7:1 The LORD said to Noah, 'Go into the ark, you and all your household; for you alone in this generation have I found to be righteous. (REB)
7:2-3 Of every clean animal you shall take seven pairs [NIV: “seven of every kind”; KJV: “by sevens”], males and their mates, and of every animal that is not clean, two, a male and its mate; of the birds of the sky also, seven pairs, male and female, to keep seed alive upon all the earth [NIV: “to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth”]. (TAN)
Clean and Unclean Animals
God had already differentiated the clean and unclean animals, probably in the days when Adam was shown the kind of sacrifices that God required. How else would Abel have known what kind of animals to bring for his offerings?
7:4 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." (NIV)
God never specified the time of the Flood’s arrival until one week prior.
7:5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. (NIV)
Noah’s Obedience
We are again reminded that Noah's salvation was by the grace of God, but hinged upon his obedience to God’s directions.
7:6-7 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 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. (KJV)
During the time the Flood was on the earth Noah turned 600 years old. [see “Noah’s age, vs 11]
Type of Salvation
Entering the ark pictured entering the Kingdom of God and salvation, a rescue from death.
7:8-11 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep [reference to underground rivers]burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. (NIV)
Time Frame
The Flood began in 2329 B.C. At that time the year began in the fall, on the first day of what is now termed the 7th month. It was not until God brought Israel out of Egypt that the first month was moved to
the spring (EXO 12:2). The 2nd month would have been late October/early November. This would be the most logical time to bring on the Flood because, occuring just after the fall harvest, filling the storage bins on the ark would have been more convenient.
Beginning of the Flood & Pagan Practice
The approximate date of the beginning of the Flood has been preserved through pagan celebrations in cultures all over the world. Unknowingly, people continue to mourn the deaths of the wicked who made it necessary for God to destroy the world through a universal flood. From the book The Worship of the Dead by Colonel J. Garnier, 1909:“…the mythologies of all the ancient nations are interwoven with the events of the Deluge…proving that they are all based on a common principle, and must have been derived from a common source. The force of this argument is illustrated by the fact of the observance of a great festival of the dead in commemoration of the event, not only by nations more or less in communication with each other, but by others widely separated, both by the ocean and by centuries of time. This festival is, moreover, held by all on or about the very day on which, according to the Mosaic account, the Deluge took place, viz., the seventeenth day of the second month—the month nearly corresponding with our November…The festival of the dead, or feast of ancestors, is now, or was, formerly observed at or near the beginning of November by the Peruvians, the Hindus, the Pacific Islanders, the people of the Tonga Islands, the Australians, the ancient Persians, the ancient Egyptians and the northern nations of Europe, and continued for three days among the Japanese, the Hindus, the Australians, the ancient Romans and the ancient Egyptians. Wherever the Roman Catholic Church exists, solemn Mass for All Souls is said on the 2nd November…on the very same day that savages in far-distant quarters of the globe observe, in a similar manner, their festival of the dead…The month of November was formerly called in Persia ‘the month of the angel of death’…The Egyptians began their year at the same time as the Jews, and on the seventeenth day of their second month commenced their solemn mourning for Osiris, the Lord of Tombs, who was fabled to have been shut up in the deep for one year like Noah…” (pp.4-5)
“Finally, the observance of this festival at, or about, the seventeenth day of the second month of the recognised year in exact accordance with the Mosaic account, by almost every race and nation of the earth, in commemoration of a world-wide cataclysm in which a few survivors saw all their friends and relations swept away by a mighty flood of waters, is overpowering evidence of the reality of the Flood and of the truth of the Bible; although for that very reason, in accordance with the spirit of the present day, modern criticism and modern science have done what they can to discredit it.” (pp.7-8)
This information confirms that the event celebrated on the last day of October, Halloween, is the continuation of the world mourning for the wicked who were destroyed in the Flood.
Noah’s Age
At the time the Flood began—in the last few months of 2329 B.C.—Noah was 599 years of age. He turned 600 sometime in 2328 B.C. His 600th year was figured from the first day of the first month in the fall of 2329 B.C. until the first day of the first month in the fall of 2328 B.C.
7:12-16 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in. (NIV)
Supernatural Intervention
It was at this point that God supernaturally intervened for Noah–-after Noah had done all that he could on his own.
The Flood was not a normal, natural course of events, it was a combination of natural law and supernatural intrusion. Skeptics of a universal Flood are doubtful because they discount anything supernatural.
7:17-18 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. (NIV)
Not only did the rain persist, but God caused the vast underground reservoirs of water to continue erupting to the surface of the ground.
7:19-20 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains [NKJ: “high hills”] under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet [most translations: “fifteen cubits”]. (NIV)
The Extent of the Flood
While this would appear to be evidence of a worldwide flood, skeptics use this verse to prove that the Flood was a localized event. Their argument is that universal terms are often used to signify only a very large amount in number or quantity [i.e. DEU 2:25: “This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the nations under the whole heaven.”].
Obviously, the majority of the water did not come in the form of rain. It is estimated that it would require eight times the amount of water existing on the surface of the globe in order to have enough water to cover the tops of the mountains. This is one of the reasons why many refuse to believe that the Flood was worldwide. We simply do not know for certain what lies beneath the first few miles of the earth's crust. Several statements about the creation of the earth allude to the vast amounts of subterranean waters which do exist:
§ PSA 24:1-2—The earth is the LORD'S...for He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.
§ PSA 136:6—To Him who laid out the earth above the waters.
§ PSA 33:7—He heaps up the ocean waters like a mound, stores the deep in vaults. (TAN)
§ PRO 28:8—When He...fixed securely the fountains of the deep. (NIV)
Some have theorized that there are vast stores of water under the crust of the earth, possibly hundreds of miles below the surface. In the early 19th century, Sir Henry Englefield proposed that God caused the internal heat of the earth to increase only a few degrees, which caused expansion of the subterranean waters, forcing them to the surface, supplying more than sufficient water to inundate the mountains. After accomplishing the task, God lowered the temperature again, causing the waters to return to their former volume.
Another explanation which has been proposed regarding the “fountains of the deep” is called the hydroplate theory. This theory attempts to use the time of the Flood to explain all major geological formations today. The first assumption used in this theory is that a large shell of salty water existed about ten miles below the interconnected continents. The second assumption states there was a major
increase in the pressure on the shell of water at the time God brought on the Flood. The area where that pressure was released as the “fountains of the deep” was along a 46,000 mile-long rupture which circled the earth, and today is known as the Mid-Oceanic Ridge.
A news release from National Geographic on March 7, 2002 stated that research done by scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology indicates as much as five times more water than on the earth’s surface exists within the mantle. It also noted that other research shows the possibility of a water-rich zone between the crust and the mantle, which means as much as ten times the amount of water is inside the planet as on the surface.
7:21-23 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 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 air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. (NIV)
God says all land animals, as well as man, perished in the Flood. Dating techniques of archeological finds have proven that mankind had spread to every area of the globe by the time of the Flood. Therefore, the only way all of mankind could have been destroyed was through a universal Flood.
7:24 The waters flooded [NKJ: “prevailed on”]the earth for a hundred and fifty days. (NIV)
The Flood remained at its greatest depth for five months before beginning to recede.
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