Genesis 7:10–11

Noah preached all these years, and never got a convert, that I know of. Remember, a moment is coming when you will have heard the last word. So it was in Noah's day. In the end the one hundred and twenty promised years ran out. Then God gave a guilty world seven extra days of grace. He did not promise these seven days, but He gave them. How like God. If you want to be saved, you come to Jesus today. There is no promise of seven days of grace to you.

Then a respite of seven days is given before the flood would come. This shows again the longsuffering of God. Men saw the large number of animals coming to the ark. They saw Noah's whole family go into this finished, gigantic vessel. At least by then they should have realized that the project was not just something Noah had dreamed up, even though rain had never fallen before. But God gave men another week to change their minds. Perhaps, as those few days passed, people grew more confident each day that nothing would happen, instead of growing worried as they should have.

We see God's longsuffering here. He bore long with the sinners before the flood and gave them space for repentance. Every day that Noah worked at the ark, every plank, every nail, every stroke of his hammer, was a warning and a threat of the coming judgment. More than that, God could do nothing until Noah was safe in the ark, after He Himself had shut him in. Even then He waited seven more days. And if Noah had taken twice as long to be shut up safe in the ark, judgment would have waited just as long.

Once God had shut the door, no one could open it again. When the rain began to fall, others might be terrified enough to rush for shelter, but they could not get in. Once the door closed, it was too late. How solemn a lesson for those who neglect the salvation of their souls until too late!

So we have clear examples of God's ways in prophecy. There is the short, clearly marked interval of "seven days" in Genesis 7:10, when the blow was to fall. It came after a long and generous warning of "a hundred and twenty years" in Genesis 6:3. Both stand plainly in the record. Each is worthy of Him who alone could announce both with authority and fulfil both on time. If He executes judgment on a world that hardens itself in wickedness and refuses to believe His word, He also makes room to show His mercy. He shows it to those who keep His word in faith and obey Him, as Noah did, and so saved his household.

The man who enjoyed Jehovah's favour received the earlier word in grace. When the judgment came, no one could miss it.

The Lord next refers to the days of Noah. It will be the same in His own days, when He comes as the Son of Man… "They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them." Men forget too easily that a far more sweeping judgment awaits the world, on the pattern of these two acts of God — the flood in Noah's day, and the fire that fell on Sodom in Lot's day. The Lord waits, to save souls. Such is His longsuffering and grace, but He "is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness."

In verse 11 God gives the date when the flood began, in relation to Noah's age. He gives not only the general time, but the exact day: the 17th day of the second month, in Noah's 600th year. The many dates, names and places recorded in scripture invite anyone to check for himself how accurate the word of God is.

The term, "windows of heaven," is very expressive. It denotes an outpouring from God above; it may be in blessing, as Malachi 3:10 shows, but here it was in judgment... But also there was from beneath a breaking up of the established order. What exactly is signified, when we read of all the fountains of the great deep being broken up, it is impossible to say. The tremendous event had never happened before, and it will never happen again. For we read, "never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (Genesis 9:11). So we must be content to know this much: there were immense convulsions inside the earth, which produced a mighty upsurge of earth's waters to meet the waters coming down from above.

At the flood the expression the "windows of heaven" is in the sense of the "floodgates," as the margin note says. Gen. 7:11.

In Genesis 7:11 we read, "the windows of heaven were opened," a scene in which the wrath of heaven was poured out upon a world of violence and corruption. In Malachi 3:10 we read of God's desire and promise: to "open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need." A flood of judgment, required by the holy character of God; but a flood of blessing, expressing the love of God's heart.

Scripture uses language found nowhere else. It shows that this was an extraordinary outbreak of waters, unheard of except in this one case, and never known in any other way... Does not the narrative speak of some outburst of water known on no other occasion? But let us be more exact about the fact. The passage speaks neither of clouds nor sea... It never says the water drained back into the sea, but that "the waters receded from the earth continually." It also declares that the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was held back. That is, the narrator does present it as having its source and its arrest in the extraordinary intervention of God — call it "miracle" or what you please.

And now the last day came. It was on the seventh day that Noah went in, and then God shut the door. Then the world saw what it had never seen before... And then what panic! To me it is a very striking thing that God has drawn a veil over what happened then. All Christ says is this, "and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away" (Matt. 24:39). They paid no attention. They did not care about their souls. Then the moment came, and judgment overwhelmed them. It is a solemn picture of the terrible judgment coming on a world without Christ.