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: "Fo r 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

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 t he 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

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."

The remarks of a recent writer on this subject are every way so appro priate that we here reproduce them:

"The narrative is vivid and forcible, though 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 des truction which he could not avert. But an impression is left upon

the mind with peculiar vividness from the very simplicity of the narrative, and it is that of utter desolation.

This is heightened by the repetition and contrast of two ideas. On the one hand, we are reminded no less

than six times in the narrative (Genesis 6, 7, 8) who the tenants of the ark were, the favored and rescued few;

and, on the other hand, the total and absolute blotting out of everything else is not less emphatically dwelt

upon" (Genesis 6:13, 17; 7:4, 21-23).18