Genesis 7

Chap. VII. Ver. 1—10. Noah enters the ark.—Noah was

Notes on the verses

Cup. VII. Ver. 2. By sevens.—Hebrew, ‘seven, seven;” that is, of each sex: though some think there might be three of each sex, and an extra male for sacrifice on coming from the ark. It is not likely that any animal food was eaten in the ark, and from the confined situation in which they were, without exercise, and probably with no more air than was necessary to preserve life, it is not likely that any of the animals were ravenous. It has even been supposed that their appetites might be restrained, according to a language of Isaiah in reference to the Millennium. (Isaiah 11:6), c. lxv. 25, Ver. 10. After seven days.—Margin, “on the seventh day.” Compare ver. 6. with ver. 11 and (Genesis 2:2). and note, Ver.

11. In the second month, (Marchesvan, and, on) the seventeenth day, all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows (margin, flood-gates) of heaven were opened.—On looking into (Genesis 1:7, 10). with the remarks we have subjoined, it will be found that there were two grand reservoirs of water which are here opened; the one in heaven, that is, the atmosphere, the “flood-gates” of which were now opened; and the other under the atmosphere, that is, in the seas, and in the bowels of the earth, which are probably built of mighty arches from the centre filled with water and with air, which when rarefied by heat, produces earthquakes and Some infidel philosophers have affected great difficulty to procure sufficient water to surmount the mountains of the earth to the height of 15 cubits or near 27 feet: but, 1.

Though we can measure our mountains, we cannot take the gage of the antediluvian ones, which might now receive a great accession by the driving of the winds while the waters were subsiding; and we know, in fact, that prodigious quantities of petrifactions and alluvial deposits were lodged in them. Mount Ararat was probably one of their highest mountains, though by no means one of the highest of the present globe. 2. Suppose they were as high as Chimborazo, (20,000 feet, or nearly four miles perpendicular) still there is a chemical process carried on in nature, whereby, if the Almighty so pleased (without a new creation) the gases of the atmosphere might be converted into water. There can be no need, therefore, to look for the tail of a comet, or borrow waters from the moon, as some have been disposed to do.

$ { Others have contended against the universality of the deluge, when almost every region of the earth presents proofs that it was there. See Dick’s Christian Philosopher. Ver. 19. Hills.—[(The truth of this important fact is shown by evidence subsisting to the present day. The highest eminences of the earth, the Alps, the Apennines, Pyrenees, Libanus, Atlas, and Ararat; every mountain of every region under heaven, where search has been made, all conspire in one uniform, universal proof, that they all had the sea spread over their highest summits; being found to contain shells, skeletons of fish, and sea-monsters of every kind.]—Bagster. But here arises an objection of considerable weight with some geologists, who say that from the slow formation of certain rocks and soils upon those rocks, the world must have existed many thousand years.

To this there are two methods of reply. 1. Moses, as Dr. Chalmers remarks, (see above, on (Genesis 1:1).) does not affix any date to the creation of the chaos, out of which our globe was formed. 2. Might not God, if he pleased, have formed the earth in its present state? Might it not as well be argued that the creation of Adam took 20 years at least, for his bones to acquire the proper solidity, as that it must take so many centuries beyond the neigh[bouring] rocks?—“He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it Ver. 23. [The most incontestable evidence has been afforded of the universality of this fact: the moose-deer, a native of America, has been found buried in Ireland; elephants, natives of Asia and Africa, in the midst of England; crocodiles, natives of the Nile, in the heart of Germany; and shell-fish, never known in any but the American seas, with the entire skeletons of whales, in the most inland counties of England.

]—Bagster Ver. 24. One hundred and fifty days.—{The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, and the raining forty days and nights, had raised the waters fifteen cubits, or twenty-seven feet, above the highest mountain; after which forty days, it appears to have continued at this height for one hundred and fifty days more.}—Bagster.