten, that it must be regarded as a light-opening in the deck, which was continued

through the different stories. Against the rain and the water dashing, must this opening have

been closed in some way by means of some transparent substance; for which purpose a trellis, or

lattice-work, would not have been sufficient. The expression “to a cubit,” denotes also

precaution. In this view of the case, moreover, it is not easy to take צהר collectively, as is done by

Gesenius and the Syriac, and to fancy a number of light apertures, although it might be that one

light-opening in the deck could be divided into a number of light-openings for the interior.

[FN6]—The door of the ark.—Here can only be meant an entrance which was afterwards closed,

and only opened again at the end of the flood. And since there were three stories of the ark, the

word is to be understood, perhaps, of three entrances capable of being closed, and to which there

would have been constructed a way of access from the outside on the outside. “Is it held that so

colossal a structure as the ark would have been impracticable in this very early time; the objection

may be met with the answer, that some of the most gigantic structures belong to an immemorial

antiquity.” Baumgarten (compare also Keil, p93; Delitzsch, p250).—And behold I, even I, am

bringing.—Noah must make the ark, for Hebrews, Jehovah, is about to bring a flood upon the

earth, but at the same time to make a covenant of salvation with Noah. ולUמ from יבל or בול, to

undulate, to swell—an antique word, used expressly for the waters of Noah ( Isaiah 54:9), and

which, out of Genesis, occurs only in Psalm 29:10.” Keil. Therefore Keil and Delitzsch take for its

explanation the words that follow: “waters upon the earth,” regarding it as in apposition. Knobel,

again, explains it as meaning the flood of water, whilst Michaelis and others have changed מים

into מם (from the sea) without any ground, although in this conformation of all collections of

water to make the flood, the co-operation of the sea comes into account. The divine destination

of the flood: to destroy every living thing under the heaven. In a more particular sense: whatever

is upon the earth. The sea-animals cannot be destroyed by water. In respect to them, moreover,

the symbolical relation in which the beasts stand to men, does not come specially into

consideration.—But with thee will I establish my covenant.—ריתU, Sept. διαθήκη, Vulg. fœdus,

in the New Testament, testamentum ( Romans 9:4). The religious covenant-idea here presents

itself for the first in literal expression; although the establishment of God’s covenant with Noah

presupposes a previous covenant relation with Adam ( Genesis 2:15; Genesis 3:15; Sirach 17:10).

In the repeated establishment of the covenant with Noah ( Genesis 6:18; Genesis 8:21; Genesis

9:9; Genesis 7:11; Genesis 7:16; Sirach 44:11), with Abraham, Genesis 15:18; Genesis 17:9-14;

Genesis 22:15; Psalm 105:8-10; Sirach 44:24; Acts 3:25; Acts 7:8), with Isaac ( Genesis 24:25),

with Jacob ( Genesis 28:13-14), with Israel ( Exodus 19:6; Exodus 24:7; Exodus 34:10;

Deuteronomy 5:3), there are unfolded the different covenants, or covenant forms, which bring

Page 86: Genesis 7 commentary

into revelation the ground-idea of the covenant between God and humanity in Adam, whilst they

are, at the same time, anticipatory representations of that true covenant-making which is realized

in the new covenant of God with believing humanity through Christ ( Jeremiah 31:32-33; ZaGen

Genesis 9:11; Matthew 26:28; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Hebrews 6:17-18), and which finds in the

perfected kingdom of God its last and conclusive development ( Revelation 21). The covenant of

God with Noah, and that with Abraham, form a parallel; the first is the covenant of compassion

and forbearance made with the new humanity and earth in general; the last is the covenant of

grace and salvation made with Abraham and his believing seed, as a more definite covenant-

making on the ground of the Noachian- covenant. The patriarchal covenant which, in its

specialty, embraced Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ( Exodus 3:6) as the covenant of promise, takes

the form of a law-covenant for Israel; this latter is the old typical covenant in the form of an

anticipatory representation of the new covenant, and which, therefore, as the older and more

imperfect, must give place to the new; whereas the covenant with Noah and that with Abraham,

as beginnings of the covenant of faith, become one, finally, with the new covenant of Christ,

which, in its stricter sense, embraces the children of faith as partakers of salvation, but, in its

wider sense, the children of men as called to salvation. But the covenant of Christ carries on the

foundation covenant made with Adam to its perfect realization in the eternal covenant-life of the

new world ( Revelation 21). The revelation and recognition of the divine covenant rests on the

revelation and recognition of the fact that God, as the absolute personality, places himself in a

personal, ethically free, covenant-relation of love and truth to man as personal, and to the human

race. That the covenant of God has its root in the personal relation is evident from the fact that

in its different forms such covenant ever goes out from a person, as from Noah, Abraham, etc.

Therefore it Isaiah, that ever within the universal covenant relations, as they widen from the

centre out, there are the making of special covenants, such as that with Moses, with Phineas (

Numbers 25:13), with David. It is a consequence of the ethical significance of God’s covenant as

forming the personal foundation of the chosen kingdom, that the assaults of the kingdom of

darkness are in like manner comprehended as covenants or conspiracies against God (the troop

of Korah, Psalm 2; Psalm 83:6; Luke 23:12; Acts 4:27). The word ריתU from ברת, to cut, divide, is

derived from the sacrifices of animals that are cut in twain in the formation of a covenant; and in

this is the peculiar explanation of the word, Genesis 15:10; Genesis 15:17.—And thou shalt come

into the ark.—God makes his covenant personally with Noah, but there is included also his

house, which he represents as paterfamilias, and with it the new humanity mediately, as also, in a

remoter sense, the animal world that is to be preserved. “The narrator supposes that the beasts

of themselves (as is held by Jarchi and Aben Ezra), or at the instigation of God (according to

Page 87: Genesis 7 commentary

Kimchi, Piscat.), would come into the ark.” Knobel. Rather was it through an instinctive

presentiment of catastrophe, which was, at the same time, God’s ordering and an impulse of

nature. The collection of the provisioning is distinguished from the gathering of the beasts, so

that the ark represents a perfect economy of the Noachian household. Noah’s obedience in faith

makes the conclusion of the section (see Hebrews 11:17).

PETT, "Genesis 7:13-16

‘On that very day Noah, and Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the three sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons, entered the ark. They, and every animal after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort, went into the ark to Noah, two and two of all flesh in which is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as Elohim commanded him, and Yahweh shut him in.’

The reason for this repetition, which as we have seen is characteristic of ancient narratives and was especially appreciated by the listeners (compare nursery stories today), is to stress the exact obedience of Noah to the command of Elohim in Genesis 6:19-20, and to indicate the perfect timing of God.

Noah had been told to commence entry into the ark seven days previously (Genesis 7:1) but it is clear that the task took the whole seven days allotted so that it was finally completed on the very day the Flood came, and on that day the final creature entered the ark, and Noah and his family went in for the last time.

So in Genesis 6:19-20 we have the Creator’s command to take creatures of all kinds into the ark, in Genesis 7:2-3 we have the command from God as the covenant God to take in seven and seven of clean creatures, in Genesis 7:7-9 we have the obedience to this command but shown as included in the fulfilment of the total command which is brief in summary form, and in Genesis 7:14-16 we have the final declaration of the fulfilment of the Creator’s plan in detail which ties in with the original command. This continual repetition stresses that these, and only these, survive the catastrophe and that the plan is to replenish the earth. The danger with such a cataclysm was that attention might be on the dreadful flood, but the continual repetition ensures that the listener is kept very much aware of the survivors. As every good teacher knows, repetition of what is important aids the memory of his hearers.

Then ‘Yahweh shut him in’. Note the change from Elohim to Yahweh. He has entered with all living things at the command of God the Creator (the wording re the living creatures ‘after their kinds’ also echoes Genesis 1) but now it is Yahweh who shuts him in. Thus God, the covenant God, tenderly ensures the safety of His servant. The thought is not that Noah left the blocking of the gap to God, but that God Himself ensured that what Noah had done was strong enough and safe enough for the ordeal ahead. In the end their security depended not on what Noah had done, but on the faithfulness of God, Who would watch over them in what was to come. They were safe because they were safe in His hands.

Page 88: Genesis 7 commentary

EXCURSUS.

The Flood has been thought of in terms of the ending of the ice age when sea levels would rise dramatically and the skies would be filled with dense vapour, and all kinds of catastrophic events could have arisen depending on the land levels of the world at the time, but it could equally have been caused by an asteroid striking the seas and causing an unprecedented calamity, including vast clouds and huge tidal waves. However, in the end we have to accept the fact that we can have no final and specific explanation, for we do not know when it occurred, nor can we know what conditions were like at the time.

The Flood in fact lasts what was probably twelve moon cycles (a year) and ten days (Genesis 8:14), roughly 354 days. Its exact length would depend on the number of days to the each moon cycle over that period. The sequence in the narrative is as follows:

1). Flood commences - 17th day of the second month

2). Ark rests on Mount Ararat - 17th day of seventh month. There are 5 moon cycles from second to seventh month which times thirty using a recognised ‘standard 30 day method’ of indicating days of a ‘month’, would equal 150 days, the period not to be taken literally (‘150 days’ is thus really a technical way of translating ‘five moon cycles’ which is what the original possibly said. Moon cycles would actually be for 28/29 days thus the period in our terminology would be about 140 - 145 days). As has been previously suggested five may be the number of covenant (later the ‘commandments’ will be given in two sets of five), or if not it is a number representing completeness.

3). Waters have abated and tops of mountains seen - 1st day of tenth month

4). Waters have receded from land which can now be seen as ‘dry’ because no longer covered by water - 1st day of first month. This is five and a half moon cycles after the seventh month. This is possibly the second ‘150 days’ (Genesis 8:3), meaning five moon cycles (thus ignoring the part cycle). The whole period in our terminology would be about 155 - 160 days (140 - 145 + the extra fifteen days). With 2). this makes about 300 real days. This last 150 days includes the forty days of waiting (8:6) as the first 150 days had included the forty days of rain, and also includes the sending out of the birds.

5). The land, being ‘dry land’ again because it has come out of the sea (compare Genesis 1:9), now dries out thoroughly until on 27th day of second month it is again fit for use.

14

They had with them every wild animal

according to its kind, all livestock according to

their kinds, every creature that moves along the

Page 89: Genesis 7 commentary

ground according to its kind and every bird

according to its kind, everything with wings.

GILL, "Gen 7:14 - They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind,.... They, Noah and his family, went into the ark; as did all sorts of beasts and cattle, reckoned one hundred and thirty sorts, by some one hundred and fifty, including serpents:

and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; supposed to be scarce thirty sorts; not one sort of creature was left out, though ever so small, and despicable:

every fowl after his kind; Bishop Wilkins has divided them into nine sorts, and reckons them up to be one hundred and ninety five in the whole:

every bird of every sort, or "bird of every wing" (k), let their wings be what they will; some, as Ainsworth observes, are winged with feathers, others with skin, as bats.

BENSON, "Genesis 7:14. 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.

ELLICOTT, "(11) In the second month.—That is, of the civil year, which commenced in Tisri, at the autumnal equinox. The flood thus began towards the end of October, and lasted till the spring. The ecclesiastical year began in Abib, or April; but it was instituted in remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt (Exodus 12:2; Exodus 23:15), and can have no place here. The year was evidently the lunar year of 360 days, for the waters prevail for 150 days (Genesis 7:24), and then abate for 150 days (Genesis 8:3). Now, as the end of the first period of 150 days is described in Genesis 8:4 as the seventeenth day of the seventh month, whereas the flood began on the seventeenth of the second month, it is plain that the 150 days form five months of thirty days each. But see farther proof on Genesis 8:14.

The fountains of the great deep broken up (Heb., cloven), and the windows (lattices) of heaven were opened.—This is. usually taken by commentators as a description of extraordinary torrents of rain, related in language in accordance with the popular ideas of the time and of the narrator himself. The rains poured down as though the flood-gates which usually shut in the upper waters were thrown open, while from the abysses of the earth the subterranean ocean burst its way upwards. But the words at least suggest the idea of a great cosmic catastrophe, by which some vast body of water was set loose. Without some such natural convulsion it is very difficult to understand how the ark, a vessel incapable of sailing, could have gone against the current up to the water-shed of

Page 90: Genesis 7 commentary

Ararat. As the annual evaporation of the earth is also a comparatively fixed quantity, the concentrated downpour of it for forty days and nights would scarcely have produced a flood so vast as the deluge of Noah evidently was. It is thus probable that there was, besides the rains, some vast displacement of water which helped in producing these terrific effects.

We shall have occasion subsequently to notice the exactness of the dates (Genesis 8:14). Tradition might for a short time hand them down correctly, but they must soon have been committed to writing, or confusion would inevitably have crept in.

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:14 They, and every beast 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.

Ver. 14. They, and every beast after his kind.] Laying aside all their antipathies, and hostilities, for self-preservation, in that common danger. Oh that men were thus wise! Some Roman generals did so; and some fathers of the Church: but few such now-a-days: Apparent rari ,& c.

15

Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life

in them came to oah and entered the ark.

CLARKE, "Gen 7:15 -

And they went in, etc. - 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.

GILL, "And they went in unto Noah into the ark,.... Noah went in first, and the

Page 91: Genesis 7 commentary

creatures of themselves came to him, or were conducted by the ministry of angels; and they were delivered into his hands, and he placed them in the ark as was most convenient for them: it is very likely he went in and out as occasion required, for the better management and disposition of things; for he seems to be the last of all that went in, see Gen_7:16,

two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life; they that went by sevens, yet being seven couples, as has been observed, as those which were only two or four, went by pairs: this is true of them all.

16

The animals going in were male and female of

every living thing, as God had commanded

oah. Then the LORD shut him in.

GILL. "and the Lord shut him in; or shut the door after him (l), he being the last that entered; and which he could not so well shut himself, at least so close, as was done by the Lord, or by the angels; and this was done to keep out the waters, and all within in safety; and to shut out others, and preserve Noah from the rage of wicked men, as well as the violence of the waters: some (m) have thought that not so much the door of the ark is meant, as the way to it, the pensile bridge which was necessary for the creatures to enter the ark; which being carried away by the force of the waters near the ark, that not being joined to it, precluded all access of the scoffers, whose scoffs were soon turned to lamentation and howling.

CLARKE, "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.

JAMISON, "and the Lord shut him in — literally, “covered him round about.” The “shutting him in” intimated that Noah had become the special object of divine care and protection, and that to those without the season of grace was over (Mat_25:10).

CALVIN, "16.And the Lord shut him in. This is not added in vain, nor ought it to be lightly passed over. That door must have been large, which could admit an elephant. And

Page 92: Genesis 7 commentary

truly, no pitch would be sufficiently firm and tenacious, and no joining sufficiently solid, to prevent the immense force of the water from penetrating through its many seams, especially in an irruption so violent, and in a shock so severe. Therefore, Moses, to cut off occasion for the vain speculations which our own curiosity would suggest, declares in one word, that the ark was made secure from the deluge, not by human artifice, but by divine miracle. It is, indeed, not to be doubted that Noah had been endued with new ability and sagacity, that nothing might be defective in the structure of the ark. But lest even this favor should be without success, it was necessary for something greater to be added. Wherefore, that we might not measure the mode of preserving the ark by the capacity of our own judgment, Moses teaches use that the waters were not restrained from breaking in upon the ark, by pitch or bitumen only, but rather by the secret power of God, and by the interposition of his hand.

COKE, "Verse 16

Genesis 7:16. And the Lord shut him in— Closed the door after Noah and all the rest had entered; closed it so fast, that the waters could not enter. How God shut the door we need not inquire; it is likely by an angelic power, which conducted the several creatures into the ark. Many writers say this was done by the Word of the Lord, the Messiah.

REFLECTIONS.—We have a repetition of the care God took of Noah and his family: and, 1. It is particularly observed, that his three sons were no polygamists; they were content with one wife; and no bachelors against the ordinance of God. It appears to be God's will (some special cases excepted, that every man should have a wife, as it is evident he should have but one.

2. That God shut them in.

(1.) He brought them in; Noah by his grace, and the creatures by his power, restraining their mutual enmities for a time. Note; 1. If ever we come into the ark we must remember to whom we are indebted for it: "by grace are ye saved." 2. Not the restraints of sin for a season, but the conquest over sin in the heart, is the proof of a change of nature.

(2.) He kept them in safe amidst the surrounding floods; he shut them in as separate from the wicked world. Those who are Christ's people, though in the world, are not of the world, but chosen out of the world, and in affection and temper separated from the world.

(3.) In shutting them in, he shut all the world out. No doubt, when the ungodly began to see the lowering clouds, and the rising waters, then they were importunate enough for that admission they had slighted. But it is too late to cry, Open unto us, when the door is shut. Note; 1. This is the day of salvation. Christ is a willing Saviour, and his arms of mercy are stretched out to save the vilest sinner from the wrath of God. He that cometh to him now shall be in no wise cast out. 2. If men neglect the day of mercy, it will be too late to come when it is the day of judgment. It must be now or never.

WHEDON, "16. The Lord shut him in — Noah in the ark was encompassed by the arms

Page 93: Genesis 7 commentary

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, ( ο ων και ο ην και ο ερχοµενος,) 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.

TRAPP, "Verse 16

Genesis 7:16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

Ver. 16. And the Lord shut him in.] A mean office, one would think, for God to shut the door after Noah. He could not well do it himself, the door doubtless being great and heavy, and others that were without would not do him so much service. God therefore doth it himself, and therefore it could not but be well done indeed. In a case of necessity, we need not question God’s readiness to do us any good office, so long as we keep close to him in a holy communion. [2 Chronicles 15:2] In a letter of B. Hooper’s, to certain good people, taken praying in Bow churchyard, and now in trouble, thus he writes; -"Read (a) the second chapter of Luke; there the shepherds that watched upon their sheep all night, as soon as they heard Christ was born at Bethlehem, by and by they went to see him. They did not reason, nor debate with themselves, who should keep the wolf from the sheep in the meanwhile; but did as they were commanded, and committed their sheep to him, whose pleasure they obeyed. So let us do. Now we be called, commit all other things to him that calleth us. He will take heed that all things shall be well: he will help the husband, comfort the wife, guide the servants, keep the house, preserve the goods: yea, rather than it shall be undone, he will wash the dishes, and rock the cradle. Cast therefore all your care upon God," &c. Thus he.

17

For forty days the flood kept coming on the

earth, and as the waters increased they lifted

the ark high above the earth.

Page 94: Genesis 7 commentary

HERY, "Gen 7:17-20 -

We are here told,

I. How long the flood was increasing - forty days, Gen_7:17. The profane world, who believed not that it would come, probably when it came flattered themselves with hopes that it would soon abate and never come to extremity; but still it increased, it prevailed. Note, 1. When God judges he will overcome. If he begin, he will make an end; his way is perfect, both in judgment and mercy. 2. The gradual approaches and advances of God's judgments, which are designed to bring sinners to repentance, are often abused to the hardening of them in their presumption.

II. To what degree they increased: they rose so high that not only the low flat countries were deluged, but to make sure work, and that none might escape, the tops of the highest mountains were overflowed - fifteen cubits, that is, seven yards and a half; so that in vain was salvation hoped for from hills or mountains, Jer_3:23. None of God's creatures are so high but his power can overtop them; and he will make them know that wherein they deal proudly he is above them. Perhaps the tops of the mountains were washed down by the strength of the waters, which helped much towards the prevailing of the waters above them; for it is said (Job_12:15), He sends out the waters, and they not only overflow, but overturn, the earth. Thus the refuge of lies was swept away, and the waters overflowed the hiding-place of those sinners (Isa_28:17), and in vain they fly to them for safety, Rev_6:16. Now the mountains departed, and the hills were removed, and nothing stood a man in stead but the covenant of peace, Isa_54:10. There is no place on earth so high as to set men out of the reach of God's judgments, Jer_49:16; Oba_1:3, Oba_1:4. God's hand will find out all his enemies, Psa_21:8. Observe how exactly they are fathomed (fifteen cubits), not by Noah's plummet, but by his knowledge who weighs the waters by measure, Job_28:25.

III. What became of Noah's ark when the waters thus increased: It was lifted up above the earth (Gen_7:17), and went upon the face of the waters, Gen_7:18. When all other buildings were demolished by the waters, and buried under them, the ark alone subsisted. Observe, 1. The waters which broke down every thing else bore up the ark. That which to unbelievers is a savour of death unto death is to the faithful a savour of life unto life. 2. The more the waters increased the higher the ark was lifted up towards heaven. Thus sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions; and as troubles abound consolations much more abound.

GILL, "And the flood was forty days upon the earth,.... This is said with respect to what follows, and the meaning is, that when and after the flood had been upon the earth so long, then

the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth; after this they were so many and so strong that they lifted up the ark from the place where it stood, and bore it up, that it touched not the earth; and Aben Ezra from hence infers, that the ark did not remove from its place after the flood began, until forty days.

JAMISON, "the waters increased, and bare up the ark — It seems to have been

Page 95: Genesis 7 commentary

raised so gradually as to be scarcely perceptible to its occupants.

BARES, "Gen 7:17-24 -

The prevalence of the waters. The forty days are now completed. And at the end of this period the ark had been afloat for a long time. It was drifted on the waters in the direction in which they were flowing, and toward what was formerly the higher ground.

Gen_7:19

Upon the land. - The land is to be understood of the portion of the earth’s surface known to man. This, with an unknown margin beyond it, was covered with the waters. But this is all that Scripture warrants us to assert. Concerning the distant parts of Europe, the continents of Africa, America, or Australia, we can say nothing. “All the high hills were covered.” Not a hill was above water within the horizon of the spectator or of man. There were ten generations from Adam to Noah inclusive. We cannot tell what the rate of increase was. But, supposing each couple to have ten children, and therefore the common ratio to be five, the whole number of births would be about five million, and the population in the time of Noah less than four million. It is probable that they did not scatter further than the necessities and conveniences of life demanded. In a fertile region, an area equal to that of the British Isles would be amply sufficient for four million men, women, and children.

Let us suppose, then, a circle of five hundred miles in diameter inhabited by man. Let this occupy the central region of a concentric circle of eight hundred miles in diameter. With a center a little southwest of Mosul, this larger circle would reach fifty miles into the Mediterranean, the Euxine, and the Caspian, and would probably have touched the Persian Gulf at the time of the deluge. If this region were covered with water, it is obvious that no land or mountain would be visible to a spectator within the inner circle of five hundred miles in diameter. “Fifteen cubits upward.” This was half the depth of the ark. It may have taken this draught of water to float it. If so, its grounding on a hill under water would indicate the depth of water on its summit. The gradual rise of the waters was accomplished by the depression of the land, aided, possibly, by a simultaneous elevation of the bed of the ocean. The water, by the mere necessity of finding its level, overflowed the former dry land. The extent of this oscillation of the solid crust of the earth is paralleled by the changes of level which geology indicates, the last of which took place at the time of the six days’ creation. It is possible that most of the land that was then raised was now again temporarily submerged in the returning waters; while distant continents may have all along existed, which never came within the ken of antediluvian man. The sobriety and historical veracity of the narrative are strikingly exhibited in the moderate height to which the waters are said to have risen above the ancient hills.

CALVIN, "17.And the flood was forty days, etc. Moses copiously insists upon this fact, in order to show that the whole world was immersed in the waters. Moreover, it is to be regarded as the special design of this narrations that we should not ascribe to fortune, the flood by which the world perished; how ever customary it may be for men to cast some veil over the works of God, which may obscure either his goodness or his judgments manifested in them. But seeing it is plainly declared, that whatever was flourishing on the earth was destroyed, we hence infer, that it was an indisputable and signal judgment of God; especially since Noah alone remained secure, because he had

Page 96: Genesis 7 commentary

embraced, by faith, the word in which salvation was contained. He then recalls to memory what we before have said; namely how desperate had been the impiety, and how enormous the crimes of men, by which God was induced to destroy the whole world; whereas, on account of his great clemency, he would have spared his own workmanship, had he seen that any milder remedy could have been effectually applied. These two things, directly opposed to each other, he connects together; that the whole human race was destroyed, but that Noah and his family safely escaped. Hence we learn how profitable it was for Noah, disregarding the world, to obey God alone: which Moses states not so much for the sake of praising the man, as for that of inviting us to imitate his example. Moreover, lest the multitude of sinners should draw us away from God; we must patiently bear that the ungodly should hold us up to ridicule, and should triumph over us, until the Lord shall show by the final issue, that our obedience has been approved by him. In this sense, Peter teaches that Noah’s deliverance from the universal deluge was a figure of baptism, (1 Peter 3:21;) as if he had said, the method of the salvation, which we receive through baptism, degrees with this deliverance of Noah. Since at this time also the world is full of unbelievers as it was then; therefore it is necessary for us to separate ourselves from the greater multitude, that the Lord may snatch us from destruction. In the same manner, the Church is fitly, and justly, compared to the ark. But we must keep in mind the similitude by which they mutually correspond with each other; for that is derived from the word of God alone; because as Noah believing the promise of God, gathered himself his wife and his children together, in order that under a certain appearance of death, he might emerge out of death; so it is fitting that we should renounce the world and die, in order that the Lord may quicken us by his word. For nowhere else is there any security of salvation. The Papists, however, act ridiculously who fabricate for us an ark without the word.

COFFMAN, "Verse 17

"And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth; And the waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered."

"The waters increased, and bare up the ark..."

"The waters prevailed and increased..."

"The waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth..."

This threefold multiplication of the flood waters upon the earth is a most impressive superlative, culminating at last in the inundation of all the high mountains under heaven. Natural man has a rough time with this; it is totally beyond his capacity to believe or accept it, resulting in the response: "It has lost contact with history entirely!"[16] There are simply too many things in this that men cannot explain for some of them to believe it, but, we might add, such men are exactly like Noah's generation who also could not conceive of such a thing. Did it really happen? Of course it did! Every nation under the heaven, in all continents, testifies to the truth of this report by its

Page 97: Genesis 7 commentary

myths and legends, which are nothing but distorted and perverted tales of the same event, but this account is different. It is accurately and precisely dated; it is embedded in the matrix of a moral theology that assigns plausible and accurate moral reasons for the catastrophe. Both the judgment and the mercy inherent in the event are fully in character with the nature of God, as revealed in both Testaments.

Geologists who seek in vain for the confirmation of the Flood in the present structure of the earth are overlooking the catastrophic changes which we know have occurred since the events recorded here. Human conceit being what it is, it is very difficult for unregenerated man to believe anything that he does not think he can explain! Well, there is no way to explain all of this Deluge. Just as that event was a moral test for Noah's generation, it is still a moral test for our own generation. Faith in what is written here cannot be produced by intellectual understanding of it. As always, faith in God is not an intellectual but a moral decision (John 3:19). A scientific community that has no explanation whatever of how marine fossils are found at elevations above the snowline in the Cordilleras and the Himalayas[17] are not at all convincing in their shouted denials that what is recorded here is a record of what really happened. However, it should be noted that faith in the Bible is confidently affirmed by some of the greatest scientists. It is only those who are drunk upon a little learning who brashly deny the Bible!

ELLICOTT, "Verses 17-19

(17-19) The waters increased . . . —The swelling of the flood is told with great power in these verses but every stage and detail has reference to the ark, as if the author of the narrative was one of those on board. First, the “waters increased,” and raised up the ark till it floated. Next, “they became strong and increased exceedingly”—the word rendered “prevailed” really signifying the setting in of mighty currents (see on Genesis 8:1), as the waters sought the lower ground—and at this stage the ark began to move. Finally, they “became strong exceedingly, exceedingly,” rushing along with ever-increasing force, and carrying the ark high above every hill in its course. Of these it is said—

All the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.—Interpreting this by the English Version, many regard it as a proof of the deluge having been universal. But omitting the well-known fact that in the Bible the word “all” means much less than with us, we must also remember that the Hebrew language has a very small vocabulary, and “the whole heaven” means simply the whole shy. We with our composite language borrow a word for it from the Greek, and say “the whole horizon,” that is, the whole heaven, bounded by the line of the spectators vision. So then here. Far and wide, in every direction, to the utmost reach of the beholder’s gaze, no mountain was in sight. All was a surging waste of flood. But there is no idea here of the mountains of Auvergne, with the ashes of old-world volcanoes still reposing upon their craters, extinct from a time probably long anterior to the creation even of man. The mountains were those of the Noachian world, as limited as the Roman world of Luke 2:1, or even more so.

WHEDON, "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 Genesis 7:17-19 (comp. also Genesis 7:12, and Genesis 7:20-23) 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

Page 98: Genesis 7 commentary

as any writer living a thousand years later.

TRAPP, "Verse 17

Genesis 7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

Ver. 17. It was lift up above the waters.] Afterwards it went upon the face of the waters, till, at last, the highest hills were covered with waters; the ark floating upon the surface of them, and not swallowed up by them. In reference whereunto David prays, "Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up". [Psalms 69:15] The true Christian may be tossed on the waters of affliction, yea, douced over head and ears; and, as a drowning man, sink twice to the bottom; yet shall up again, if out of the deep he call upon God, as Jonah did: "Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight" (there you may take him up for dead), "yet I will look again toward thy holy temple" (there he revives and recovers comfort), [Jonah 2:4] Yea, though hell had swallowed up a servant of God into her bowels, yet it must, in despite of it, render him up, as the whale did Jonah: which, if he had lighted upon the mariners, would have devoured and digested twenty of them in less space.

LANGE, " Genesis 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. The150 days, within which the destruction was accomplished, include the forty days of storm at the beginning. According to Genesis 8:2, the rain continued all through these150 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 (p260). Compare the preceding Section.

Page 99: Genesis 7 commentary

K&D, "Gen 7:17-24 -

Gen_7:17-24 contain a description of the flood: how the water increased more and more, till it was 15 cubits above all the lofty mountains of the earth, and how, on the one hand, it raised the ark above the earth and above the mountains, and, on the other, destroyed every living being upon the dry land, from man to cattle, creeping things, and birds. “The description is simple and majestic; the almighty judgment of God, and the love manifest in the midst of the wrath, hold the historian fast. The tautologies depict the fearful monotony of the immeasurable expanse of water: omnia pontus erant et deerant litera ponto.” The words of Gen_7:17, “and the flood was (came) upon the earth for forty days,” relate to the 40 days' rain combined with the bursting forth of the foundations beneath the earth. By these the water was eventually raised to the height given, at which it remained 150 days (Gen_7:24). But if the water covered “all the high hills under the whole heaven,” this clearly indicates the universality of the flood. The statement, indeed, that it rose 15 cubits above the mountains, is probably founded upon the fact, that the ark drew 15 feet of water, and that when the waters subsided, it rested upon the top of Ararat, from which the conclusion would very naturally be drawn as to the greatest height attained. Now as Ararat, according to the measurement of Perrot, is only 16,254 feet high, whereas the loftiest peaks of the Himalaya and Cordilleras are as much as 26,843, the submersion of these mountains has been thought impossible, and the statement in Gen_7:19 has been regarded as a rhetorical expression, like Deu_2:25and Deu_4:19, which is not of universal application. But even if those peaks, which are higher than Ararat, were not covered by water, we cannot therefore pronounce the flood merely partial in its extent, but must regard it as universal, as extending over every part of the world, since the few peaks uncovered would not only sink into vanishing points in comparison with the surface covered, but would form an exception not worth mentioning, for the simple reason that no living beings could exist upon these mountains, covered with perpetual snow and ice; so that everything that lived upon the dry land, in whose nostrils there was a breath of life, would inevitably die, and, with the exception of those shut up in the ark, neither man nor beast would be able to rescue itself, and escape destruction. A flood which rose 15 cubits above the top of Ararat could not remain partial, if it only continued a few days, to say nothing of the fact that the water was rising for 40 days, and remained at the highest elevation for 150 days. To speak of such a flood as partial is absurd, even if it broke out at only one spot, it would spread over the earth from one end to the other, and reach everywhere to the same elevation. However impossible, therefore, scientific men may declare it to be for them to conceive of a universal flood of such a height and duration in accordance with the known laws of nature, this inability on their part does not justify any one in questioning the possibility of such an event being produced by the omnipotence of God. It has been justly remarked, too, that the proportion of such a quantity of water to the entire mass of the earth, in relation to which the mountains are but like the scratches of a needle on a globe, is no greater than that of a profuse perspiration to the body of a man. And to this must be added, that, apart from the legend of a flood, which is found in nearly every nation, the earth presents unquestionable traces of submersion in the fossil remains of animals and plants, which are found upon the Cordilleras and Himalaya even beyond the limit of perpetual snow.

(Note: The geological facts which testify to the submersion of the entire globe are collected in Buckland's reliquiae diluv., Schubert's Gesch. der Natur, and C. v. Raumer's Geography, and are of such importance that even Cuvier acknowledged “Je pense donc, avec MM. Deluc et Dolomieu, que s'il y a quelque chose de constaté en géologie; c'est que la surface de notre globe a été victime d'une grande et subite

Page 100: Genesis 7 commentary

révolution, dont la date ne peut remonter beaucoup au delà de cinq ou six mille ans”

(Discours sur les rιvol. de la surface du globe, p. 190, ed. 6). The latest phase of geology,

however, denies that these facts furnish any testimony to the historical character of the flood,

and substitutes the hypothesis of a submersion of the entire globe before the creation of

man: 1. because the animals found are very different from those at present in existence; and

2. because no certain traces have hitherto been found of fossil human bones. We have

already shown that there is no force in these arguments. Vid., Keerl, pp. 489ff.)

In Gen_7:23, instead of וח (imperf. Niphal) read ומח (imperf. Kal): “and He

(Jehovah) destroyed every existing thing,” as He had said in Gen_7:4.

BI, "And the waters increased

Increased affliction

I. THAT AFFLICTION IS PROGRESSIVE IN ITS DEVELOPMENT AND SEVERITY.

II. THAT INCREASED AFFLICTION IS THE CONTINUED AND EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENT OF GOD. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The judgment on an ungodly world

I. JUDGMENT THREATENED.

II. JUDGMENT DELAYED. God’s forbearance and long suffering. Every day brings judgment nearer.

III. JUDGMENT EXECUTED. God did as He said. This judgment was—

1. Terrible.

2. Unavoidable.

3. Universal.

LESSONS:—

1. Listen to God’s warnings.

2. Abuse not God’s long suffering.

3. Flee from the wrath to come. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)

The destruction of the wicked.

1. Numbers, learning, wealth, combination, could not save. “Though wickedness join hand in hand, it shall not go unpunished.”

2. Their destruction complete and universal. None escaped.

3. They were not without an offer of mercy. In 120 years longer, after the warning was given, they were striven with. This was their day of grace. By word and life, Noah

Page 101: Genesis 7 commentary

preached to them.

4. At length “the flood came and took them all away.” Consternation, when they saw the ark drifting away, and the water still rising. Despair. A too late repentance. (J. C. Gray.)

18

The waters rose and increased greatly on the

earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the

water.

GILL, "Gen 7:18 - And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth,.... Still they became greater and more powerful, as to bear up the ark, so to cast down houses, trees, &c. by the continual rains that fell, though perhaps they were not so violent as before, and by the constant eruptions of water out of the earth:

and the ark went upon the face of the waters; it floated about upon them, in an easy gentle manner; for there were no storms of wind or tempests raised, which might endanger it. (If much of the water came from volcanic activity, and if earthquakes accompanied the breaking forth of the fountains of the deep, many tidal waves would result. This would completely destroy and remains of the old civilisation and as well give the ark a rough sea to drift in. The ark's dimensions would give make it almost impossible to upset. Ed.)

HAWKER, "And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

Doth not this verse suggest, that as the ark arose higher and higher, in proportion as the waters prevailed; so, when the waters of tribulation abound, consolation also, by Christ, aboundeth? 2Co_1:5

PETT, "Verses 18-20

‘And the waters grew deeper and bore up the ark and it was lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed and increased with great abundance on the earth, and the ark went up on the face of the waters, and the waters prevailed in great abundance, and all the high mountains (or hills) that were under the whole heavens were covered. Fifteen

Page 102: Genesis 7 commentary

cubits upwards did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered.’

This is a masterpiece of build up about the Flood. ‘The waters grew deeper --- the waters prevailed and increased with great abundance --- the waters prevailed in great abundance and all the high mountains (or hills) under the whole heavens were covered’. This is repetition with a purpose. Each step is an increase on the previous one as the listeners and readers are gripped by the expanding cataclysm. Furthermore we even see the gradual movement of the ark, as it is first lifted from the ground, then borne up on ‘the face of the waters’ which have replaced the ‘face of the ground’. Then finally we have the fact that all the high mountains (or hills) are under water. The listeners and readers are carried along step by step with growing involvement. (One problem with the verse divisions is that we read them one by one rather than as a whole narrative).

The ‘high mountains’ (or hills) that are covered are of course specifically those in Noah’s vicinity. (For the meaning of ‘under the whole heavens’ compare Deuteronomy 2:25). As far as the eye can see there is nothing but water, and when he makes his checks the ark clears whatever mountains they pass by over 15 cubits (7 metres). Alternately it could be that the ark required 15 cubits clearance. (Being thirty cubits deep it would require fifteen cubit clearance if it were rectangular).

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

Ver. 18. And the ark went upon the face of the waters.] Where now were those profane scoffers that asked what the old fool meant to build such a vessel? and whether, when he had made his ship, he would also make a sea for it to swim in?

19

They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high

mountains under the entire heavens were

covered.

Page 103: Genesis 7 commentary

GILL, "Gen 7:19 - And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth,.... Yet more and more, so that the people without the ark were obliged to remove, not only from the lower to the higher rooms in their houses, and to the tops of them, but to the highest trees; and when these were bore down, to the highest hills and mountains; and to those it was in vain to fly, by what follows:

and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered: whence it appears there were hills before the flood, and that these were not caused by it, and that the deluge was universal, since there was not a hill under the whole heaven but what was covered with it. In Deucalion's flood all men are said to perish, except a few who fled to the high mountains (n); which story seems to be hammered out of this account.

BARNES, "Gen_7:19

Upon the land. - The land is to be understood of the portion of the earth’s surface known to man. This, with an unknown margin beyond it, was covered with the waters. But this is all that Scripture warrants us to assert. Concerning the distant parts of Europe, the continents of Africa, America, or Australia, we can say nothing. “All the high hills were covered.” Not a hill was above water within the horizon of the spectator or of man. There were ten generations from Adam to Noah inclusive. We cannot tell what the rate of increase was. But, supposing each couple to have ten children, and therefore the common ratio to be five, the whole number of births would be about five million, and the population in the time of Noah less than four million. It is probable that they did not scatter further than the necessities and conveniences of life demanded. In a fertile region, an area equal to that of the British Isles would be amply sufficient for four million men, women, and children.

Let us suppose, then, a circle of five hundred miles in diameter inhabited by man. Let this occupy the central region of a concentric circle of eight hundred miles in diameter. With a center a little southwest of Mosul, this larger circle would reach fifty miles into the Mediterranean, the Euxine, and the Caspian, and would probably have touched the Persian Gulf at the time of the deluge. If this region were covered with water, it is obvious that no land or mountain would be visible to a spectator within the inner circle of five hundred miles in diameter. “Fifteen cubits upward.” This was half the depth of the ark. It may have taken this draught of water to float it. If so, its grounding on a hill under water would indicate the depth of water on its summit. The gradual rise of the waters was accomplished by the depression of the land, aided, possibly, by a simultaneous elevation of the bed of the ocean. The water, by the mere necessity of finding its level, overflowed the former dry land. The extent of this oscillation of the solid crust of the earth is paralleled by the changes of level which geology indicates, the last of which took place at the time of the six days’ creation. It is possible that most of the land that was then raised was now again temporarily submerged in the returning waters; while distant continents may have all along existed, which never came within the ken of antediluvian man. The sobriety and historical veracity of the narrative are strikingly exhibited in the moderate height to which the waters are said to have risen above the ancient hills.

BENSON, "Genesis 7:19-20. 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

Page 104: Genesis 7 commentary

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.

WHEDON, "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.

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that [were] under the whole heaven, were covered.

Ver. 19. And all the high hills.] So high, some of them, that their tops are above the clouds and winds. And yet, as high as they were, they could not save those from the flood that fled to them. "Truly," might they say, "in vain is salvation hoped for from the mountains". [Jeremiah 3:23] Well for them, if, taught by their present distress and danger, they could go on, with the Church there, and say, "Surely in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel." Happy storm, that beats us into the harbour!

20

The waters rose and covered the mountains to a

depth of more than twenty feet.[2] [3]

Page 105: Genesis 7 commentary

GILL. "Gen 7:20 - Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail,.... Either to

such an height above the earth, upwards from that, or from the high hills; for though the words do not necessarily imply that, yet it may be allowed, since there was water enough to cover the highest of them; and fifteen cubits of water were enough to drown the tallest man, or largest beast that should be upon the top of any of them:

and the mountains were covered, with water, even it may be allowed fifteen cubits high; nor will this furnish out so considerable an objection to the history of the flood as may be thought at first sight, since the highest mountains are not near so high as they are by some calculated. Sir Walter Raleigh allows thirty miles for the height of the mountains, yet the highest in the world will not be found to be above six direct miles in height. Olympus, whose height is so extolled by the poets, does not exceed a mile and a half perpendicular, and about seventy paces. Mount Athos, said to cast its shade into the isle of Lemnos (according to, Pliny eighty seven miles) is not above two miles in height, nor Caucasus much more; nay, the Peak of Teneriff, reputed the highest mountain in the world, may be ascended in three days (according to the proportion of eight furlongs to a day's journey), which makes about the height of a German mile perpendicular; and the Spaniards affirm, that the Andes, those lofty mountains of Peru, in comparison of which they say the Alps are but cottages, may be ascended in four days' compass (o).

CLARKE, "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.

JFBGen 7:20 - Fifteen cubits upward . . . and the mountains were covered--twenty-two and a half feet above the summits of the highest hills. The language is not consistent with the theory of a partial deluge.

COKE, "Verse 20Genesis 7:20. Fifteen cubits upward— That is, fifteen cubits, or twenty-two feet and a half, upward, or above the highest mountains. It is plain, as words can make it, from this and the foregoing and the subsequent verses, that the deluge was universal, and not, according to the opinion of some, confined to a certain tract of country only.

One of our most celebrated philosophers observes, that the rain of forty days and forty nights will be found to be a very small part of the cause of such a deluge as Moses describes. For supposing it to rain all over the globe as much in each day, as it is now found to do in one of the most rainy counties in England in the whole year, viz. about forty inches of water a day, forty such days could cover the whole earth with but about twenty-two fathom water, which would only drown the low-lands next the sea: but the greater part would escape. Therefore, he says, we may reasonably conclude, that by the opening of the windows of heaven, is meant an extraordinary fall of waters from the heavens, not as rain, but in one great body; as if the firmament, supposed by Moses to sustain a supra-aerial sea, had been broken up, and, at the same time, the ocean did flow in upon the land to cover all with water. See Phil. Trans. abridged, vol. 6: part 2: p. 1.

Page 106: Genesis 7 commentary

Perhaps ordinary continued rain for forty days and nights would be found adequate to the effect, if this philosopher took in, as he does in the conclusion, the rupture of the great deep, and the union of its waters with those from above.

The reader will find great satisfaction by consulting Saurin's eighth and ninth Dissertations.

ELLICOTT, "(20) Fifteen cubits upward.—This apparently was the draught of the ark, computed after it had settled. in the region of Ararat. Fifteen cubits would be about twenty-two feet, and as the ark floated onward without interruption until it finally grounded, there must have been this depth of water even on the highest summit in its course. Continuous rains for forty days and nights would scarcely produce so vast a mass of water, unless we suppose that the adâmâh was some low-lying spot of ground whither the waters from many regions flowed together; but this is negatived by the ark having travelled into Armenia. In England the whole average mean rainfall in a year is not more than twenty-eight or thirty inches in depth. If we suppose this amount to have fallen in every twenty-four hours, the total quantity would be about 100 feet. Such a rain would denude the mountains of all soil, uproot all trees, sweep away all buildings, dig out new courses for the rivers, completely alter the whole surface of the ground, and cover the lower lands with débris. Wherever there was any obstacle in their way, the waters would deepen in volume, and quickly burst a passage through it. But as they would be seeking the lower grounds during the whole forty days, it is difficult to understand how they could cover any of the heights to the depth of twenty-two feet, unless there were some cosmic convulsion (see Note on Genesis 7:11), by which the waters from the equator were carried towards the poles, and in this way there would be no difficulty in the ark being carried against the current of the Tigris and Euphrates up to the high lands of Armenia.

WHEDON, "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.

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

Ver. 20. Fifteen cubits upward.] So, above any mountain. The Popish fable of Enoch, preserved alive in some high place of the earthly paradise, shall as soon be believed as the Jewish tale of Og (one of the old giants, say they), escaping death by riding astride upon the ark.

21

Page 107: Genesis 7 commentary

Every living thing that moved on the earth

perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the

creatures that swarm over the earth, and all

mankind.

BARES, "Gen_7:21-23

There expired all flesh. - The resulting death of all by drowning is here recounted. “All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of live died.” This statement refers solely to man, whose higher life is exclusively expressed by the

phrase חיים nîshmat נשמת chayîym, “breath of life” Gen_2:7. It affirms the death of the

whole of mankind. The sum total of animal and vegetable life, with the exception of those in the ark, is here declared to be extinguished.

GILL, "Gen 7:21 - And all flesh died that moved upon the earth,.... That had

animal life in them, of which motion was a sign:

both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth; excepting those that were in the ark. This general destruction of the creatures, as it was for the sins of men, whose they were, and by whom they were abused, and is expressive of God's hatred of sin, and of his holiness and justice in the punishment of it; so, on the other hand, it is a display both of the wisdom of God, in causing a decrease of the creatures, in proportion to the decrease of men, who now would not need so many; and of the goodness of God to those that were spared, that so the beasts of the field, especially the wilder sort, might not multiply against them, and prevail over them, see Exo_23:29.

and every man: except those in the ark; and the number of them is supposed to be as great, if not greater, than of the present inhabitants of the earth, by those who are skilful in the calculation of the increase of men. It is thought it may be easily allowed, that their number amounted to eleven billion; and some have made their number to be eighty billion (p). The Apostle Peter calls them, the world of the ungodly, 2Pe_2:5.

HERY, "Gen 7:21-24 -

Here is, I. The general destruction of all flesh by the waters of the flood. Come, and see the desolations which God makes in the earth (Psa_46:8), and how he lays heaps upon heaps. Never did death triumph, from its first entrance unto this day, as it did then. Come, and see Death upon his pale horse, and hell following with him, Rev_6:7, Rev_6:8.

1. All the cattle, fowl, and creeping things, died, except the few that were in the ark.

Page 108: Genesis 7 commentary

Observe how this is repeated: All flesh died, Gen_7:21. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was on the dry land, Gen_7:22. Every living substance, Gen_7:23. 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 doest thou? May he not do what he will with his own, which were created for his pleasure? (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. This makes the judgment the more remarkable, the more dreadful, and, consequently, the more expressive of God's wrath and vengeance. The destruction of the creatures was their deliverance from the bondage of corruption, which deliverance the whole creation now groans after, Rom_8:21, Rom_8:22. 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 that 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. See how God considered this in another case, Exo_23:29, Lest the beast of the field multiply against thee.

2. All the men, women, and children, that were in the world (except that were in the ark) died. Every man (Gen_7:21 and Gen_7:23), and perhaps they were as many as are now upon the face of the earth, if not more. Now, (1.) We may easily imagine what terror and consternation seized on them when they saw themselves surrounded. Our Saviour tells us that till the very day that the flood came they were eating and drinking (Luk_17:26, Luk_17:27); they were drowned in security and sensuality before they were drowned in those waters, crying Peace, peace, to themselves, deaf and blind to all divine warnings. In this posture death surprised them, as 1Sa_30:16, 1Sa_30:17. But O what an amazement were they in then! Now they see and feel that which they would not believe and fear, and are convinced of their folly when it is too late; now they find no place for repentance, though they seek it carefully with tears. (2.) We may suppose that they tried all ways and means possible for their preservation, but all in vain. Some climb to the tops of trees or mountains, and spin out their terrors there awhile. But the flood reaches them, at last, and they are forced to die with the more deliberation. Some, it is likely, cling to the ark, and now hope that this may be their safety which they had so long made their sport. Perhaps some get to the top of the ark, and hope to shift for themselves there; but either they perish there for want of food, or, by a speedier despatch, a dash of rain washes them off that deck. Others, it may be, hoped to prevail with Noah for admission into the ark, and pleaded old acquaintance, Have we not eaten and drunk in thy presence? Hast thou not taught in our streets? “Yes,” might Noah say, “that I have, many a time, to little purpose. I called but you refused; you set at nought all my counsel(Pro_1:24, Pro_1:25), and now it is not in my power to help you: God has shut the door, and I cannot open it.” Thus it will be at the great day. Neither climbing high in an outward profession, nor claiming relation to good people, will bring men to heaven, Mat_7:22; Mat_25:8, Mat_25:9. Those that are not found in Christ, the ark, are certainly undone, undone for ever; salvation itself cannot save them. See Isa_10:3. (3.) We may suppose that some of those that perished in the deluge had themselves assisted Noah, or were employed by him, in the building of the ark, and yet were not so wise as by

Page 109: Genesis 7 commentary

repentance to secure themselves a place in it. Thus wicked ministers, though they may have been instrumental to help others to heaven, will themselves be thrust down to hell.

Let us now pause awhile and consider this tremendous judgment! Let our hearts meditate terror, the terror of this destruction. Let us see, and say, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; who can stand before him when he is angry? Let us see and say, It is an evil thing, and a bitter, to depart from God. The sin of sinners will, without repentance, be their ruin, first or last; if God be true, it will. Though hand join in hand, yet the wicked shall not go unpunished. The righteous God knows how to bring a flood upon the world of the ungodly, 2Pe_2:5. Eliphaz appeals to this story as a standing warning to a careless world (Job_22:15, Job_22:16), Hast thou marked the old way, which wicked men have trodden, who were cut down out of time, and sent into eternity, whose foundation was overflown with the flood?

II. The special preservation of Noah and his family: Noah only remained alive, and those that were with him in the ark, Gen_7:23. Observe, 1. Noah lives. When all about him were monuments of justice, thousands falling on his right hand and ten thousands on his left, he was a monument of mercy. Only with his eyes might he behold and see the reward of the wicked, Psa_91:7, Psa_91:8. In the floods of great waters, they did not come nigh him, Psa_32:6. We have reason to think that, while the long-suffering of God waited, Noah not only preached to, but prayed for, that wicked world, and would have turned away the wrath; but his prayers return into his own bosom, and are answered only in his own escape, which is plainly referred to, Eze_14:14, Noah, Daniel, and Job, shall but deliver their own souls. A mark of honour shall be set on intercessors. 2. He but lives. Noah remains alive, and this is all; he is, in effect, buried alive - cooped up in a close place, alarmed with the terrors of the descending rain, the increasing flood, and the shrieks and outcries of his perishing neighbours, his heart overwhelmed with melancholy thoughts of the desolations made. But he comforts himself with this, that he is in the way of duty and in the way of deliverance. And we are taught (Jer_45:4, Jer_45:5) that when desolating judgments are abroad we must not seek great nor pleasant things to ourselves, but reckon it an unspeakable favour if we have our lives given us for a prey.

JAMISON, "all flesh died ... fowl ... cattle, and ... creeping thing — It has been a uniform principle in the divine procedure, when judgments were abroad on the earth, to include every thing connected with the sinful objects of His wrath (Gen_19:25; Exo_9:6). Besides, now that the human race was reduced to one single family, it was necessary that the beasts should be proportionally diminished, otherwise by their numbers they would have acquired the ascendancy and overmastered the few that were to repeople the world. Thus goodness was mingled with severity; the Lord exercises judgment in wisdom and in wrath remembers mercy.

BENSON, "Genesis 7:21. 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

Page 110: Genesis 7 commentary

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.

COKE, "Verse 21

Genesis 7:21. And all flesh died, &c.— We do ourselves injustice when we read the scriptures as common writings. When God informs us that all the inhabitants of the world were destroyed, except eight persons, he makes use of but few words, leaving it to the consideration of mankind to observe what must necessarily be concluded in the event so briefly related. Let us then pause, and look back!

The mighty men of renown, and all the powers with which they were allied, who filled the world with violence in those early ages, where are they? what is become of their strength? God opened the windows of heaven! They fly to the mountains, they climb the trees, they look, they tremble at the increasing flood, they reach the highest branch, but at length the waves prevail. The whole world opposed to God by wicked works are but as chaff before the wind. Here, as from the top of a mountain, we may stand and look upon the ark shut, the flood advancing, millions flying to it for refuge, who mocked its building and its builder; hills, houses, and trees covered with the trembling inhabitants of the world! But what are the characters which compose those multitudes that now betake themselves to the hills? Infidels, blasphemers of God, deceivers, robbers, oppressors: the vengeance of God being let loose upon the world, they ran to the highest ground, like silly sheep surrounded with a flood. But who compose the numberless millions left behind, whose dwellings are beginning to disappear? fathers, wives, infants, the sick, the weak, the aged, all left as in a sinking ship, till their cries are heard no more!

How dreadful the scene! what ravages are made on the earth! See its inhabitants swept away with the besom of destruction! They are all dead corpses floating upon the waters! How awful, how sudden the surprise! when eating and drinking, building, marrying, and in the height of the bridal feast, to hear the crash of elements, to see the wreck of nature, and a dissolving world! In vain they cry, in vain they climb, in vain they intreat; every avenue is shut up, and escape impossible: while Noah, secure in the divine protection, swims in safety, and sleeps in peace. See, 1. How fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Sinner, read and tremble; a more fearful doom awaits thee, except thou repent. 2. Though Noah's relations, or his carpenters, might plead their blood or their labours, it will not procure them admittance. Not the work only, but the temper is regarded by the Lord. Let ministers beware; their success is not their security! 3. Noah, with his family, lives alone, while the rest of the world perish without exception. 4. Though Noah lives, he lives but in a melancholy situation; around him seas without a shore, and these overspread with desolation. Many, no doubt, near and dear to him, were among the slain; and he could not but lament over what he could not prevent by his preaching and prayers.

COFFMAN, "Verse 21

"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both birds, and cattle, and beasts, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was on the dry land, died. And every living thing was

Page 111: Genesis 7 commentary

destroyed that was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days."

These verses give the result of the Deluge, namely, the destruction of all life except that of Noah and his companions in the ark. Genesis 7:24 gives the duration of the flood as some five months when the waters reached their zenith. This also includes the forty days and forty nights of rain. At this point, the waters began to subside, or at least ceased rising. Some have objected that there is not enough water on earth to cover all the high mountains, but this is a mistake. A change in the level of the ocean floor could easily have done what is recorded here. As Whitelaw accurately discerned, what is indicated in this description is a "change in the land level."[18] And, speaking of the amount of water on earth, an unbelievable number of cubic miles of water is stacked upon the earth's polar caps in the form of ice.

Efforts to determine the exact time involved in the Deluge are frustrating, because of the uncertainty regarding whether or not some of the calculations are included in others. Following one scheme, the duration of the flood was one year and ten days, but Whitelaw's calculations gave the total time between the onset of the rains and the disembarkation from the ark as 417 days.[19] It is correct to say that it lasted somewhat over a year.

PETT, "Verses 21-23

‘And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, cattle, wild animals and every creeping thing that crept on the earth, and every man, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. And every living thing that was on the face of the ground was blotted out both man and cattle and creeping thing and bird of the heavens, they were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.’

Thus the writer stresses in detail in terms of what he has previously said - ‘all flesh died’ (Genesis 6:13; Genesis 6:17), ‘all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life’ (Genesis 6:17), ‘every living thing that was on the face of the ground was blotted out’ (Genesis 6:7; Genesis 7:4). His repetition demonstrates the fulfilment of God’s every threat. Noah’s world would have to begin anew.

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:21 And 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:

Ver. 21. And every man died.] Now these mockers behold that ark with envy, that erst they beheld with scorn; they wish themselves in the darkest corner of it, that lately laughed at it, and perhaps did what they could to hinder the finishing of it. (a) Yea, some, likely, to save them from drowning, caught at and clung as fast to the outside of the ark as Joab, for the same cause, did to the horns of the altar. But all in vain; for,

Page 112: Genesis 7 commentary

22

Everything on dry land that had the breath of

life in its nostrils died.

GIL, "Gen 7:22 - All in whose nostrils was the breath of life,.... Whether of fowls, beast, cattle, or creeping things:

of all that was in the dry land, died; by which description fishes were excepted, since they breathe not, having no lungs, and are not on the dry land, where they cannot live, but in the waters. Some pretend it to be the opinion of some Jewish writers, that the fishes did die, the waters being made hot, and scalded them; but this fable I have not met with.

CLARKE, "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.

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:22 All in whose nostrils [was] the breath of life, of all that [was] in the dry [land], died.

Ver. 22. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life died, of all that was in the dry land.] This last clause exempts fishes: though the Jews would needs persuade us that these also died; for that the waters of the flood were boiling hot. But rain-water uses not to be hot, we know; and therefore we reject this conceit as a Jewish fable.

23

Every living thing on the face of the earth was

wiped out; men and animals and the creatures

that move along the ground and the birds of the

Page 113: Genesis 7 commentary

air were wiped from the earth. Only oah was

left, and those with him in the ark.

GIL. "Gen 7:23 - And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground,.... Not everything, particularly trees; for after the flood was abated there was an olive tree, a leaf of which was brought to Noah by the dove, Gen_8:11 but all animals:

both men and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven, and they were destroyed from the earth; this is repeated, partly for explanation of the preceding clause, and partly for confirmation of this general destruction, which might seem almost incredible; there never was such a destruction of creatures before, or since, nor never will be till the general conflagration; and is a proof of the sovereignty of God, his almighty power, the purity and holiness of his nature, and the strictness and severity of his justice, and shows what a fearful thing it is to fail into his hands:

and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark; besides those, of the millions of mankind that were upon the earth, not one was left, the flood came and destroyed them all, Luk_17:27 the fable some Jewish writers relate of Og being found alive, and which they gather from Deu_3:11 by sitting upon a piece of wood of one of the ladders of the ark, to whom Noah reached out food every day, and so he remained alive (q), deserves no regard; though perhaps from hence arose the Grecian fable of the flood of Ogyges, which seems to be the same with this of Noah.

BI, "Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark

The almost solitary preservation of a good man from imminent and long-continued peril

I. THEN MORAL GOODNESS IS SOMETIMES A SAFEGUARD FROM THE IMMINENT PERILS OF LIFE.

II. THEN MORAL GOODNESS IS SIGNALLY HONOURED AND REWARDED BY GOD.

III. THEN MORAL GOODNESS MAY SOMETIMES BRING A MAN INTO THE MOST UNUSUAL AND EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES. It may make a man lonely in his occupation and life mission, even though he be surrounded by a crowded world; it may make him unique in his character, and it may render him solitary in his preservation and safety. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

God destroys that He may save

A mariner in a storm would very fain save his goods, but to save his ship he heaves them overboard, a tender-hearted mother corrects her child, whereas the stripes are deeper in

Page 114: Genesis 7 commentary

her heart than in its flesh. As it was said of a judge who, being about to pass sentence of death upon an offender, said, “I do that good which I would not.” Thus God, more loving than the careful mariner, more tender than the indulgent mother, and more merciful than the pitiful judge, is willingly unwilling that any sinner should die. He punisheth no man as he is a man, but as he is a sinful man; He loves him, yet turns him over to justice. It is God’s work to punish, but it is withal His strange work, His strange and foreign act, not His good will and pleasure. (J. Spencer.)

Noah’s sojourn in the ark

Now, first of all, it was a great mercy to escape the wickedness of a wicked world, to be delivered from the blasphemies, the daring excess of iniquity which abounded openly on every side, to be rescued from sights and sounds that only jarred upon a soul that thirsted for the living God; when the door was closed, and the little Church and family of God were separated from the sinners; when the rain descended and the world began to drown; when Noah and his children felt themselves alone with God, there must have been an inexpressible sensation of release. However awful the scene without, they were able to live without disturbance, and to be at rest. And yet while in this, their awful and most merciful severance from the world, we see some, though lesser, trials. As that calm and holy house moved on from day to day, from month to month, was there not with all its peace, with all its opportunity of undisturbed intercourse with God, the loss of much that had rejoiced the soul? As day rose on day, must not the sense of confinement and restraint have come at times over the faithful Noah and his sons? Must there not have risen some longings for the green meadows and the evening walk, the beauty of the fields and the cheerful sights of God’s excellent works, that give great pleasure to godly men? To be shut in that lonely house, and to see the spring and the summer come round, the changing seasons without any change to them, all watery and blank without, must have been a trial; and yet the very fact of such a cutting off from the world and worldly things, of such loss and privation of pleasures, innocent and allowed, likens this sojourn in the ark to a long and holy fast—a lengthened Lent filling up the circle of a year. But still, we may be sure that Noah looked upon it as a space of retirement, which was to be carefully husbanded and spent for the profit of his soul. The very loss of innocent delights, the very separation from the world, must have led Noah to search for some proper duties and proper work, there providentially assigned, and there to be fulfilled. We cannot but believe that the months were crowded with constant meditations on the things of God, constant liftings up of soul, and constant exercises of faith. No idle space was it to the man of God, and, though inactive as regards the labours of the world, it was a season of spiritual husbandry and of inward toil. And thus when Noah walked forth on that sort of Easter time of the visible material world, he was doubtless all the more prepared for future trials, with a still firmer trust in God, a still sublimer faith, a deeper knowledge of the things of God, and with a larger measure of spiritual strength. And now to turn from the stay of Noah in the ark to ourselves, it is true that, while such a kind of retirement from the world can never be given to us, and that such a length of retirement may never be given, yet God does carry us away, at times, from active life, and shuts upon us the door of our house, as it were the door of the ark. Often in the midst of our life, our hand is forced from the plough, our feet from the crowded ways of the world; and even of the guileless pleasures which good men may find in the works of God, we are for a time deprived.

Surely, in our wiser and more thoughtful hours, we may thank God for these forced seasons of retirement, forced upon us that we may escape the pollutions of the world,

Page 115: Genesis 7 commentary

study our Saviour’s will and word, give ourselves to fervent and more frequent prayer, commune with our heart and in our chamber, and be still—examine the tenor of our past lives, repent deeply, and at length, of those things which we have done amiss and contrary to the motions of the Spirit of grace, break off evil habits that have been formed, or are beginning to be formed, and by dwelling on all the love and all the truths of Jesus our Lord, be moved to consecrate ourselves afresh to Him, and to make our sickness the beginning of a more holy life. (Bp. Armstrong.).

TRAPP, "Genesis 7:23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained [alive], and they that [were] with him in the ark.

Ver. 23. And every living substance was destroyed.] That all ensuing ages, considering this standing monument of God’s wrath against sin (whence once it is become, as physicians say of some diseases, corruptio totius substantiae), might hear, and fear, and do no more so.

24

The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and

fifty days.

BARES, "Gen_7:24

Fifty and a hundred days. - These, and the forty days of rain, make one hundred and ninety days: about six lunar months and thirteen days. If to this we add the month and seventeen days before the commencement of the rain, we have eight months completed, and are therefore brought to the first day of the ninth month. The waters may be said to prevail as long as the ark had its full draught of water. It is probable they were still rising during the first half of the hundred and fifty days, and then gradually sinking during the other half.

GILL, "Gen 7:24 - And the waters prevailed upon the earth one hundred

Page 116: Genesis 7 commentary

and fifty days. Which is to be reckoned not from the end of the forty days' rain, but from the beginning of the flood; for from the seventeenth day of the second month, when the fountains of the deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, unto the seventeenth day of the seventh month, when the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, and the waters decreased, were just five months, or one hundred and fifty days; until which time the waters increased yet more and more, even after the forty days' rain; so that it seems there was a continual rain afterwards, as Aben Ezra observes, though not so vehement; or otherwise it is not so easy to account for the increase of the waters.

CLARKE, "Gen 7:24 -

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, Gen_8:22 (note).

JFB, "Gen 7:24 - an hundred and fifty days--a period of five months. Though long before that every living creature must have been drowned, such a lengthened continuance of the flood was designed to manifest God's stern displeasure at sin and sinners. Think of Noah during such a crisis. We learn (Eze_14:14) that he was a man who lived and breathed habitually in an atmosphere of devotion; and having in the exercise of this high-toned faith made God his refuge, he did not fear "though the waters roared and were troubled; though the mountains shook with the swelling thereof" [Psa_46:3].

HAWKER, "WHAT a precious consideration is it to the faithful, that amidst all the judgments of God, upon the wicked, the Lord is never inattentive to the interests and safety of his people. Before the flood sweeps away the sinner, an ark sha11 be provided for the saint. Before that the wicked shall be driven, with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, Jesus will make up his jewels, and be glorified in them that believe. In that decisive hour, Lord, may it be my portion to be found in Thee. Reader! pause over this wonderful deliverance, in the instance of Noah and his family, and consider, whether in the ark, you do not behold a type of the Lord Jesus, preserving his church and people.

Doth not his Godhead appear in the fulness and all-sufficiency of his salvation? Is not the almightiness of his merits and death demonstrated, in bearing up the whole weight of redemption, when the wrath of God, like the torrents and tempests descending upon the ark, destroyed everything but this place of safety? And who doth not see, that in the blood and righteousness, the doing and suffering, of Christ Jesus, the eternal safety of the believer alone is found, O! for an ardent faith, to believe the record which God hath

Page 117: Genesis 7 commentary

given of His Son.

Let us not dismiss the contemplation of this interesting subject, until that we have taken another and another view of the ark of safety. While God, as a kind Father, foreseeing the storm approaching, doth not think it enough to call his children from the field, but takes them by the hand, to bring them home into the house; so, the same mercy, which provides the shelter of the Saviour, provides help to the sinner, to embrace it. The call of grace, is not, to Noah, Go thou into the ark, but come; evidently teaching, that while God the Father hath so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, for salvation, he gives also his Holy Spirit, to render that salvation effectual. Holy and Eternal Spirit! while thou kindly enablest me to hear the voice of entreaty, calling me to enter into the ark Christ Jesus; and while thou, as graciously, art pointing to Him, as the Way, the Truth, and the Life; Oh! add another blessing to the undeserved favour, and make me willing, in the day of thy power; work in me, both to will and to do, of thy good pleasure.

One word more, before we close the Chapter. As all are not Israel, which are of Israel; so, let it be remembered, that all who went into the ark, were not like faithful Noah. Men, by virtue of the profession of religion, may mingle with the people of God, may be found at ordinances, and, from their connection with them, may receive many temporal deliverances. Hence, we find Ham, among the household of Noah, in the ark; and Judas among the disciples of Christ. But all this is widely distinguished from the possession of the divine life. Tares may, and will spring up with the good seed. And we know who it is that hath said, Let both grow together until the harvest. But the hour is hastening, when a perfect discrimination shall take place, and then an everlasting separation will follow, between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. My soul! be it thy earnest prayer to God, never to rest in a name to live, while virtually dead before him. Grant, dearest Lord! that, while fleeing to the Lord Jesus, as the Ark, for refuge, Christ may be formed in my heart, the hope of glory.

ELLICOTT, "(24) prevailed.—Heb., were strong, as in Genesis 7:18. The rains lasted forty days; for one hundred and ten more days they still bore up the ark, and then it grounded. But though still mighty, they had by this time “abated” (see Genesis 8:3), inasmuch as, instead of covering the hills to the depth of nearly four fathoms, the ark now had touched dry land. Again, then, the narrative seems to give the personal experiences of some one in the ark.

PETT, "Verse 24

‘And the waters prevailed on the earth (land) one hundred and fifty days.’

For five moon cycles there was no let up. The rain may now not be quite so severe and continuous, the tidal waves may now sweep in in lesser measure, but the waters did not begin to decrease. The new moon came and went, and came again, but the Flood continued in its intensity. How carefully they must have watched the moon through its cycle again and again, until it must have seemed that the cataclysm would never end, for there was no lowering of the level of the water. And then God’s time came.

• • • •

Page 118: Genesis 7 commentary

PINK

The Typology of the Ark

Genesis 7

The ark which was built by Noah according to divine directions, in which he and his

house, together with representatives from the lower creation, found shelter from the storm

of God’s wrath, is one of the clearest and most comprehensive types of the believer’s

salvation in Christ which is to be found in all the Scriptures. So important do we deem it,

we have decided to devote a separate article to its prayerful and careful consideration.

1. The first thing to be noted in connection with the ark is that it was a Divine provision.

This is very clear from the words of Genesis 6:13, 14—"And God said unto Noah, the

end of all flesh is come before Me. . . make thee an ark." Before the flood came and

before the ark was made, a means of escape for His own people existed in the mind of

God. The ark was not provided by Him after the waters had begun to descend. Noah was

commanded to construct it before a drop had fallen. So, too, the Saviourship of Christ

was no afterthought of God when sin had come in and blighted His creation; from all

eternity He had purposed to redeem a people unto Himself, and in consequence, Christ, in

the counsels of the Godhead, was "a lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev.

13:8). The ark was God’s provision for Noah as Christ is God’s provision for sinners.

2. Observe now that God revealed to Noah His own designs and ordered him to build a

place of refuge into which he could flee from the impending storm of judgment. The ark

was no invention of Noah’s; had not God revealed His thoughts to him, he would have

perished along with his fellow creatures. In like manner, God has to reveal by His Spirit

His thoughts of mercy and grace toward us; otherwise, in our blindness and ignorance we

should be eternally lost. "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,

hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face

of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6).

3. In the next place, we note that Noah was commanded to make an ark of gopher-wood

(Gen. 6:14). The material out of which the ark was built teaches an important lesson. The

ark was made, not of steel like our modern "dreadnoughts,’’ but out of wood. The typical

truth which this fact is designed to teach us lies not on the surface, yet is one that is

brought before us again and again both in the Word and in Nature; the truth, that life

comes out of death, that life can be secured only by sacrifice. Before the ark could be

made, trees must be cut down. That which secured the life of Noah and his house was

obtained by the death of the trees. We have a hint here, too, of our Lord’s humanity. The

trees from which the wood of the ark was taken were a thing of the earth, reminding us of

Isaiah’s description of Christ—"a root out of a dry ground" (Isa. 53:2). So Christ, who

was the eternal Son of God must become the Son of man—part of that which, originally,

was made out of the dust of the earth—and as such be cut down, or, in the language of

Page 119: Genesis 7 commentary

prophecy, be "cut off" (Daniel 9:26), before a refuge could be provided for us.

4. The ark was a refuge from Divine judgment. There are three arks mentioned in

Scripture and each of them was a shelter and place of safety. The ark of Noah secured

those within it from the outpoured wrath of God. The ark of bulrushes (Ex. 2:3) protected

the young child Moses from the murderous designs of Pharaoh, who was a type of Satan.

The ark of the covenant sheltered the two tables of stone on which were inscribed the

holy law of God. Each ark speaks of Christ, and putting the three together, we learn that

the believer is sheltered from God’s wrath, Satan’s assaults and the condemnation of the

law—the only three things in all the universe which can threaten or harm us. The ark of

Noah was a place of safety. It was provided by God when death threatened all. It was the

only place of deliverance from the wrath to come, and as such it speaks of our Lord Jesus

Christ, the only Savior of lost sinners—"Neither is there salvation in any other; for there

is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts

4:12).

5. Into this ark man was invited to come. He was invited by God Himself, "And the Lord

said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark" (Gen. 7:1). This is the first

time the word "come" is found in the Scriptures, and it recurs over five hundred times in

the remainder of the Bible. Is it not highly significant that we meet with it here as its first

occurrence! A number of thoughts are suggested by this connection, for several of which

we are indebted to Dr. Thomas’ work on Genesis. Observe that the Lord does not say "Go

into the ark," but "Come." "Go" would have been a command, "Come" was a gracious

invitation; "Go" would have implied that the Lord was bidding Noah depart from Him,

"Come" intimated that in the ark the Lord would be present with him. Is it not the same

thought as we have in the Gospel—"Come unto Me and I will give you rest!" Observe

further that the invitation was a personal one—"Come thou"; God always addresses

Himself to the heart and conscience of the individual. Yet, the invitation went

further—"Come thou and all thy house into the ark," and again we find a parallel in the

Gospel of grace in our day: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,

and thy house" (Acts 16:31).

6. The ark was a place of absolute security. This truth is seen from several particulars.

First, the ark itself was pitched "within and without with pitch" (Gen. 6:14), hence it

would be thoroughly watertight, and as such, a perfect shelter. No matter how hard it

rained or how high the waters rose, all inside the ark were secure. The ark was in this

respect also, a type of our salvation in Christ. Speaking to the saints, the apostle said,

"Your life is hid (like Noah in the ark) with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). In the next place,

we read concerning Noah after he had entered the ark, "And the Lord shut him in" (Gen.

7:16). What a blessed word is this! Noah did not have to take care of himself; having

entered the ark, God was then responsible for his preservation. So it is with those who

have fled to Christ for refuge, they are "kept by the power of God through faith unto

salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet. 1:5). Finally, the security of all in

the ark is seen in the issuing of them forth one year later on to the destruction-swept

earth—"And Noah went forth, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him:

every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the

earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark" (Gen. 8:18, 19). All who had entered

that ark had been preserved, none had perished by the flood, and none had died a natural

Page 120: Genesis 7 commentary

death, so perfect is the type. How this reminds us of our Lord’s words, "Of them which

thou gavest Me have I lost none" (John 18:9).

7. Next we would note what has often been pointed out by others, that the ark had only

one door to it. There was not one entrance for Noah and his family, another for the

animals, and yet another for the birds. One door was all it had. The same was true later of

the tabernacle; it, too, had but a single entrance. The spiritual application is apparent.

There is only one way of escape from eternal death. There is only one way of deliverance

from the wrath to come. There is only one Savior from the Lake of Fire, and that is the

Lord Jesus Christ—"I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father

but by Me" (John 14:6). The language of our type is directly employed by Christ in John

10:9, where we hear Him say, "I am the door." It is also worthy of attention to note that

Noah was ordered by God to set the door "in the side" of the ark (Gen. 6:16). Surely this

pointed forward to the piercing of our Lord’s "side" (John 19:34) which was the

intimation that the way to the heart of God is now open to guilty and ruined sinners.

8. The ark had three stories in it, "with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make

it" (Gen. 6:16). Why are we told this? What difference does it make to God’s saints living

four thousand years afterwards how many stories the ark had, whether it had one or a

dozen? Every devout student of the Word has learned that everything in the Holy

Scriptures has some significance and spiritual value. Necessarily so, for every word of

God is pure. When the Holy Spirit "moved" Moses to write the book of Genesis, He knew

that a book was being written which should be read by the Lord’s people thousands of

years later, therefore, what He caused to be written must have in every instance,

something more than a merely local application. "Whatsoever was written aforetime was

written for our learning." What then are we to "learn" from the fact that in the ark there

were three stories, no less and no more?

We have already seen that the ark itself unmistakably foreshadowed the Lord Jesus.

Passing through the waters of judgment, being itself submerged by them; grounding on

the seventeenth day of the month—as we shall see, the day of our Lord’s Resurrection;

and affording a shelter to all who were within it, the ark was a very clear type of Christ.

Therefore the inside of the ark must speak to us of what we have in Christ. Is it not clear

then that the ark divided into three stories more than hints at our threefold salvation in

Christ? The salvation which we have in Christ is a threefold one, and that in a double

sense. It is a salvation which embraces each part of our threefold constitution, making

provision for the redemption of our spirit, and soul, and body (1 Thess. 5:23); and further,

our salvation is a three tense salvation—we have been saved from the penalty of sin, are

being saved from the power of sin, we shall yet be saved from the presence of sin.

9. Next, we observe that the ark was furnished with a window and this was placed

"above"—"A window shalt thou make to the ark and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above"

(Gen. 6:16). The spiritual application is patent. Noah and his companions were not to be

looking down on the scene of destruction beneath and around them, but up toward the

living God. The same lesson was taught to Jehovah’s people in the Wilderness. The pillar

of cloud to guide them by day and the pillar of fire to protect them by night was provided

not only for their guidance, but was furnished for their instruction as well. Israel must

look up to the great Jehovah and not be occupied with the difficulties and dangers of the

Page 121: Genesis 7 commentary

wilderness. So, we, called upon to walk by faith, are to journey with our eyes turned

heavenward. Our affection must be set upon" things above, not on things on the earth"

(Col. 3:2).

10. The ark was furnished with "rooms" or "nests"—"Make thee an ark of gopher wood;

rooms (margin "nests") shalt thou make in the ark" (Gen. 6:14). In every other passage in

the Old Testament where the Hebrew word "gen" occurs, it is translated "nest." We

hesitate to press the spiritual signification here; yet, we have seen that the ark is such a

striking and comprehensive type of our salvation in Christ we must believe that this detail

in the picture has some meaning, whether we are able to discern it or no. The thought

which is suggested to us is, that in Christ we have something more than a refuge, we have

a resting place; we are like birds in their nests, the objects of Another’s loving care. Oh,

is it that the "nests" in the ark look forward to the "many mansions" in the Father’s

House? which our Lord has gone to prepare for us. It is rather curious that there is some

uncertainty about the precise meaning of the Greek word here translated "mansions.’’

Weymouth renders it, "In My Father’s house are many resting places!"

11. In connection with the ark the great truth of Atonement is typically presented. This

comes out in several particulars: "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou

make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch" (Gen. 6:14). The

Hebrew word here is not the common one for "pitch" which is "zetteth," but is "kapher,"

which is translated seventy times in the Old Testament "to make atonement." The simple

meaning of "kapher" is "to cover" and nowhere else is it rendered "pitch." Atonement was

made by the blood which provided a covering for sin. Our readers being familiar with this

thought, there is no need for us to develop it. God is holy, and as such He is "of purer

eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity" (Habakkuk 1:13), hence sin must

be covered—covered by blood. It is therefore remarkable that this word "kapher" should

be employed (for the first time in Scripture) in connection with the ark, as though to teach

us that a shelter from God’s wrath can be found only beneath the atoning blood! Again

we notice that the storm fell upon the ark which provided shelter for Noah and those that

were with him. So, too, the clouds of Divine judgment burst upon our adorable Redeemer

as He suffered in our stead: "All Thy waves and thy billows are gone over Me" (Ps. 42:7)

was His cry; and may not His words here be language pointing back to the very type we

are now considering?

12. As others have pointed out, the typical teaching of the ark reaches beyond the truth of

atonement to resurrection itself. We quote here from the writings of the late Mr. William

Lincoln: "There seems no reason to doubt that the day the ark rested on the mountain of

Ararat is identical with the day on which the Lord rose from the dead. It rested "on the

seventeenth day of the seventh month." But by the commandment of the Lord, given at

the time of the institution of the feast of the Passover, the seventh month was changed

into the first month. Then three days after the Passover, which was on the fourteenth day

of the month, the Lord, having passed quite through the waters of judgment, stood in

resurrection in the midst of His disciples, saying, "Peace be unto you." They, as well as

Himself, had reached the haven of everlasting rest." But not only does our type prefigure

our Lord’s resurrection from the dead, it also suggests the truth of His ascension, for we

read "And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month upon

the mountains of Ararat" (Gen. 8:4). The final resting place of the ark was upon the

Page 122: Genesis 7 commentary

mountain top, speaking of the place "on high" where our Savior is now seated at the right

hand of God.

We lay our pen down with a strengthened conviction that the Holy Scriptures are no mere

"cunningly devised fables," but that they are indeed the inspired Word of the living God.