Was Noah's flood global?

I believe the flood was all over the earth, wherever man was. There is no mistake. People have called the universality in question, using general terms, as if it only covered the inhabited earth. But scripture says, "the mountains were covered," "and the tops of the mountains were seen," and so on; this looks like universality. You must let in a miracle in any case: and so it is all one after all. Suppose Mount Ararat, fifteen or sixteen thousand feet high, in northern Armenia, was covered; well, if the waters were not all round, and away too, they would have run off, and covered somewhere else; there must have been a miracle anyhow. The universality of the flood, absolute universality, seems to me to be positively meant and intended, because of destroying the world that then was. God puts an end to the whole system of the world. It was as complete a judgment of the earth and all that was on it, on the part of God, as it will be presently by fire. Everything in the whole order and system of the world that had life perished, "the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished": so Peter tells us, and anything that enfeebled it I should not admit: all mere physical things are consequent upon it. Either reject the word of God, or else Mount Ararat was covered. As to universal destruction, everything in the world was put an end to. The world that then was is distinct from the world that now is; and this is of immense moral import to us. God says He will never do it again, but the next time it will be by fire.

This judgement of God upon the earth, when the whole world had become corrupt before Him, has often been thought to be a subject full of difficulties, the principal of which it may be well to consider. First, as to its extent, was the flood universal? Language can scarcely be more explicit than is the scripture on this point. We read that "all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed . . . . and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Gen. 7:19-23. After the flood God said He would not any more smite 'every thing living,' as He had done, Gen. 8:21; "neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." Gen. 9:11: cf. also 2 Peter 2:5; 2 Peter 3:6-7. Words cannot be plainer than the above to signify a universal deluge: the world that then was is distinguished from the earth that now is, and it is easy for faith to accept God's statement. It was a miracle, and it would require as great a miracle to cover all the high hills in one district only, without the water flowing to other parts, as to submerge the whole earth. The quantity of water required to cover the whole earth could easily be formed by God the Creator of all things, and be dispersed into its elements afterwards.

It has often been contended that as man only was the guilty creature, the destruction of all mankind would have entirely met the case. It might have been thus if God had so pleased, but He has taken pains to tell us that all cattle, beasts, and creeping things were destroyed; and we must believe Him. Man was the head of creation, and all was involved in the consequences of his sin, and there must be a new start under the figure of the death and resurrection of Noah in the ark. God commenced a new economy as to the earth, in connection with the sweet savour of Noah's sacrifice. The flood was about 1700 years after the creation of Adam, and it is impossible to say how many millions of people there were on the earth at the time, or how far they had been dispersed.

As to the flood itself, the account given (Genesis 7:11 — Genesis 8:14) is quite explicit, both as to its duration and its dimensions. The tremendous rain lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. The waters prevailed from the 17th day of the 2nd month to the 17th day of the 7th month, when the ark grounded on the mountains of Ararat. On the 1st day of the 10th month the tops of the mountains were seen. On the 1st day of the 1st month of a new year the waters had vanished from the face of the earth. On the 27th day of the 2nd month the earth was sufficiently dry for the occupants of the ark to go forth from it — one year and 10 days having elapsed from the onset.

Its dimensions were such that "all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven were covered." This seems to indicate that it was universal, and it is certain that nothing of a local nature could possibly have lasted for so long. Moreover the breaking up of "the fountains of the great deep" very possibly involved great changes on the surface of the earth: in other words, the configuration of continents, mountains, seas, etc., may have been very different in the antediluvian age from their present form.

It was for God now to accomplish His word of judgment: whether or not He caused His wind to blow, the waters flowed. It was no question of His ordinary regulation according to the laws He impressed on creation. His word is paramount. Man must learn that He is, and that He punishes, even in this world where He sees fit, the iniquity that exceeds. He is long-suffering, but He gave thus early a lesson to the ungodly which they can only forget or deny at their peril. "Behold, He breaks down, and it cannot be built again; He shuts upon a man, and there can be no opening. Behold, He withholds the waters, and they dry up; also He sends them out, and they overturn the earth." No doubt there were the deceived and the deceivers then, as at other times, who had to learn, whatever their pride or indifference, that they were His Who stood by His warnings and dealt publicly with all that despised Him and them. With Him is strength and wisdom, whereof destruction and death say, We have heard its fame with our ears, if it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the bird of the heavens. For man, behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding!

God has let us know the process of the deluge, as well as the destruction outside and the deliverance for all within the ark. In vain does the writer of the "Genesis of the Earth" seek to transfer the catastrophe to the low lands of the Euphrates and the Tigris, where an inundation of fifteen cubits would little affect the earth in general or its denizens. This is to overlook or disbelieve "the mountains of Ararat" (Gen. 8:4), where the ark rested when the waters were abating. Its chief peak, being 17,000 feet above the sea, may give some notion of the appalling fact. For forty days was the flood i.e., the extraordinary outburst from beneath and from above (vers. 11, 12), which bore up the enormous structure of the ark upon the face of the waters; and the waters so prevailed that "all the high hills that were under all the heavens were covered." This seems naturally to go beyond Ararat; yet if even its highest peak were far beneath the water, what then for the earth? "Fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail; and the mountains were covered."

As the apostle Peter comments, "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished"; so here the narrative has every mark of truth without exaggeration or the least approach to imaginative colouring. The universal death which suddenly befell every living creature of the land or the air, is vividly set before the reader; no less than the security of Noah alone and those with him in the ark. It is childish and sinful to cavil at the destruction of the lower creation, which had already been subjected to vanity through the fall of its head. 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 in God's word that all its groaning awaits the triumph of the Second man when the manifestation of the sons of God takes place! For as surely as through Adam's transgression it was plunged into sighs, and travails in pain together until now, so surely will the Last Adam appear, when it also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Christ, besides being Firstborn from the dead, the Head of the church, is also First-born of all creation, its Chief, and Heir of all things. And He died to reconcile, not all believers only, but all things unto Himself, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens. As the word of God is pledged, so His return will vindicate the word and display the reconciliation in power.

1895 225 Thus was the ante-diluvian world purged of its abounding and flagrant evils by divine judgment: the standing witness and warning of another judgment which impends over the habitable earth. There were two witnesses then, first Enoch, then Noah, each with his own characteristic points of difference, both concurring to announce judgment about to fall on the ungodly while living here below. So it will be in the day when the Son of man is revealed (Luke 17:30).

God never destroys without warning. Accordingly a hundred and twenty years' notice was given of the approaching desolation. During this period men were favoured with the ministrations of "Noah, a preacher of righteousness," the result in that scornful age being nil, none being saved but Noah and his house. The ark was constructed in obedience to the word of God, and according to divine specifications. In it were preserved two of every living species, but seven of those clean beasts and birds that would afterwards be required for sacrifice and food. Seven days after the hand of God shut the door of the ark, the stroke fell, the rain continuing for forty days and forty nights without cessation. The visitation was universal: "all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered" (Gen. 7:19). This world-wide ruin is twice referred to in the ancient book of Job (Job 12:15; Job 22:16), besides being solemnly vouched for by the Son of God in the course of His oral ministry, and by the Spirit of God in the epistles of Peter and to the Hebrews. It is sheer fool-hardiness to doubt the fact.

Had it been possible to see the globe after the forty days and forty nights, one huge ball of water would have been descried with one ark floating on a sea without shore. The whole earth was drowned.

He announced long ago a flood upon the world of the ungodly. Did it come? At the end of one hundred and twenty years it did. He was not speaking figuratively and poetically. He did not mean the gradual loosening of a flood of new ideas in the world of men. A literal, actual flood swept the habitable earth, bringing destruction in its train. Traces of that flood, and more or less distinct reminiscences of it, are found in many quarters to this day.

He announced long ago a flood upon the world of the ungodly. Did it come? At the end of one hundred and twenty years it did. He was not speaking figuratively and poetically. He did not mean the gradual loosening of a flood of new ideas in the world of men. A literal, actual flood swept the habitable earth, bringing destruction in its train. Traces of that flood, and more or less distinct reminiscences of it, are found in many quarters to this day.

"And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is full of violence through them; and behold I will destroy them with (or from) the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood: rooms (nests) shalt thou make in the ark, and pitch it within and without with pitch. And thus shalt thou make it: three hundred cubits the length of the ark, fifty cubits its breadth, and thirty cubits its height. A transparency (or, light) shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit thou shalt finish it above; and the ark's door thou shalt set in its side: [with] lower, second, and third storeys shalt thou make it. And I, behold I, bring the flood of waters on the earth to destroy all flesh wherein [is] the breath of life: all that [is] in the earth shall expire" (vers. 13-17).

The deluge was not an event according to secret ways in providence, as we may see in the history of Esther, the importance of which is great in itself and profitable for our learning. It was an inflicted judgment which prophecy made known. And it had a character of universality which separated it from other interventions of God, however real and instructive, and made it suitable to compare with the days of the Son of man when every eye shall see Him as well as with the narrower but awful doom of Sodom and the other cities of the plain when it rained fire and sulphur from heaven: "So shall it be when the Son of man is revealed." Hence, as Enoch had already prophesied in that vast sweep which, as given by Jude, embraces the ultimate with the beginning of the series, Noah is made the depositary of the definite accomplishment of what was at hand. The God Who predicts as He pleases, directly or indirectly, is the judge of the suitable occasion; and faith accepts it at whatever time He speaks; but all have not faith. For the believer it is enough for Him to say, Who does these things known from eternity. But He makes known also to His servants, as here to Noah, we have seen, expressly a hundred and twenty years before the place of longsuffering testimony closed: a fact early in the Bible and in God's revealed dealings, as irreconcilable with the, fundamental principle of sceptical criticism (a very moderate leap forward out of actual history), as with the fallacy of professed believers (prophecy only of value when fulfilled). That there should be this early prediction, with so considerable an interval as one hundred and twenty years, is plain in the one case; as in the other the folly of conceiving the profit to be only when the flood came and took them all away.

For by the word of God there was, before the flood, a similar creatorial order to that of today. The heavens were in their place, the earth was partially covered by water, with much of it also standing out of the water for the benefit of man's existence. But these waters overflowed the world that then was. Not only were the windows of heaven opened, but "the fountains of the great deep were broken up" (Gen. 7:11), which may infer a tremendous tidal wave that engulfed even the highest mountains; and possibly also great volcanic action. But the whole world perished In the flood, only Noah and his family being preserved in the ark. This is history, well authenticated, not only in the accurate record of Scripture, but in the records of many nations.