Flood
The Flood or the Deluge, the name given to Noah's flood, the narrative of which is recorded in Gen. 7 and 8.
The cause of this judgment was the corruption and violence that filled the earth in the ninth generation from Adam, and God resolved to destroy it. "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." Only Noah "found grace in the eyes of Lord." At the command of God, Noah made an ark of gopher wood 300 cubits long, 50 cubits broad, and 30 cubit high. He slowly proceeded with this work during a period of about one hundred years.1 At length the purpose of God began to be carried into effect. The order of events as stated in the Bible:
- In the six hundredth year of his life Noah is commanded by God to enter the ark, taking with him his wife, and his three sons with their wives, as well as seven pairs of all clean animals and a pair of animals that are not clean.2
- The rain begins on the seventeenth day of the second month, and lasted forty days and forty nights.3
- The rain ceases, the waters prevail, fifteen cubits upward.4
- The ark grounds on one of the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, or one hundred and fifty days after the Deluge began.5
- Tops of the mountains visible on the first day of the tenth month.6
- Raven and dove sent out forty days after this.7
- Dove again sent out seven days afterwards; and in the evening she returns with an olive leaf in her mouth.8
- Dove sent out the third time after an interval of other seven days, and returns no more.9
- The ground becomes dry on the first day of the first month of the new year.10
- Noah leaves the ark on the twenty-seventh day of the second month.11
The narrative of the Flood is referenced to by Jesus.12 It is also spoken of by Peter.13 In Isa. 54:9 the Flood is referred to as "the waters of Noah." According to the biblical narrative, the Flood swept away all men living except Noah and his family and the animals they gathered, who were preserved in the ark, and the present human race is descended from those who were thus preserved. It lasted for twelve months and ten days.
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References
Notes
Source
- Easton, M.G. (1897). Easton's Bible Dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.
This article incorporates text from Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897) by M.G. Easton, which is in the public domain.