Exodus 9

Upon the land. The land is to be understood of the portion of the earth’s surface known to man. This, with an unknown margin beyond it, was covered with the waters. But this is all that Scripture warrants us to assert. Concerning the distant parts of Europe, the continents of Africa, America, or Australia, we can say nothing. All the high hills were covered. Not a hill was above water within the horizon of the spectator or of man. 20. Fifteen cubits upward. This was half the depth of the ark. It may have taken this draught of water to float it. If so, its grounding on a hill under water would indicate the depth of water on its summit. The gradual rise of the waters was accomplished by the depression of the land, aided, possibly, by a simultaneous elevation of the bed of the ocean. The water, by the mere necessity of finding its level, overflowed the former dry land. The sobriety and historical veracity of the narrative are strikingly exhibited in the moderate height to which the waters are said to have risen above the ancient hills. M.

21. All flesh died—and every man. At length there was the entire surface of the solid globe without sin!—But to think that it could not be so but by being without men! The numbers of men—the towns—the camps—the arts, the works, the revels, the crimes,—the very face of nature itself?—All swept from the creation! A deserted, desolate planet that had been populous in God’s creation! Nothing short of having gone to another world could be so strange. And for sin this mighty destruction had passed over the world! J. F.—If future punishment for sin be a myth, the past judgments of God are without import. If men are not held to an accountability beyond the grave—that accountability to give an impress to their future—then see the necessary transformation into benefits of conspicuous displays of God’s judicial wrath. The flood lifted to heaven the souls of the wave-washed multitudes covered by its foam—those waters, the retribution due to idolatry and sensuality—while, as his reward for piety, Noah was imprisoned in a floating ark, which constituted his only inheritance. Leech.

The outward results appear to have been twofold—on the one side preservation, on the other destruction. But when we look a little more closely we perceive that there was properly but one object aimed at in the dispensation. That object was, in the words of Peter, “the saving of Noah and his house”—saving them as the spiritual seed of God. But saving them from