- 165-
may see it discussed in my edition of Kurtz's History of the Old Covenant, vol. 1., p.
96, etc.
(^14) The most exaggerated estimates of the number of the human race at that time have
been made, showing the fallacy of such calculations.
(^15) The word Nephilim occurs once again in Numbers 13:33, in the report of the men
of gigantic stature, whom the spies saw in Canaan. But though the Nephilim in those
days may have been men of gigantic proportions, it does not follow that Nephilim
means "giants." Lastly, there is nothing in the text which shows that they were
exclusively the offspring of the sons of God.
(^16) Some have calculated the cubit at twenty-one inches, which would give a length of
five hundred and twenty-five feet, a width of eighty-seven and half, and a height of
fifty-two and a half. St. Augustine calculates that the proportions of the ark were the
same as those of a perfect human figure, "the length of which from the sole to the
crown is six times the width across the chest, and ten times the depth of the
recumbent figure, measured in a right line from the ground." Smith's Dictionary of
the Bible, vol. 2. p. 566, note.
(^17) Genesis 8:3, 4, compared with 7:11, seems to imply that the forty days of rain must
be included in these one hundred and fifty days, and not added to them.
(^18) Mr. Perowne, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, art. "Noah."
(^19) Mr. Perowne quotes from Lyell's Principles of Geology, as an illustrative instance
of the effects of an inundation, of course, on quite a different scale, "what occurred in
the Runn of Cutch, on the eastern area of the Indus, in 1819, when the sea flowed in,
and in a few hours converted a tract of land, two thousand square miles in area, into
an inland sea or lagoon."
(^20) Dr. Blaikie, Bible History, p. 29.
(^21) See Assyrian Discoveries, by George Smith. London, 1875.
(^22) Assyrian Discoveries, p. 218.
(^23) Two terms are chiefly used in the Hebrew for God: the one, Elohim, which refers
to His power as Ruler and Lord; the other, Jehovah, to His character as the covenant-
God.
(^)