The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 197

nt that time overspread tho earth, but was confined to a limited region contiguous to the vnlley of the Euphrates. That this last conjecture is not of recent origin but was early entertained by theologians, is proved by tho facts that Aben Ezra 111con- futeth ,~he ~pinion of som~ who in h_is days hold the Deluge not to have been uni- ve~al (" 11let); that Bishop Patnck notes (ch. vii. 19) that II there were those anciently, and they have their successors now, who imagined the Flood was not nniversal,-aAA' lv fj oi ,..;,.f civ91"",ro, ,jlrovv,-but only there where men then dwelt·" that Matt. Poole writes, "Peradventure this Flood might not be universal over the ~·hole ea~h, but only over al~ the habita~le world, where either men or beasts lived, wlnch wns 11B much as either the meritorious cause of the Flood 1 men's sins or the end of it, the destruction of all men and beasts, required" (Syno psis eh. vii: 19) ; and that Bishop Stillingfleet in his 'Origincs Saerai' remarks "I ca~not see nny necessity, from the Scriptures, to assert that the Flood did sp~ead itself over all the surface of the earth. That all mankind (those in the ark excepted) were destroyed by it is most certain, according to the Scriptures; but from thence follows no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the earth was peopled before the Flood w~ic_h I ?es_pair of ever seeing proved" (vide 'Quarry on Genesis,' p. 184). Thi~ opm10n, 1t 1s almost needless to observe, has been adopted by the majority of modem scholars. 4. That subsequent Scriptural references to this primeval catas- trophe are at least not decidedly at variance with the notion of a limited Deluge. Gen. ix. 15 places emphasis on the fact that the waters will no more become a flood to destroy all .flesh, i. e. all mankind. Isa. !iv. 9, pointing back to Gen. ix. 15, says that as God swore in the days of Noah that the earth would be no more inun- dated as to carry off the entire population, so did he swear then that he would not rebuke Israel. The language does not, as Wordsworth thinks, imply the universality of the Deluge. 2 Pet. ii. 5; iii. 6 refers to the destruction of the apxafoc rcirrµoc, i. e. the world of men, the ,ccirrµoc ltrr,{3wv specially mentioned in the former of these passages. So far then as Scripture is concerned we are not shut up to the necessity of regarding the Deluge as universal. II. ScIENTIFIC DIFFICULTIES. 1. .Astronomical. It is urged that, as there is no sufficient evidence of any general subsidence of the earth's crust, the theory proposed by some harmonists, that the land and water virtually exchanged places (this was supposed to be borne out by the existence of shells and corals at the top of high mountains), having now been completely abandoned (that the outlines of the great continental seas have been substantially the same from the beginning-11ide eh. i. ver. 9, Expos.), the entire surface of the globe could be covered only by a large increase of water being added to the earth's mass. Kalisch supposes eight times the aggregate of water contained in all the seas and oceans of the earth ; that this must ha,e produced such a shock to the solar system as to have caused a very considerable aberration in the earth's orbit, of which, however, no trace can be detected ; and that, consequently, it is unphilosophical to imagine that such a disturb- ance of the entire stellar world as would necessarily follow on that event would be resorted to in order to destroy a race of sinful beings in one of the smallest planets of the system. But-(1) Biblical science, which recognises an incarnation of the Word of God in order to save man, will always hesitate to pronounce anything too great for the Ahnighty to permit or do in connection with man. (2) It is gratuitous to infer that because a general subsidence of the earth's crust cannot now be traced, there was none. .Absence of evidence that a thing was is not equivalent to presence of proof that a thing was not. Witness the third day's vegetation and antedi- luvian civilisation. (3) If even the earth's surface were covered with water, it is doubtful if it would be much more in effect than the breaking out of a profuse sweat upon the human body, or the filling up with water of the indentures on the' rough skin of an orange, in which case it is more than probable that the apprehended disturbance of the solar system would prove in great part imaginary. 2. Geo- logi,cal. At one time believed to afford incontestable evidence of a universal deluge in the drift formations, the diluvium of the earlier geologists ( of late, with better reason, ascribed to the influence of a glacial period which prevailed over the greater part of Central and Northern Europe in prehistoric times), geolr,gica) OH. Vil, 11-24. J 'tHE BOOK OF GENESlS. 121