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CHAPTER 6: The Flood (GENESIS 7-8:15)
THERE is a grandeur and majestic simplicity about the scriptural account of "The
Flood" which equally challenges and defies comparison. Twice only throughout the
Old Testament is the event again referred to - each time in the grave, brief language
befitting its solemnity. In Psalm 29:10 we read: "Jehovah sitteth upon the flood; yea,
Jehovah sitteth King for ever," - a sort of Old Testament version of "Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, and today, and for ever." Then, if we may carry out the figure, there
is an evangelical application of this Old Testament history in Isaiah 54:9, 10: "For
this is as the waters of Noah unto Me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with
thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but
My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be
removed, saith Jehovah that hath mercy on thee."
The first point in the narrative of "The Flood" which claims our attention is an
emphatic mention, twice repeated, of Noah's absolute obedience, "according unto all
that Jehovah commanded him." (Genesis 6:22; 7:5) Next, we mark a "solemn pause
of seven days" before the flood actually commenced, when "all the fountains of the
great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened;" in other words,
the floodgates alike of earth and heaven thrown wide open. The event happened "in
the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of
the month;" that is, if we calculate the season according to the beginning of the
Hebrew civil year, about the middle or end of our month of November.
Then Noah and his wife, his three sons - Shem, Ham, and Japheth - and their wives,
and all the animals, having come into the ark, "Jehovah shut him in," and for forty
days and forty nights "the rain was upon the earth," while, at the same time, the
fountains of the great deep were broken up. The flood continued for one hundred and
fifty days,^17 when it began to subside.
The terrible catastrophe is thus described: "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.
And the waters prevailed, and were 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 hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits
upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 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: all in whose nostrils was
the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was
destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the
(^)