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See Gen_6:8 ff for the passage quote with footnotes.
Gen_7:1 And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 3Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the earth. 4For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from the face of the earth. 5And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. 6And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7And 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 [from before, or from the face of the waters]. 8Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, 9There went in two and two [by pairs] unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God [Elohim] had commanded Noah.
The Hebrew name of the Great Flood ( îַáּåּì ) Luther rendered by the word Sin-flut, or Sindflut. The latest edition of the German Bible contains still this designation. Through a misunderstanding of the expression it became afterwards Sündflut. Pischon in the “Theological Studies and Criticisms,” 1834, III. Delitzsch, p. 628. In old German the word sin is found only at the beginning of compounds: it has the meaning ever, everywhere, complete. For example, sin-grün means ever-green.
2. The Stories of the Flood. No fact of Sacred History reflects itself in a more universal and manifold manner throughout the heathen legendary world than the Noachic flood. Compare here the copious account of Lücken: “The Traditions of the Human Race,” p. 170; also Knobel, p. 75; Delitzsch, p. 242. It is especially interesting to study how the different nations have heathenized, mythologized, in other words, nationalized or localized the sacred and universal tradition (since by the very nature of heathenism the patriarch of the flood belongs to particular nations who received the account from him, and who also regarded him as their national middle point), and how they have confounded it with the story of Paradise, or of the creative days. From this comes the varied deification of this flood-patriarch. Delitzsch distinguishes, 1. the West Asiatic stories of the flood. The Babylonian flood of Xisuthrus: “the last of the ten antediluvian chiefs, as given by Berosus and Abydenus, and the Phoenician story of the victory of Pontus over Demarus, the earth sphere, as given by Sanchoniathon.” With the Babylonian story of the flood he compares the narrative of the flood as given in the first of the Sibylline books, which, in its ground features, has some resemblance to the biblical. Next “the Phrygian story of King ’ Áííáêüò or Íáííáêüò (that is, Enoch) in Iconium, who, when over three hundred years old, announced the flood, and prayed with lamentation for his people; with which are connected coins of Apamea of the times of Septimius Severus, Macrinus, and Philip, representing a floating ark and bearing the partial inscription, ÍÙ .” So also the Armenian, which, as might be expected, agrees in its locality with the biblical (Nicol. Damascen., Strabo). Then a Syrian legend of which Lucian makes mention (De Syra Dea, Genesis 13). 2. East Asiatic stories of the flood. The Persian, the Chinese; the Indian of Menu, to whom Vishnu, taking the form of a fish, announces the flood, and whose ship, drawn by this fish, lands upon Himarat. It presents itself to us in many forms. The oldest, yet the latest known to us, is the story in Çatapatha-Brahmana (Weber, “Indian Studies,” 1850). Next to that is the story in Mahâbhârata (Bopp, “Diluvium,” 1829), and in the Purâna; its latest form is presented in the Bhâgavata-Purana (ed. Bournout, 1827), which, according to Wilson, does not go back of the twelfth century after Christ. (In respect to all these forms of the story, see Felix Nave: La Tradition Indienne du Déluge, Paris, 1851.) 3. Grecian stories of the flood. “In the first place the story of Ogyges (Plato, in the Timœus,) and the more enlarged account of Deucalion and Pyrrha (first in Pindar, then by Apollodorus, brought nearer to the biblical account, also given by Plutarch, Lucian, and Ovid,—both, in their ground features, stories of one and the same flood, but wholly Hellenized.” 4. The stories of the people who were outside the commerce or intercourse of the Old World. The Celtic story of Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who, in the flood that arose from the outbreaking of the sea of Llion, and which swallowed up all men, made their escape in a bare boat (without sails), and again peopled Britain. More remote still, the flood-stories of the Mexicans, of the island inhabitants of Cuba, of the Peruvians, of the races on the upper Orinoco, of the Tahitians, and other insular peoples of the Society Islands Archipelago. To make an arrangement according to the facts narrated, we may distinguish, 1. Stories of the flood which identify it with the creative catastrophes, namely: the Germanic story of the blood of the slain Ymer, which deluged the earth, and destroyed the oldest giant race. The Persian story of the rain of Zistar, which flooded the earth, and caused the death of the beasts of Ahriman. The Chinese story of Riuhoa (Lücken, p. 193; see on the other hand Bunsen, vol. ii. p. 61). 2. Stories of the flood in which the Bible flood is specifically and distinctly reflected, such as the Babylonian, the Phrygian, the Indian, the Chinese story of Jao, the Celtic stories (Lücken, p. 204). 3. Stories of the flood which seem to connect or to confound it with the deluge accounts of later floods. The stories of the Egyptians and the Greeks (Lücken, pp. 209, 196). In the submersion of the island Atlantis, as given in Plato’s Timœus, there seems to be reflected likewise the tradition of the lost Paradise. In respect to the facts that lie at the foundation of the latter stories, compare the pamphlet of Unger, entitled “The Sunken Island of Atlantis.” Vienna, 1860. The fundamental view here indicates revolutions of the earth, upheavings and depressions of its surface, whose effect is also of importance in the history of the Bible deluge. 4. Stories of floods in which the Bible flood forms the central point, towards which all traditions and legends of early terrestrial catastrophes flow together, and in which the original tradition cannot always be separated from later modification through Christian and Mohammedan elements. Interior African and American, or insular flood stories. It is well worthy of remark, that the ethical interpretation of the flood, according to which it comes as a judgment upon a condemned human race, everywhere prominently appears in the stories of the deluge. The purest copy of our Bible history is given in the Chaldaic narrative of Berosus, the ancient priest of Bel, about 260 years before Christ. Xisuthrus, the last of the ten primitive kings, beheld in a dream the appearance of Cronos (in Greek the same as Bel or Baal), who announced to him, that on the 15th day of the month Däsio, men would be destroyed by a flood. It was commanded him to write down all the sciences and inventions of mankind, and to conceal the writings in Syparis, the city of the Sun; thereupon he was to build a ship, and to embark on the same with all his companions, kindred, and nearest friends; he was to put in it provisions and drink, and to take with him the animals, the birds, as well as the quadrupeds. If any one should ask him whereto he was bound, he was to answer: To the gods; to implore good for men. He obeyed, and made an ark five stadia in length, and two in breadth, put together what was commanded, and embarked with wife, children, and kindred. As the flood subsided, Xisuthrus let fly a bird, which, when it neither found nourishment nor place to light, returned back into the ark. After some days he let fly another bird; this came back with slime upon its foot. The third bird sent forth never returned. Then Xisuthrus perceived that land was becoming visible, and after that he had broken an opening in the ship, he sees it driven upon a mountain, whence he descends with wife, daughter, and pilot, and when he had saluted the earth, built an altar, and offered sacrifice to the gods, he disappeared. Those who were left in the ship, when they saw that Xisuthrus did not return, went forth to seek him, and called him by name. Xisuthrus was seen no more, but a voice sounded from the air, bidding them to fear god, and telling them that on account of his piety he had been taken away to dwell with the gods; and that the same honor was given to his wife, daughter, and pilot. (This disappearance has relation to his deification, or probably to his translation among the stars, where the forms of the waterman, the young woman, and the carrier (the wagoner) still present themselves to us). They were commanded to return back to Babylon) where it was appointed to them to take the writings from Syparis, and impart the knowledge they contained to men. The country where they found themselves was Armenia. In respect to the ship, which had landed in Armenia, Berosus adds that there was still a portion of it on the mountains of Kordyäer (or the Kurdistan mountains) in Armenia, from which some persons cut off pieces, took them to their houses, and used them as amulets (according to Lücken). Amid all the similarity which this story presents to the Bible history, there is no mistaking the mythological coloring; for example, in the huge size of the ark. Just as little do we fail to hear the echo of the history of Enoch.
3. The Fact of the Flood.—The narrative of the flood, like the history of Paradise, has in a special measure the character of all the Bible histories—that is, it is at the same time fact and symbol; and it is the symbolical significance of this history that has formed the significant expression of the fact. In regard to the fact itself, the view is rendered in a high degree difficult by reason of the mingling with it of the following representations, resting solely on the literal interpretation: 1. the supposition that the history narrates not merely the extermination of the first human race, and, therefore, the overflowing of the earth according to the geographical extension of that race, but an absolute universal submersion of the whole earth itself; 2. the idea that the terrestrial relations were the same at that time that they are now, that the mountain elevations were completed, and that the mountain Ararat was just as high as at the present time; 3. that the branching of the animal species had become as great at that day as it is now: add to these a 4th, the ignoring of every symbolical imprint in the representation. As to what concerns the first two points, it is argued by Ebrard, for example (“Belief in the Holy Scriptures,” p. 73), that Ararat was 16,000 feet high. The waters stand fifteen cubits above Ararat; consequently must the whole earth have been covered, though it may still remain a question whether single peaks, like the Dhawalagiri, might not have projected above the water-surface (in a literal construction of the text, however, such a doubt cannot remain), since a banking limitation of so high a flood would be inconceivable. This conclusion depends upon a supposition wholly uncertain, namely, that the peak of Ararat was in that day 16,000 feet high. In regard to the first point, the remark of Nägelsbach (Art. “Noah,” Herzog’s Real-Encyclopedie) coincides wholly with the view of Delitzsch, namely, that the theological interest does not demand the universality of the flood in itself, but only the universality of the judgment that was executed by it. In respect to the second point, it is to be remarked, that the mountain formations of the earth had been, indeed, begun in the creative period, but were not yet fully completed. The history of the deluge is, without doubt, the history of a catastrophe in which the terrain of the earth experienced important modifications through the cooperation of fire. The deep sinking of the land in the neighborhood of the Armenian paradisaical region, which is denoted by the Caspian Sea, might alone have brought on a deluge catastrophe analogous to that which must have had a connection with the ruin of the legendary island of Atlantis. In respect to the third representation, the Darwin theory of the progressive origin of races, though in itself untenable, does nevertheless contain an indication of the truth that the countless unfolding of organic memberships in the animal life goes back to great individual anti-types, as science theoretically sets forth. For each species, perhaps, there may have been a ground type in the ark, out of which all varieties of the same have proceeded. In respect to the fourth false representation, which confounds the style of the Holy History with the notarial expression of a worldly pragmatism, we refer to the Introduction.
On the side of the mythologizing of the deluge history there are similar untenable representations that call for remark. 1. The apprehension in respect to the possibility of building the ark. It is historically established that, at all times, a necessity fundamentally perceived, has, under the guidance of God, brought to discovery the helps required for the accomplishment. Necessity learns to pray, learns to build. 2. The difficulty of assembling such a multitude of beasts in the ark. In reply to this, allusion has been made to the instinct of animals, which, in a presentiment of natural catastrophe, seek an asylum, sometimes, almost in violation of their natural habits. Birds, in a storm, fly to the ships; wolves come into the villages, etc. 3. The difficulty of the animal provisioning. Answer: This would be of least weight in respect to animals like those of the marmot and badger species, whose winter torpor in the easiest manner keeps them through the wintry storm-period. But the deluge, in like manner, supposes, in the main, a slumbering, dead-like transition from the old existence into the new. Darkness, the roaring and rocking of the waters in so peculiar a manner, must bring on a benumbing torpor, and, in the case of many animals, a winter sleep, whereby the feeding would be rendered unnecessary. The ground ideas of the deluge history are as high above the popular representations on the right, as they are beyond the scholastic thinking on the left. They may be regarded as something like the following: 1. At the moment when the first human race, through the commingling of an angel like elevation of the Sethic line with the demonic corruption of the Cainitic, is ripe for judgment, there is a corresponding catastrophe, having its ground in the earth’s development, forming an echo to the creation catastrophes, and, at the same time, imposed by God as a judgment doom upon that human corruption. 2. The prophetic spirit of a pious patriarch, in whom there is concentrated the heart of the old world’s piety, takes into its belief not only the revelation of the impending judgment, but also the deliverance which out of that judgment is to go forth for this world itself as represented in his person, and in his family, whilst it denotes thereby the progress of faith in revelation, from the assurance of salvation in the other world (which Enoch already had), to the confidence of salvation in this. 3. The inspiring of necessity teaches him, under the divine guidance, to build an ark, which, in its commencement, is to be a preaching of repentance to the cotemporaries of the builder, but which, in its completion, is distinguished neither by oar nor helm, but only by its great spaciousness and water-tight construction. 4. In this use of the ark, as a common asylum, the instincts of the beasts act in harmony with the prophetic presentiment of chosen men, whilst the rest follows through God’s care and a peculiar success. 5. The history of the flood is an ἅðáî ëåãüìåíïí in the world’s history, analogous to the creation of Adam, the birth and history of Christ, and the future history of the world’s end. Even Bunsen (ii. p. 63) affirms, in general, the historicalness of the biblical tradition.
Therefore is this unparalleled fact in the highest degree symbolic or ideal, whilst it is, at the same time, a typical prophecy. 1. It is a prophecy of the deliverance of Israel as the people of God in the passage through the Red Sea; 2. a prophecy of the deliverance of the Christian church from the corruption of the world, through the washing of baptism (1Pe_3:21); 3. a prophecy of the deliverance of the congregation of Christ, at the world’s end, out of the fire-flood of the world’s judgment. The ark is especially reflected in the ark of Moses, in the ark of the covenant which was carried through the Jordan, in the household of the church, and in the congregation of faith at the end of the world. Knobel thinks that in the narration before us there is to be recognized an Elohistic foundation which the Jehovist must have elaborated, not without a contradiction of its fundamental ground. Thus the description of the corruption, in Gen_6:11-12, he says, does not agree with the Jehovist, who represents the wickedness in human life as having commenced at a much earlier day. As though the origin of evil and an incurable corruption were not two distinct grades! So, according to the Jehovist, it is (as Knobel would have it) that the human life-period after the flood sinks down to one hundred and twenty years—an idea that rests upon a false interpretation. Moreover, it would seem not to agree with the ground-scripture, that of many kinds of beasts Noah took more than a pair (Gen_7:2-3; Gen_7:8). Knobel supposes, therefore, that the special enlargement was a contradiction to the more general appointment. In regard to the fact itself, says Knobel: Unanswerable are the questions, how Noah came to expect the great flood, and was led to the building of the ark. So also would it be incapable of an answer, how at any time one could attain to a prophetic prevision. The question he regards as still more difficult to answer: “How he was enabled to produce such a structure,”—that is, such a great quadrangular box. Further: “How he got the beasts in his power?” Experience shows, that in extraordinary catastrophes of nature, the wildest animals take refuge with men. Lastly: “How could they all, together with the necessary provisioning for a whole year, find room in the ark?” This point carries us back to a primitive time, when, as yet, the species were comparatively less divided, and to a stormy death of nature, which intensified to its most extreme degree the phenomenon of the winter’s sleep; to say nothing of the point, that to the symbolical expression there is needed only the general fact of the saving of the animal world, along with man, by means of the ark. When Ebrard admits that possibly the highest mountain-peaks may have projected above the surface of the waters of the deluge, it would allow the consequence of an Alpine fauna existing outside of the ark. The point mainly in view is the destruction of the human race, and the saving of the Noachian family, in the deluge. Notwithstanding his objections, Knobel supposes an actual ground of fact in the narration, even as an after-piece to the great earth revolutions of the creative period (p. 78). This last point of view carries us beyond the supposition of mere partial historical inundations. A concussion of the earth permits the conclusion that a displacement occurred in its continental relations, whence there might have arisen a deluge of a very wide character, without our having to assume a corresponding inundation of the whole earth’s surface. Stormy deluges do not obey the law of standing waters. Such a deluge might have passed over the whole inhabited part of the earth, without making a like height of water as standing over the whole sphere.
“The grounds,” remarks Delitzsch, “on which the Thora (the Pentateuch) dwells so emphatically upon the flood, consist in their significancy for the history of God’s kingdom in general, and the history of the Old Testament theocracy in particular. The flood is an act of deepest significance, whether regarded as one of judgment or of salvation. It is a common judgment, making an incision in history so deep and so wide, of such force and universality, that nothing can be compared with it but the final judgment at the extreme limit of this world’s history. But the act of judgment is, at the same time, an act of salvation. The sin-deluge is, at the same time, a grace-deluge, and so far a type of holy baptism (1Pe_3:21), and of life rising out of death; therefore it is, that old ecclesiastical art was so fond of distinguishing chapels of burial by a representation of it. The destruction has in view the preservation, the drowning has in view the purification, the death of the human race has in view the new birth; the old corrupted earth is buried in the flood of water, that out of this grave there may emerge a new world. In this way Ararat points to Sinai. The covenant of Elohim, which God then made with the saved holy seed, and with the universal nature, points to the covenant of Jehovah.”
4. The Geological Effects of the Deluge.—In earlier times, the traces of earth revolutions that took place in the creative days (for example, the mountain formations, the shells on the highest hills, and similar phenomena) were brought forth as proofs of the flood. Such a mode of reasoning must now be laid aside by those who would reconcile revelation with science. Neither can the assumption be proved, that it rained for the first time in the flood, and that, with the change in the atmosphere, human life suddenly sunk in its duration, nor the supposition that at that time a sudden transformation took place in the animal world, or that new animals were originated. The following suppositions, however, may be regarded as more or less safely entertained: 1. As the great flood denoted an epoch in the life of humanity, so also must it have done in the life of the earth; and through this epoch the giant-like in the human natural powers seems to have been moderated, whilst, on the contrary, the development in the earth’s life becomes more conformable to law. 2. The historical indications and signs of great changes in the earth’s surface, such as volcanic mountain formations, surface transformations (Caspian Sea, and island Atlantis, for example), may be connected, in some special measure, with the catastrophe of the flood. 3. The flood in itself may, perhaps, have been partial (see F. Pfaff, “The Creative History,” p. 646), but the earth-crisis, on which it was conditioned, must have been universal. With the opening of the fountains of the deep stands the opening of the windows of heaven in polar contrast. An extraordinary rain-storm and fall of water over the Noachian earth-circle, was probably conditioned by an extraordinary evaporation in other regions of the globe. This must have been followed by an extraordinary congelation on the same side. Does the “ice-period,” the period of the wandering boulders, stand in any relation to this? As an earth-crisis, the flood was probably universal.
Gen_7:5. To represent the wickedness of man, our text goes further, and expresses the incurable perdition of the old earth itself, as having been produced by it. It was utterly corrupt, in that it was filled with wickedness, acts of violence, and pride. But it was corrupt before the eye of God in its most manifest form, so that its judgment was imperatively demanded.—And God looked upon the earth, and lo.—Delitzsch correctly points out the contrast of these words to Gen_1:31. “Everything stood in sharpest contradiction with that good state which God the creator had established.” God’s looking (or seeing) denotes a final sentence. The earth was incurably corrupt because all flesh had corrupted its way, that is, its normal way of life, upon the corrupted earth. Herein lies the indication, that as men grew wild and savage, the animal world also threatened to become wild. If, however, we suppose, with Delitzsch, an universal corruption of the animal world, whence could Noah have taken the good specimens for his ark? Moreover, it cannot be concluded, from Gen_9:4, that men, in their greediness for flesh, cut out pieces from the yet living animal. According to Knobel, the text denotes the beasts, inasmuch as they originally lived upon vegetables, but now had partly degenerated into flesh-eaters. This, however, would be all the same as introducing a representation into the text, just as Delitzsch maintains, that the eating of flesh had not yet been permitted. Keil understands the words in question as referring generally to men only. Thereby, however, there is loosened that organic connection of man, beast, and earth, on which the text lays stress. More correct is the emphasis he lays on the words “all flesh:” humanity had become flesh (Gen_7:3).
2. The Announcement of the Judgment, and the Direction for the Building of the Ark (Gen_7:13-22).—And God said to Noah.—The revelation of the divine displeasure with the human race, which appears first, Gen_7:3, as a conditional and veiled threatening of judgment with the granting of a space for repentance, and which, in its second utterance, has already become a resolution to destroy the human race (Gen_7:7), becomes here an absolute announcement of approaching doom. There had, perhaps, been previous revelations, in the form of a preaching of repentance, made by other patriarchs (such as Methuselah and Lamech), as they, one after the other, left the world. These had been gradually extended in time; but now are they all concentrated in the one revelation made to Noah. With this there was, at the same time, connected the promise that Noah and his family should be saved. As God’s acts of deliverance are connected in time with his acts of judgment (since his judgments are ever separations of the godly from the ungodly, and, in this sense, salvations and deliverances), so also are the revelations of judgment at the same time revelations of deliverance, and the faith of the elect which corresponds to them is, at the same time, both a faith in judgment and a faith in salvation.—The end of all flesh.—An expression which strongly conveys the idea, that the positive judgment of God is indicated through a judgment immanent in the corruption of men. The self-abandonment in this corruption, the clearly visible end of the same, is so fearfully depicted, that the positive end which God is about to impose takes the appearance, not of a judgment merely, but of redress. Still is the first conception the predominant one, as appears from the expression which tells us that God saw the end, the extreme end of the world’s corruption (Keil).—Is filled with violence through them (Lange renders more correctly, from their faces, or, before them. Vulg., a facie eorum). As it is said, in immediate connection, “before the face of God,” we hold it unsatisfactory here to render îôðéäí from them, or through them. The flood of wickedness that comes up before God’s face goes out from their face; that is, it is a wickedness openly perpetrated; the moral judgment, the conscience, goes utterly out in the direct beholding and approbation of evil.—I will destroy them with the earth.—Destruction as set against corruption (1Co_5:5). The earth as such can, indeed, suffer no penal destruction. As one with man, the destruction becomes to it a total destruction, which comes upon men along with their earth. And so in the renewal of humanity must the earth also receive a renovation of its form.—Make thee an ark.—An indication of the mode of salvation, in which he himself must co-operate. Baumgarten: “He must be not only the preserved, but also the preserver.” úֵּáָä , according to Delitzsch, probably (if the word is Shemitic), from àåּá = úּåּá , to be hollow. Chaldaic, úֵּéáåּúָà , Sept. êéâùôüò , Vulg. arca (other meanings see in Delitzsch). Keil and Rödiger conjecture that the word is of Egyptian origin. So Knobel: “In Egyptian, boat is called tept.” It is likewise used of the small ark in which Moses was saved (but which in the Septuagint is rendered èßâéò or èßâç .—Of gopher-wood [Lange, resinous wood]. Hieronymus: ligna bituminata. “Probably, cypress-wood.” Keil ( âֹּôֶø , cognate to ëֹּôֶø and êõðÜñéóóïò ).—Rooms shalt thou make [Lange, cells].—Properly in cells, as cells (literally, nests—little cabins), or cell-containing.—With pitch.—Sept. ἀóöáëôüò , Vulg. bitumen.—And this is which (what) thou shalt make it.—“The most probable supposition is, that the ark was built, not in the form of a ship, but after the manner of a box, without keel, with a flat deck, more like a four-sided moving house than a ship, since it was destined not for sailing, but only for floating upon the water. Thus regarded, the measures 300 cubits long, 50 cubits broad, and 30 cubits high, give a ground-surface of 15,000 cubits square, and a cubical content of 450,000 cubits solid, taking the usual measure of the cubit (Deu_3:11), as the length from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about 18 inches.” Keil. Knobel remarks: “The building surpasses in magnitude the greatest ships-of-the-line. Its arrangement, however, according to experiments made in Holland, would be found in harmony with its design.” In the year 1609, at Hoorn, in Holland, the Netherlandish Mennonite, P. Jansen, produced the model of a vessel after the pattern of the ark, only in smaller proportions, whereby he proved, that although it was not appropriate for a ship-model, it was well adapted for floating, and would carry a cargo greater by one third than any other form of like cubical content. See Delitzsch, p. 250.—A window shalt thou make in the ark.— öֹäַø , not in the roof (Rosenmüller and others), but a light-opening ( öָäֳøַéִí , dual, a double light); see Gen_8:6. Baumgarten supposes that it must be regarded as a light-opening of a cubit’s breadth, extending above the whole upper length of the ark; Knobel and Keil, on the contrary, suppose that the window was fixed on the side, to the extent of a cubit, under the ridge of the roof. Then, indeed, according to Tuch, would only one cabin have received light, perhaps that of Noah; at all events, only the highest story would have had a dim twilight. We suppose, therefore, with Baumgarten, that it must be regarded as a light-opening in the deck, which was continued through the different stories. Against the rain and the water dashing, must this opening have been closed in some way by means of some transparent substance; for which purpose a trellis, or lattice-work, would not have been sufficient. The expression “to a cubit,” denotes also precaution. In this view of the case, moreover, it is not easy to take öäø collectively, as is done by Gesenius and the Syriac, and to fancy a number of light apertures, although it might be that one light-opening in the deck could be divided into a number of light-openings for the interior.—The door of the ark.—Here can only be meant an entrance which was afterwards closed, and only opened again at the end of the flood. And since there were three stories of the ark, the word is to be understood, perhaps, of three entrances capable of being closed, and to which there would have been constructed a way of access from the outside on the outside. “Is it held that so colossal a structure as the ark would have been impracticable in this very early time; the objection may be met with the answer, that some of the most gigantic structures belong to an immemorial antiquity.” Baumgarten (compare also Keil, p. 93; Delitzsch, p. 250).—And behold I, even I, am bringing.—Noah must make the ark, for He, Jehovah, is about to bring a flood upon the earth, but at the same time to make a covenant of salvation with Noah. îַáּåּì from éָáַì or áåּì , to undulate, to swell—an antique word, used expressly for the waters of Noah (Isa_54:9), and which, out of Genesis, occurs only in Psa_29:10.” Keil. Therefore Keil and Delitzsch take for its explanation the words that follow: “waters upon the earth,” regarding it as in apposition. Knobel, again, explains it as meaning the flood of water, whilst Michaelis and others have changed îַéִí into îִéָּí (from the sea) without any ground, although in this conformation of all collections of water to make the flood, the co-operation of the sea comes into account. The divine destination of the flood: to destroy every living thing under the heaven. In a more particular sense: whatever is upon the earth. The sea-animals cannot be destroyed by water. In respect to them, moreover, the symbolical relation in which the beasts stand to men, does not come specially into consideration.—But with thee will I establish my covenant.— áְּøִéú , Sept. äéáèÞêç , Vulg. fœdus, in the New Testament, testamentum (Rom_9:4). The religious covenant-idea here presents itself for the first in literal expression; although the establishment of God’s covenant with Noah presupposes a previous covenant relation with Adam (Gen_2:15; Gen_3:15; Sir_17:10). In the repeated establishment of the covenant with Noah (Gen_6:18; Gen_8:21; Gen_9:9; Gen_7:11; Gen_7:16; Sir_44:11), with Abraham, Gen_15:18; Gen_17:9-14; Gen_22:15; Psa_105:8-10; Sir_44:24; Act_3:25; Act_7:8), with Isaac (Gen_24:25), with Jacob (Gen_28:13-14), with Israel (Exo_19:6; Exo_24:7; Exo_34:10; Deu_5:3), there are unfolded the different covenants, or covenant forms, which bring into revelation the ground-idea of the covenant between God and humanity in Adam, whilst they are, at the same time, anticipatory representations of that true covenant-making which is realized in the new covenant of God with believing humanity through Christ (Jer_31:32-33; ZaGen Gen_9:11; Mat_26:28; 2Co_3:6; Heb_6:17-18), and which finds in the perfected kingdom of God its last and conclusive development (Revelation 21). The covenant of God with Noah, and that with Abraham, form a parallel; the first is the covenant of compassion and forbearance made with the new humanity and earth in general; the last is the covenant of grace and salvation made with Abraham and his believing seed, as a more definite covenant-making on the ground of the Noachian- covenant. The patriarchal covenant which, in its specialty, embraced Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exo_3:6) as the covenant of promise, takes the form of a law-covenant for Israel; this latter is the old typical covenant in the form of an anticipatory representation of the new covenant, and which, therefore, as the older and more imperfect, must give place to the new; whereas the covenant with Noah and that with Abraham, as beginnings of the covenant of faith, become one, finally, with the new covenant of Christ, which, in its stricter sense, embraces the children of faith as partakers of salvation, but, in its wider sense, the children of men as called to salvation. But the covenant of Christ carries on the foundation covenant made with Adam to its perfect realization in the eternal covenant-life of the new world (Revelation 21). The revelation and recognition of the divine covenant rests on the revelation and recognition of the fact that God, as the absolute personality, places himself in a personal, ethically free, covenant-relation of love and truth to man as personal, and to the human race. That the covenant of God has its root in the personal relation is evident from the fact that in its different forms such covenant ever goes out from a person, as from Noah, Abraham, etc. Therefore it is, that ever within the universal covenant relations, as they widen from the centre out, there are the making of special covenants, such as that with Moses, with Phineas (Num_25:13), with David. It is a consequence of the ethical significance of God’s covenant as forming the personal foundation of the chosen kingdom, that the assaults of the kingdom of darkness are in like manner comprehended as covenants or conspiracies against God (the troop of Korah, Psalms 2; Psa_83:6; Luk_23:12; Act_4:27). The word áְּøִéú from áøú , to cut, divide, is derived from the sacrifices of animals that are cut in twain in the formation of a covenant; and in this is the peculiar explanation of the word, Gen_15:10; Gen_15:17.—And thou shalt come into the ark.—God makes his covenant personally with Noah, but there is included also his house, which he represents as paterfamilias, and with it the new humanity mediately, as also, in a remoter sense, the animal world that is to be preserved. “The narrator supposes that the beasts of themselves (as is held by Jarchi and Aben Ezra), or at the instigation of God (according to Kimchi, Piscat.), would come into the ark.” Knobel. Rather was it through an instinctive presentiment of catastrophe, which was, at the same time, God’s ordering and an impulse of nature. The collection of the provisioning is distinguished from the gathering of the beasts, so that the ark represents a perfect economy of the Noachian household. Noah’s obedience in faith makes the conclusion of the section (see Heb_11:17).
3. The approach of the Flood, and the Divine Direction to Noah for entering into the Ark (Gen_7:1-9). And the Lord said unto Noah.—Here Elohim appears as the covenant-God; therefore is he named Jehovah.—Come thou into the ark.—The signal of the approaching judgment. Enter, my people, into thy chamber (Isa_26:20) for thee have I seen righteous! In the divine forum of the judgment of the deluge, Noah is justified before God by means of the righteousness of faith through the word of the promise; therefore is he saved, together with his whole family, because his faith is imputed for their good.—Before me (Heb. before my face) denotes the divine sentence of justification.—In his generation, denotes the opposite sentence of God against that generation.—Of every clean beast—by sevens.—This appointment is a special carrying out of the more universal one, Gen_6:20; it is, therefore, wholly in correspondence with the advancing prophecy, and not in contradiction of it, as Knobel thinks. Of the unclean beasts it says, “by two, a male and a female;” according to the analogy of this expression, the number seven (as used of the clean beasts) would denote also the number of individuals (Calvin, Delitzsch, Keil, and others), not seven pair (Vulgate, Aben Ezra, Michaelis, De Wette, Knobel). The prescription, therefore, is three pair and one over. This one was probably destined for a thank-offering. “The distinction between clean and unclean beasts is not first made by Moses, but only becomes fixed in the law as corresponding to it, though existing long before. Its beginnings reach back to the primitive time, and ground themselves on an immediate conscious feeling of the human spirit not yet clouded by any unnatural and ungodly culture, under the influence of which feeling it sees in many beasts pictures of sin and corruption which fill it with aversion and abhorrence.” Keil. But such a distinction, so grounded, might make an analogous division a permanent law for Christendom. The contrast of clean and unclean cannot, surely, have here the Levitical significance. More to the purpose would be the contrast of beasts tame and wild,—of beasts that are utterly excluded from the society of men, and roam about independent of them, although this contrast is limited by the physiological conception of cleanness and uncleanness (see Delitzsch, p. 256). The interchange of the divine names Jehovah and Elohim in our section makes trouble, as might well be inferred, for the documentary hypothesis (see Keil, p. 94, and the opposing view of Delitzsch, p. 256).—For yet seven days.—After seven days must the flood break out; there is appointed, therefore, a week for the marching into the ark.—Rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.—This is more widely expressed, Gen_7:11, where the phenomenon of the deluge is referred back to its original cause, the breaking up of the fountains of the deep.—And Noah was six hundred years old.—According to Gen_5:32, he was five hundred years old at the beginning of his married life. The 120 years, therefore, of Gen_6:3, go back beyond this.—And Noah went into the ark.—That the members of his household went in with him, denotes their connection with him in obedience, and in their fitness to be saved; with which the behavior of Lot’s sons in-law, and of his wife, forms a contrast. That the beasts follow him into the ark, shows a wonderful docility proceeding from their instinctive presentiment of the catastrophe.
[Note on the Bible Idea of Covenant.—It is a most important remark of Dr. Lange (p. 299), that “The revelation and recognition of the Divine Covenant rests on the revelation and recognition of the fact that God, as the absolute personality, places himself in a personal, ethically free, covenant-relation of love and truth to man as personal, and to the human race.” It is strange, indeed, that our philosophy should have so overlooked the glory of this covenant-idea, whilst our more ordinary worldly literature has so often treated it as a narrow dogmatic of an almost obsolete theology. God raised man above the animal by endowing him with moral, rational, and religious faculties. This lifts him above the plane of nature, and prepares him for a still higher relation. His Creator makes a covenant with him as being, though finite, a supernatural personality. He is placed upon higher ground than that of natural law, or natural right, as deduced from man’s relation to the universe, or what might be called the universal nature of things. He is taken out of this, and raised to a higher spiritual glory. No longer an animal, however richly endowed, yet bound in the chain of cause and effect, but under the free law of the promise,—living not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the Lord. Child of dust as he is physically, God makes a covenant with him, and thus gives him more than a natural right,—a legal or forensic right—making him a son, an heir of glory and immortality. Man has an understanding with his Maker; he is elevated to a platform on which the finite and infinite personality, the finite and infinite intelligence, converse together, and become parties in the same voluntary, spiritual transaction. True it is, that in the Bible even natural law is sometimes called a covenant, as in Jer_33:20; Jer_33:25, but in such cases the language is evidently figurative, and derived, by way of analogy, from the higher idea. With man it is a real covenant, a convening, or coming together, of the Divine and human mind. The transaction belongs to a higher world. It brings in a higher class of ideas. In nature, and natural relations, there are forces, gravities, attractions, affinities, or, as we approach its department of life and sentiency (though still nature), there are appetites, instincts, susceptibilities, having some appearance of freedom, yet still bound fast under the fatality of cause and effect; in the covenant, on the other hand, there are parties, promises, agreements, oaths, conditions, imperatives, fulfilments, forfeitures, penalties, rewards. In the tendency of our modern ethics to become converted into a system of physics—making all duty to consist in the study and observance of natural law—we lose sight of this higher glory of positive law, covenant, or promise; we fail to see how it is the very dignity of the human soul, that, unlike the animal, it can, through faith, be in this forensic or covenant relation to the universal Lawgiver. The opposite of this is the tendency, now so common, to place the relations between God and man on the general basis of “the nature of things,” and to determine the human place therein as made out by science or philosophy, in distinction from, if not in opposition to, that express revelation which is itself a carrying out of the covenant-idea. When carefully examined, the former process will be found to be a tracing of man’s obligation to the universe, rather than to God the free, personal, sovereign lawgiver of the universe.
The word covenant is not in the first three chapters of Genesis, but the spirit of the word is there, and the term itself is expressly predicated of the transactions there recorded when referred to in other parts of the Old Testament; see Hos_6:7. Immediately after the inspiration that made the human creation, we find this language of con-vening, of mutual intelligence, showing that God is now speaking to a supernatural being, and in a style different from that which had been used in the commands to nature. The expression äֲ÷ִîåֹúִé àֶú áְּøִéúִé Gen_6:18, “I will establishmycovenant, àúָּêְ withthee” (literally, I will make it stand), evidently implies something preceding that had been impaired—the raising up of something that had fallen down. It was the áְּøִéú òåֹìָí of Isa_24:5, or covenant of eternity, originally made with man as an immortal being, and itself an evidence of his designed immortality; or, as it may be rendered, world-covenant, intended to last through the world or æon of humanity; or it may have that still higher sense of the covenant made “before the foundations of the world” with him who was to be the second Adam, and whose delight, during the æons of creation (see Pro_8:31), was “with the sons of men” who were to crown it all. The remarks of that profound critic and philosopher, Maimonides, on this expression, are very noteworthy. He regards áְּøִéú , as from its very form, in the construct state (like øֵàùִׁéú ), and where there is no other expressed, the word with which it is in regimen is òåֹìָí or òֹìָîִéí , being thus equivalent to áְּøִéú òֹìָîִéí , the covenant of eternities, “because, before we were, he commanded that it should stand, ùú÷åí , and be forever with the righteous.”
The word áְּøִéú has been derived from the sense of cutting in áøà , as Lange explains it, but there is mother verb of cutting ( ëøú ) usually joined with it, making the common phrase exactly like the Homeric ὅñêéá ôÜìíåéí , derived, doubtless, from the same idea of dividing the victim by whose death the covenant was made. It is better, therefore, to derive it, as Maimonides seems to do, from the creative sense of áøà . It is making a new thing in the moral and spiritual world, as the physical creations were in the world of matter; and so, says this Jewish commentator, áøéúé ëîå áøéàúé , “my covenant, as it were, my creating.”
There is no religion without this idea of a personal covenant with a personal God, and, therefore, all such views as those of Comte, Mill, and Spencer are, for all moral or religious purposes, wholly atheistical. They acknowledge no personality in God; they cannot use the personal pronouns in speaking of him or to him. It may, in truth, be said that all religion is covenant, even when religion appears in its most perverted form. It has some appearance of being in the very etymology of the Latin word. Cicero makes it from relego—religiosi ex relegendo—but a better derivation would seem to be from religo, to bind, bind back,—religio is a positive bond (higher than nature) between straying, fallen man, and his Maker. We find traces of this idea of covenant even in the heathen religions, as in áַּòַì áְּøִéú Baal berith, mentioned Jdg_8:33, whom the children of Israel, in their apostasy, took instead of their covenant Jehovah. It seems to characterize certain peculiar epithets which the Greeks attached to Æåýò , their supreme God. It was the mode they took to intimate more of a personal relation between the deity and the worshipper than was afforded by the general or merely natural view. Or it denoted a greater nearness of the divine in certain peculiarly sacred relations which men held to each other, as though imparting to them a more religious sanction. Thus Æåὺò îÝíéïò , who calls specially to account for the violation of hospitality. More closely still suggesting the idea of the Hebrew covenant God, or that of the Phœnician Baal berith, is the Greek epithet Æåὺò ὅñêéïò , Zeus, the God of the oath, as the special punisher of perjury, or violation of covenant, whether as against himself, or as a breach of covenants men make with each other, as though there were a special guilt in it, greater than that of any natural injustice, or ordinary impiety. The very essential idea of the oath itself is that of covenant, and it is, therefore, that part of religion to which our politico-naturalists exhibit the most deadly opposition. The same idea may be traced in other epithets, such as Æåὺò ἐôáéñåῖïò , the God who avenges treachery to friendship, as though the obligation of fidelity were grounded on a special and mutual relation to something higher and more positive than mere human likings. Similar to this Æåὺò ἐöÝóôéïò , the protector of the hearth. So also Æåὺò ἑñêåῖïò (Jupiter Hercëus), the God of the family enclosure, or of the sacred domestic relations, as founded on positive institution, transcending any mere natural or individualizing rights that may be claimed against it. These precious ideas are akin to that of covenant as the everlasting ground of the church. The divine covenant, the áְּøִéú òåֹìָí , was confirmed with Noah, to be transmitted by him as the root of all that is most sacred in the relations of man to God, or to his fellow-men.—T. L.]
2. The flood was indeed a sin-flood (Sündflut), or rather, a flood of judgment, and as the first world-historical-judgment, it was a type of all following judgments, especially of the world’s last judgment.
3. The flood is a synthesis of judgment and deliverance, forming a type for every following synthesis of judgment and deliverance, especially for the double effect (of judgment and deliverance) of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt—for the middle point of the world’s history, the cross of Christ, and for the final deliverance brought out by the final judgment at the world’s end. To the judgment by water corresponds the judgment by fire as the higher potency of judgment; to the baptism by water corresponds the baptism by fire as the second potency, or the power of baptism for salvation. Thus the judgments are deliverances, inasmuch as they separate the salvable from the lost, or incurable; and so the salvations are judgments, inasmuch as they are ever connected with some separation of this kind.
4. The universal tradition, among men, of the great flood, and its ethical significance, stands in connection with the universal expectation of humanity that at the world’s end there will be a world-judgment.
5. The flood at the same time fact and symbol. See the previous remarks, No. 3.
6. The meaning of the name Noah. See the Exegetical annotations, No. 1.
7. The announcement of the flood, or the wholesome destruction, as a means of salvation from the incurable corruption. “The end of all flesh,” not so much a judgment of condemnation as a remedy against it (see 1Pe_3:19; Gen_4:6). Thereby does the expression: “the end of all flesh,” denote the fact that the immanent judgment of natural corruption has for its consequence the positive judgment. “Wherever the carcass, there are the eagles gathered together.”
8. The right belief in the judgment is, at the same time, a belief in the deliverance. A presentiment of the flood and a preparation of the ark went together.
9. The plan of the ark was imparted to Noah by God. The Spirit of God is the author of all ideal or pattern forms of the kingdom of God. So, for example, the tabernacle, or ark of the testimony.—The building of the ark was not merely a means of salvation for Noah and his race, but also a sermon of repentance for his cotemporaries.
10. The ark was not a ship (in form), but yet it was the primitive ship of humanity; God’s teaching men navigation, his word of blessing upon it, and a symbol of deliverance in all perils of the deep.
11. Noah was not only saved, but also the savior or the mediator of the divine salvation for his house. He was a type of Christ, the absolute mediator.
12. Noah was comprehended with his household in the one baptism of the flood. Already in Noah’s history there conspicuously appears the theocratic significance of the household (Matthew 10).
13. The religion of revelation is alone the religion of covenant. It alone has the idea of the covenant. On this grand and peculiar feature, compare Büchner’s “ Concordance,” art. Bund. But it is a covenant religion because it is the religion of a personal God, and of his relation to personal men (see the Exegetical annotations, No. 2). Here we are reminded of the covenant-theory of Cocceius. The divine covenant is truly a divine instituting, not merely a contract ( ðָúַï áְּøִéú he gave a covenant); but this instituting is also a covenanting. We obliterate the personal ethical relation between the personal God and personal man, when we obliterate the covenant idea. This has special force in respect to the sacraments of the covenant. Through them man receives the promises of God, which he appropriates along with the obligations of the faith. This applies to the tree of life given to Adam, to the rainbow of Noah, to the stars of heaven as shown to Abraham, and to circumcision, to the passover of Moses, as well as to the Christian sacraments. When we leave out of view the obligations of the covenant, as, for