And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth; and all the high mountains that are under all the heavens were covered.
Genesis 7:19 records the moment the water rose past every landmark on earth. It raises two questions commentators return to again and again: how far did the flood reach, and what was God doing in burying a whole world under water?
How much of the earth did the flood cover? One writer answers from the plain wording of the verse, and argues that a local flood is no easier to believe:
Language could hardly be clearer than Scripture is on this point. Words cannot be plainer than these in pointing to a worldwide flood. Scripture separates the world that then was from the earth that now is, and faith can easily accept God's statement. It was a miracle. Covering all the high hills in one district only, without the water flowing to other parts, would need just as great a miracle as covering the whole earth. God, the Creator of all things, could easily form the water needed to cover the whole earth, and afterwards disperse it into its elements.
Another writer ties how far the water reached to the purpose behind it, and to a judgment still to come:
I believe the flood was all over the earth, wherever man was... Suppose Mount Ararat, fifteen or sixteen thousand feet high, in northern Armenia, was covered. If the waters were not all around it, and far beyond it too, they would have run off and covered somewhere else. There had to be a miracle either way. To me the flood was completely universal, and Scripture plainly means it so, because the aim was to destroy the world that then was. God puts an end to the whole system of the world. This judgment of the earth and all that was on it was as complete as the coming judgment by fire will be. God says He will never do it again; the next time it will be by fire.
If only humanity was guilty, the death of every beast and bird can look excessive. One answer given is that man never stood alone; he stood at the head of everything:
Many have argued that man alone was the guilty creature, so destroying all mankind would have fully met the case. That might have been so if God had pleased. But He has taken pains to tell us that He destroyed all cattle, beasts, and creeping things too; and we must believe Him. Man was the head of creation, so everything was caught up in the consequences of his sin. There had to be a new start, pictured in the death and resurrection of Noah in the ark.
From outside, the rising water meant ruin. From inside the ark it meant something else:
What 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. And who is safe now? Those who have believed Christ; those who have trusted Him in the simplicity of faith. I see those eight go into the ark, and by and by I see them come out on resurrection ground.
Inside the ark, no one steered and no one watched the judgment outside:
The passengers in that wonderfully guided and protected vessel did not need their eyes for steering. They were not to look out on the solemn judgment taking effect around them. Meanwhile the waters, which were the grave of the world, floated them above its mountain-tops up to the blue heavens, growing calmer as they rose. What a time for them — shut in by God, with God!
Genesis 7:19 does not stand by itself. Later parts of the Bible take the event as fact and build on it:
God never destroys without warning. So a hundred and twenty years' notice was given of the coming ruin... The flood reached everywhere: "all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered" (Gen. 7:19). The ancient book of Job refers to this worldwide ruin twice (Job 12:15; Job 22:16). The Son of God confirmed it during His ministry, and so did the Spirit of God in the letters of Peter and to the Hebrews. It is sheer folly to doubt the fact.
- Explicit. The verse's own wording is the decisive evidence for a worldwide flood. A local flood in one district would need a miracle just as great.
- Purposeful. The reach of the water matches the aim behind it. God was ending the whole system of the world that then was, not correcting one region. The next judgment will come by fire.
- Inclusive. Every creature went down with man because man was the head of creation, so a new start had to come through Noah in the ark.
- Reversed. The same rising water that buried the hills lifted the ark. Judgment outside was safety inside.
- Confirmed. Job, Christ Himself, Peter and Hebrews all treat this event as history. Doubting it, in one writer's words, is sheer folly.
Fifteen cubits upward the waters prevailed; and the mountains were covered.
The verse measures the flood. The water stood fifteen cubits above mountain peaks it had already covered. Commentators use that one figure to answer two questions. How far did the judgment reach? And why was the ark, not the mountains, the safe place?
The account of the rising water is short and restrained. One writer draws attention to the way it is told:
Next we have the prevalence of the flood described in language that is both simple and impressive, yet entirely free from the realistic details of horror that modern writers enjoy. The effect was complete over everything that breathed on the dry land and over bird life.
Some readers keep the flood local and place it in the river valleys of the east. One writer answers them from the place where the ark came to rest:
It is useless for the writer of "the Genesis of the Earth" to move the disaster to the low lands of the Euphrates and the Tigris. There a flood of fifteen cubits would barely touch the earth as a whole, or the people living on it. This is to overlook or disbelieve "the mountains of Ararat" (Gen. 8:4), where the ark rested as the waters were going down. Its chief peak stands 17,000 feet above the sea, and that may give some idea of the appalling fact. The account reaches beyond Ararat: if even its highest peak lay far under the water, what about the rest of the earth?
Another writer answers from the wording of the account. A limited flood, he adds, would be no easier to explain than a worldwide one:
Scripture could hardly be more explicit on this point... The words could not be plainer: they mean a flood over the whole world. Scripture marks off the world that then was from the earth that now is, and faith finds it easy to accept God's statement. It was a miracle. Covering all the high hills of one district only, with no water flowing to other parts, would take just as great a miracle as flooding the whole earth. And God, the Creator of all things, could easily make the water needed to cover the whole earth, and scatter it back into its elements afterwards.
The verse describes water climbing above every high place. For the eight people inside the ark, that rise was their rescue:
The ark was borne up. And what 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.
The same rising water also fulfilled something God had already said:
The flood waters brought destruction on the world of the ungodly. Those same waters lifted the ark up above the earth. This can remind us that God's salvation always has a lifting effect. When the waters rose higher and higher over the earth, no flesh was in sight, and nothing was left but death. God had said that the end of all flesh had come before Him, and now that word came true. Everyone was either under the waters of judgment or inside the ark. The ark rode between the waters surging up from beneath and pouring down from above.
The flood took the beasts and the birds as well, and readers have long objected to that. One writer traces it to man's place at the head of creation:
Many have argued that man alone was the guilty creature, so destroying all mankind would have been enough. God could have done it that way, if He had pleased. But He has taken care to tell us that all cattle, beasts, and creeping things died. We must believe Him. Man was the head of creation, and everything shared the consequences of his sin. So there had to be a new start, pictured by the death and resurrection of Noah in the ark.
When the water goes down, the ark's passengers step onto ground that has passed through death:
The flood swept away the ungodly and brought judgment and death on the world. The waters carried the ark up, and it rested at last on the cleansed earth. So it taught the lesson of life for God's people on the other side of judgment and death. The new earth came up out of the waters of death. Noah and his family had been saved through those waters. They set their feet on dry land as people risen from the dead.
Writers read the drowned world as a permanent notice about a judgment yet to come:
So divine judgment cleared the world before the flood of its many and open evils. That judgment stands as a witness and a warning of another judgment hanging over the inhabited earth. There were two witnesses then, first Enoch, then Noah. Both announced the judgment about to fall on the ungodly while they were still living here. So it will be in the day when the Son of man is revealed (Luke 17:30).
- Measure. Fifteen cubits over the peaks is not a small detail. The depth shows how complete the judgment was.
- Reach. Ararat and the plain wording of the account point to water over the whole world, not one river basin.
- Lift. The water that drowned the world outside carried the ark upward. The same flood meant death for one and safety for the other.
- Passage. Noah's family came out onto an earth that had been through the waters of death, as people risen from the dead.
- Warning. The buried world stands as notice of a judgment still ahead, announced by Enoch and Noah before it fell.
And all flesh that moved on the earth expired, fowl as well as cattle, and beasts, and all crawling things which crawl on the earth, and all mankind
The waters have risen above the mountains. Now Scripture reports the result: every kind of land life is gone — birds, livestock, wild animals, swarming creatures, and mankind. The verse raises the questions readers still bring to the flood. How far did the death reach? Why did animals die alongside guilty men? What does such a judgment say to us now?
Writers who take the wording at face value find no room for a local flood. One reference work meets the objection head on.
Was the flood universal? Scripture could hardly be clearer on this point… The words of Genesis could not be plainer: they mean a flood over the whole world. Scripture sets the world that then was apart from the earth that now is, and faith finds it easy to accept God's statement. It was a miracle. And it would take as great a miracle to cover all the high hills of one district only, without the water flowing to other parts, as to cover the whole earth. God, the Creator of all things, could easily form the water needed to cover the whole earth, and then disperse it into its elements again.
This was not weather that got out of hand. One writer stresses that the waters did what God had said they would do.
It was for God now to carry out His word of judgment: whether or not He caused His wind to blow, the waters flowed. This was not His usual running of the world by the laws He set in creation. His word is paramount. Man must learn that He is, and that He punishes, even in this world where He sees fit, the wrongdoing that goes too far. He is patient, but He gave this early lesson to the ungodly, which they can only forget or deny at their peril.
The verse lists creatures that never sinned. Commentators trace their ruin back to man, their head.
Yet animals, creeping things and birds are included in this awesome destruction, for man's sin has involved the rest of the earthly creation. People may say that when they sin it is only themselves they have damaged, but man's sin always affects others too, even unreasoning creatures.
That link also carries a promise. The loss recorded here is not the last word for birds and beasts.
It is childish and sinful to complain about the destruction of the lower creation. The fall of its head, man, had already subjected it to futility. And now that man's wickedness called aloud for divine judgment, the birds and beasts share his ruin on earth. Yet even in this the goodness and the wisdom of God secure the victory in due time. The creation fell with the first man. What joy to know from God's word that all its groaning waits for the triumph of the Second man, when the sons of God are revealed!
Everything in this verse died outside one wooden box floating on the same water. Writers read that contrast as a picture of Christ.
The ark is Christ. The flood it saves through is the judgment of the whole world, which perished in it. Those it preserves come through to a new world that rises out of the waters. There the sweet savour of accepted sacrifice secures a lasting blessing.
The same water did two opposite things at once, depending on where a person was standing.
The water lifted the ark. And what 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.
God had warned the people who died here. Their deaths became evidence for the message they had dismissed. Writers say the pattern is not finished.
Those who did not believe God's warning became the witnesses of its truth. The flood came and swept them all away. The waters of Noah did go over the earth, as surely as they shall go over it no more. A still more terrible destruction awaits it, however long it may seem to linger. By His word He keeps the present heavens and earth in store. He has reserved them for fire, for a day of judgment and destruction of wicked men. The one is as certain as the other. But we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
- All flesh. The wording leaves nothing out. Commentators read it as a worldwide flood, not a local one: Scripture sets the world that then was apart from the earth that now is.
- All by His word. The waters were not nature misbehaving. God was carrying out what He had said. Man must learn that He is, and that He punishes.
- All creation. Birds and beasts fell with man, their head. They will rise with the Second man, when the sons of God are revealed.
- All but the ark. The same rising water that drowned the world lifted Noah. Writers read the ark as a picture of Christ — the one refuge carried through judgment into a new world.
- All again. Those who ignored the warning became proof it was true. The next judgment is fire, not water. Believers look for new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells.
everything which had in its nostrils the breath of life, of all that was on the dry [land], died.
This verse closes the account of the flood's destruction with one picture: breath stopped in the nostrils. It raises three questions — why the nostrils, whether man and beast stand alike, and how far the water reached.
An older margin reads "spirit" in this verse. One writer, quoting an older translation, checks that reading against the same phrase elsewhere.
Those who deny the soul's survival quote Gen. 7:22 (margin) as proof that "spirit" belongs to beasts. That is a mistake. The same phrase turns up in 2 Sam. 22:16, translated there as "the blast of the breath," and again it points to the nostrils: "the blast of the breath of his nostrils." The Genesis passage means the action of the breath on the nostrils, so clearly seen in states of excitement and fear: "All in whose nostrils was the breathing of the breath of life... died."
The words gather man and beast into one group. Then the account turns to the family God kept safe.
"All in whose nostrils is the breath of life" included man and beast; language like this puts them all together. Then at the right time God takes Noah with his family, and all enter the ark, "and the LORD shut him in."
Yet man and beast are not on the same level. The difference lies in how man received his life.
"A living soul" means anything that lives by blood and breath. I say this because it says, "whereinsoever was the breath of life, died"; all animals were living souls. Man was one, and the animal was one. But there was an essential difference: God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living soul. That soul might be parted from his body, and the body return to the dust.
The verse names the dead as those "on the dry land." One writer points out what that leaves out.
The flood lasted a long time and in the end covered even the high mountains, so all human and animal life would die. Of course this did not affect the life in the seas.
Some try to shrink the flood to one region. One reference work weighs that idea against the plain words of Scripture.
No words could be plainer than Scripture's here: this was a worldwide flood. Scripture marks off the world that then was from the earth that now is, and faith finds it easy to accept God's statement. It was a miracle. To cover all the high hills of one district only, without the water flowing to other parts, would need as great a miracle as to cover the whole earth.
The water rose because God had spoken. One writer draws out the lesson He left in it.
It was for God now to carry out His word of judgment: whether or not He caused His wind to blow, the waters flowed. His word decides everything. Man must learn that He is, and that He punishes, even in this world where He sees fit, the wrongdoing that goes too far. He is patient, but He gave this early lesson to the ungodly, which they can only forget or deny at their peril.
The water that ended every breath outside also lifted the ark. One door decided which side of it a man stood on.
The terrible waters of judgment roared over the earth. But those same waters of death destroyed all beneath them. On their surface they carried this representative man in safety, and those saved with him... All perished outside the ark: all must perish outside Christ. He might have helped to fell the trees or even build the ark, but once the door was shut he was shut out.
The flood was not only an end. One writer reads it as a standing sign of a judgment still ahead, announced beforehand by two men.
So God's judgment cleared the world before the flood of its widespread and open evils. That judgment stands as a witness and a warning of another judgment that hangs over the earth we live in. There were two witnesses then, first Enoch, then Noah. Each had his own marks, and both agreed in announcing judgment about to fall on the ungodly while they were still living here. So it will be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17:30).
- Breath — the phrase points to breathing at the nostrils. The older margin's "spirit" proves nothing about a spirit in beasts.
- Breath shared — the words cover man and beast alike. Every creature that lived by blood and breath was a living soul.
- Breath given — man's difference lies in the giving. God breathed into his nostrils, and that soul may part from the body that returns to dust.
- Breath stopped — the judgment reached everything on dry land, though not life in the seas. The plain words will not shrink to one flooded district.
- Breath preserved — the same water that killed all outside carried the ark. Nearness saved no one, and the scene still warns of a judgment to come.
And every living being was destroyed that was on the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping things, and fowl of the heavens; and they were destroyed from the earth. And Noah alone remained, and what was with him in the ark.
This verse draws a line across the whole earth: God ends every life on dry land, and one boat with all it carries comes through. How far did that judgment reach, and why did God keep back that one small household?
Some read the verse — man, animals, creeping things, birds — as a local disaster in one region. One writer replies that the words rule that out, and that a limited flood would need just as great a miracle:
No words could be plainer. They mean a flood over the whole world. The world that then was stands apart from the earth that now is, and faith finds it easy to accept God's statement. It was a miracle. It would take just as great a miracle to cover all the high hills in one district only, without the water flowing to other parts, as to cover the whole earth.
Why did the birds and beasts die with guilty man? One writer answers that creation had already fallen with man, and points to the day when it will share the triumph of the Second man:
It is childish and sinful to complain about the destruction of the lower creation. The fall of man, its head, had already put it under futility. And now that man's wickedness called aloud for divine judgment, the birds and beasts share his ruin on earth. Yet even in this the goodness and the wisdom of God secure the victory in due time. For if the creation fell with the first man, what joy to know from God's word that all its groaning waits for the triumph of the Second man, when the sons of God are revealed!
The order matters. God shut the family in the ark before He sent a single drop, and one writer draws two of God's ways out of that order:
It is interesting to see that, before the governmental act of judgement began, the chosen family and all with them were safely shut in the ark, the vessel of grace... God in grace saved Noah before God in government swept the earth with the broom of judgement. It is grace and government over again. Grace acts in salvation; government acts in judgement. We see God in both. Every atom of the ark bore the sweet mark of grace; every wave of the flood reflected the solemn decree of government.
The verse also records what was left. One writer looks at that small cargo and sees all that God could still bring out of it, long after the flood:
Who can measure the delight with which the blessed God viewed the contents of that ark? They held vast promise for His praise — the spiritual family of the Ethiopian official, of Cornelius and of Saul of Tarsus. They held the thousands of burnt offerings, valued as pointing on to the unswerving devotion of Christ to the will of His God. Blessed indeed is that which "remained" despite the breakdown.
The second half of the verse names people who came through the flood on someone else's account. When God called them into the ark, He named one reason: He had seen Noah righteous in that generation. One of Noah's sons later proved he was not righteous himself, so their rescue did not rest on their own standing:
So nothing can weaken the force of the statement: God delivered the family of Noah from the judgment of the flood because of the faith of their head. It was not salvation itself, but it was a picture of salvation... So the grace of God brought the whole household out from under the judgment and set them on the new earth, because of the faith of Noah.
The verse divides the human race by one thing only — location. There were no degrees of safety, and no credit for having been near:
All perished outside the ark: all must perish outside Christ. It did not matter how near a person was to the ark, he was either shut in or shut out. He might have helped to fell the trees or even build the ark, but once the door was shut he was shut out.
Scripture treats the flood as a pattern, not a closed file. Two men warned that generation before the water came:
So divine judgment purged the world before the flood of its many open evils. That judgment stands as a witness and a warning of another judgment, which hangs over the habitable earth. There were two witnesses then, first Enoch, then Noah... and both announced the judgment about to fall on the ungodly while they lived here below.
- Blotted out. The words of the verse describe a judgment over the whole earth, and faith takes God's statement as it stands.
- Shut in first. Grace finished its work before government began — the door closed before the waters rose.
- Only remained. What survived was not a leftover but a treasure: a family and a creation kept for God's praise.
- With him. Noah's household came through on the faith of their head, not on their own record — a picture of the salvation God gives.
- In or out. Nearness to the ark saved no one; only being inside did — and the same line runs through the judgment still to come.