And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth.
God had set a seven-day countdown, and this verse records that the week ran out just as He said. One short sentence raises two large questions: why did God wait, and what happened to the people who wasted the wait?
The 120 years of Genesis 6:3 had already run out before this last week began.
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.
That week put the evidence in plain view.
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.
Notice the order: the door closed first, and the water came after.
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.
The door that shut Noah in also shut everyone else out.
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!
Two deadlines stand in the record here, one long and one short.
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 warning came first to one man. The flood reached everyone.
The man who enjoyed Jehovah's favour received the earlier word in grace. When the judgment came, no one could miss it.
Jesus pointed back to the days of Noah when He described His own coming.
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."
- Warned — 120 years of building and preaching gave the world notice; every nail Noah drove was a warning.
- Extended — the 120 years ran out, and then God added seven days He had never promised.
- Wasted — the loading of the ark should have convinced them; instead each quiet day made them surer nothing would happen.
- Sealed — judgment waited until Noah was safe inside; the door that shut him in shut everyone else out.
- Kept — the short deadline landed as surely as the long one; Jesus points back to Noah's day when He speaks of His own coming.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
Genesis 7:11 fixes the exact day the old world ended. It also names two sources for the water, one below the earth and one above, and both raise one question: was this weather, or was it God?
One writer takes the exact date itself as part of the message:
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 verse describes a double assault. The deep beneath broke open, and the sky opened above it.
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.
The picture behind the word is not glass panes but sluice gates held shut and then thrown open.
At the flood the expression the "windows of heaven" is in the sense of the "floodgates," as the margin note says. Gen. 7:11.
The same image returns later in the Bible, but with the opposite content:
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.
People have long argued whether the flood was just extreme weather. One writer answers a critic who suggested the water came from clouds and perhaps the sea:
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.
Note the two halves of that argument: God started it, and God stopped it. Neither end of the flood belongs to the normal running of nature.
God shut the door, and the waters broke out that same day. Scripture then says almost nothing about the scene itself:
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.
- Dated. God records the year, month and day the flood began, inviting anyone to check the accuracy of His word for himself.
- Doubled. Judgment came from beneath and above at once: the deep torn open, the sky unsealed. It had never happened before, and God promises it will never happen again.
- Opened. "Windows of heaven" means floodgates. The same open heaven pours out judgment here and blessing in Malachi — one God behind both.
- Beyond nature. The unusual wording points past normal weather. God released the waters, and God later shut them off.
- Sudden. The waters broke out the very day the door closed. That is why the flood pictures a judgment that arrives while people are unaware.
And the pour of rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
The rain that began here was no accident of weather; God had fixed the day and said so long before. Two questions come out of this verse: why forty days, and why does Scripture measure the flood so exactly?
Genesis gives two timescales: a long warning and a short one. Commentators read both as proof that the God who spoke was the God who acted.
Here we have clear examples of God's ways in prophecy. First, a short, exactly marked gap of "seven days" in Genesis 7:10, when the blow was to fall. But that came after a long warning of "a hundred and twenty years" in Genesis 6:3, when God's judgment would end man's days for the world of that time. Both stand undeniable in the record. Each is worthy of Him who alone could speak with authority, and He fulfilled both exactly on time. If He carries out judgment on a world that hardens itself in evil and will not believe His word, He also provides mercy for those who keep His word in faith and obey Him, as Noah did, saving his household.
Scripture keeps coming back to this number, and always with the same sense.
"Rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (verse 12). Here for the first time in the Word we find the number forty. It is not the last time. Forty means endurance and testing. Moses was forty days on the mountain; his life was divided into three forties. Forty years Israel was in the wilderness. Elijah knew the forty days, and Ezekiel lay forty days on his right side, a typical action (Ezekiel 4). Jonah preached, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown"; and Christ was forty days in the wilderness to be tested.
Genesis says the rain came through the windows of heaven. That picture is not always one of judgment.
The term "windows of heaven" is very expressive. It means an outpouring from God above. It may be in blessing, as Malachi 3:10 shows, but here it was in judgment. The devastating waters came down for forty days and forty nights.
Rain alone could never have done this. Genesis names two sources at once, and neither belongs to the ordinary running of the world.
This was no mere matter of the clouds or of the sea, as it usually is. The inspired writer speaks of sources that were completely different and had never been seen before. All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of the heavens, as the phrase goes, were opened. Neither the one nor the other was according to the course of nature that God established before or since. This is exactly what makes a miracle clear and impressive. Everyone admits the regular working of the physical laws by which God orders the universe.
One writer works the problem from the other end. Could the sky even hold that much water?
It is claimed that the sky above us would be full to saturation point if it held enough water to cover the earth just thirty feet deep... But to add to the awesome flood, the rain fell for forty days and forty nights (v. 12).
In Genesis 2 a mist waters the ground, and no rain falls. Some commentators think that lasted until the flood. They offer it as a suggestion, not a fact.
Verse 6 shows that a mist rising from the earth kept the plants alive, without water coming down from above. There were waters "above the expanse" (Genesis 1:7), but as yet they had not fallen as showers on the earth. Not until Genesis 7:4 do we read of rain. Some think that the watering of the earth by mist and not rain continued until the time of the flood. It may have been so.
For everyone outside, the rising water meant death. For those inside, the higher it rose the higher they went.
The ark was borne up. And that which was judgment to the world was safety for Noah. As the waters rose, what rose? This ark. A happy and blessed thing for those in the ark.
That reversal is why commentators read the flood as a picture, not just a record:
Plainly, the ark is Christ. The flood it saves through is the judgment of the whole world, and that world perished in it. Those kept safe come through to a new world that rises out of the waters.
- Announced — 120 years of warning, then seven days, then rain: God said it before He did it, and did it on the day He said.
- Measured — forty days marks a full testing. It is the first of many: Moses, Israel, Elijah, Jonah, Ezekiel, and Christ in the wilderness.
- Doubled — water fell from the opened windows of heaven and burst up from the great deep. The sky alone never held enough.
- Miraculous — neither source ran by the course of nature God set. Ordinary weather cannot explain it.
- Lifting — the same water that drowned the world carried the ark upward. Commentators read the ark as Christ: the judgment that ends one world floats His people into a new one.
On the same day went Noah, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
Genesis 7:13 stops the flood story to name every person who walked into the ark. It also fixes the day. Two things stand out: God timed the rescue to the day, and the rescued company was tiny.
The chapter dates the disaster to the year, month, and day, and this verse ties the entry to that same date. One writer weighs that care in the record against the size of what happened.
So tremendous an event is recorded with the utmost precision and solemnity. We are told of it to the year, month, and day, when the judgment was executed.
The same detail carries a second point. If they entered on the day the rain began, then the way in had stayed open right up to that morning.
Verse 13 makes it plain that Noah and his family entered the ark on the very day that the storm broke. Noah had been a preacher of righteousness... Still to the very last day the door of the ark stood open, and nothing would have stopped a repentant man from entering, if such a man had been found.
Nothing in the sky announced what was coming.
Luke 17:26-27 tells us that life in Noah's day went on in its usual routine — eating, drinking, and marrying — until the day Noah entered the ark. On the morning of that day the sun rose as it always did. No cloud, heavy with rain, cast its shadow upon the scene, and yet sudden destruction overtook the world of that day. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that Noah's faith was warned about things not yet seen. He believed God, against all the evidence of his senses, and resisted the reasoning of the men around him.
The verse lists three married sons and no grandchildren. One writer sees God's planning in that fact, and comfort in it for people under strain.
The three sons of Noah, all married men, did not carry one infant into the ark. Eight adult persons passed through the flood. What a touch this is, showing God's thoughtful arranging and planning tenderness! And occurring as it does in such an unexpected place, it may well come as a comfort to many who are tried in circumstances.
Seven people went in alongside Noah. God calls only one of them righteous, and one son's later history rules out treating the rest the same way.
The Lord commands Noah to enter the ark with his house on this ground: "for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation." Someone might object that all the members of the household were probably "righteous" before God too. The later history of one of them — Ham — forbids that thought. So the statement loses none of its force: God delivered the family of Noah from the judgment of the flood because of the faith of its head... God's grace reached wider still: the sons' wives were included in His merciful purposes too, making up the eight persons Peter speaks of, who "were brought safely through water."
The sons appear here in the same order as elsewhere — Shem, Ham, Japheth. Commentators point out that this is not the order they were born in.
Shem comes first in the usual formula of "Shem, Ham, and Japheth" not because he was born first, but because of the spiritual purpose that gave him that position... Japheth, as the eldest, had the honour of birth. Ham has his own recognition, for rising early to political place and natural power. But the honour Godward was reserved for Shem, though he is named last elsewhere.
Writers do not stop at the history here. They read the ark as a picture of Christ, and turn the flood into a question for the reader.
That ark, floating peacefully over the dark depth of waters, was a type of Christ, and of the believer in Him. The waves of judgment buried the old world and man with it. Only one object remained — the ark, the vessel of mercy and salvation, riding in safety and triumph over the waves... It all hinges upon this one question: "Am I in or out of Christ?"
- The day — God dated rescue and judgment to the same day, recorded to the year, month and day.
- The door — they entered on the day the rain began, so the way in stayed open to the last morning. A repentant man could still have walked through it.
- The disguise — that morning looked like any other. Noah acted on a warning about things he could not see, against everyone's reasoning.
- The dependents — three married sons, and not one infant aboard. That touch shows God's thoughtful, tender planning.
- The dividing line — God saw one man as righteous, and carried his whole house through. Writers read the ark as a picture of Christ, so the question narrows to one: in Him, or out of Him?