Verse 11
11. Six hundredth year… second month… seventeenth day Dates and measures throughout the narrative are given with an arithmetical minuteness which removes it entirely out of the region of poetry . In fact, there is no poetic colouring, no vividly emotional expression, such as might naturally be expected in the description of such an awfully impressive judgment . It reads like a simple diary of events from an eye-witness who is profoundly impressed with their divine origin and purpose, but who makes no attempt at rhetorical embellishment. See further on Genesis 8:4.
Fountains of the great deep The fathomless ocean .
Broken up Rent, or cloven asunder .
The windows Lattices, sluices; margin, floodgates. The waters came from the great deep and from the skies. Two natural causes of the deluge are here, then, clearly assigned the overflowing ocean and the descending rains. The word deep ( תהום ) primarily signifies the original watery abyss (Genesis 1:2) out of which the “dry land” was elevated, and would here, therefore, be naturally applied to the ocean returning over the sinking land . This unique event is described in wholly unique phraseology . The water rushes upon the earth from the ocean as if from a multitude of suddenly opened fountains . Bursting fountains from the deep and opened lattices in the skies are pictorial conceptions of one who saw and felt the awful judgment; yet, as said above, there is no attempt at an elaborate description of scenes which have furnished poetry and painting an exhaustless field .
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