The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 201

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER VIII. ~,:;i~)l., from ,;~ =.,~~. to surround, to eucloso; literally, ,oere shut up; l1r ..:aXli!b• Ver. 1.-And God. El-Ohim, i. e. God in 9ri~av (LXX. ), Their opening WIIB described 'bis most univerea.l relation to his creatures. in eh. vii. 11. And the rain from hea.ven The supposition of two different accounts or histories being intenning_led in the narrative wa.1 re■tra.ined. N?.~~l., liternlly, was shut of the Flood (Bleek, Eichhorn, Hupfcld, up, from N~f• to close. Cf. rcXEiw, rtw'>+..b,d, Kalisch, Alford, Colenso) is not required for rc0Xolio1, celo, occulo (Geseuius, Fiirst), ~vvf• a sufficient explanation of the varying use ~x.i9ri (LXX.). At the end of the forty of the Dinne names. Remembered. From days (eh. vii. 12; Augustine, Willet); at a root signifying to prick, pierce, or print, the end of the 150 days {Aben Ezra, e. g., upon the memory; hence to remember. Murphy). "Not that there is oblivion or forgetfulness Ver. 3.-And the waters returned from with God, but then God is said to remember oft' the earth oontinua.lly. Literally, going when he showeth by the effects that he hath and returning. "Moro and more" (Gese-. taken ea.re of man" (Willet). He remembers nius). The first verb expresses the con- man's sins when he punishes them (Ps. xxv. tinnance and self-increasing state of the 7 ; cf. 1 Kings ::i::ni. 20), and his people's action involved in the second ; cf. eh. needs ..,-hen he supplies them (et: Neh. v. 19). xxvi 13 ; 1 Sam. vi. 12; 2 Kings ii. ll The expression is an anthropopathism de- (Fii.rst). Grauually (Murphy, Ewald). The si~ed to indicate the Dinne compassion as expression "denotes the turning-point after ,vcll as grace. Calvin thinks the remem- the waters had become calm" (T. Lewis). brance of which Moses speaks " ought to May it not be an attempt to represent the be referred not only to the external aspect undulatory motion of the waves in an ebbing of things (i. e. the coming deliverance), but tide, in which the water seems first to also to the inward feeling of the holy man," advance, but only to retire with· greater who, through grace, was privileged to enjoy vehemence, reversing the movement of a " some sensible experience of the Divine flowincr tide, in which it first retires and presence" while immured in the ark. Noah, then ~vances-in the one case retu;ning -d. the Divine remembrance of Abraham to go in the other going to return 1 The nnd Lot (eh. rix. 29), the request of the LXX.', as usual, indicates the visible effect Hebrew psalmist (Ps. cxxxii. 1)-and every rather than the actual phenomenon: rcai living thing,-chayyah, or wild beast (vide EVEOioov TO iiowp ,ropd,opEVOV a,ro Tij~ rii'"- rh. i. 25; vii. 14)-and all the cattle that And after the end of the hundred and fifty was with him in the ark. A touching days the waters were abated. Literally, indication of the tendemP-ss of God towards 1oere cut off, hence diminished ; imminu- his creatures (et: Dent. xxv. 4; Ps. x:xxvi. tre sunt (V~lgate) ; ,iXaTTovoiiro To ii8wp 6; cxlv. 9, 15, 16; Jonah iv. 11). As a (LXX. ). The first stage was the quieting proof that God remembered the lonely in- of the waters ; the second was the com- mates of the ark, he at once takes steps to mencement of an ebbing 01· backward accomplish their deliverance, which steps motion ; the third was a perceptible dimi- are next enumerated. And God made a nution of the waters. wind - ruach. Not the Holy Ghost, as Ver. 4. -And the ark rested. Not stopped in eh. i. 2 (Theodoret, Ambrose, LXX.- sailing or floatin"', got bei:aJ~ed: and re; ,rv,iiµa) nor the heat of the sun (Rupertus); mained suspended over (Kitto s Cyclop., bnt a cu'rrent of air (civ,,w,), which "would art. Ararat) but actually grollllded and promote evaporation and aid the retreat of settled on (Tayler Lewis) the place in-. the waters" (lilurpby) :-the ordinary method of driving away rain and drying the ground dicated by ~l,I (cf. ver. 9; also Exod. x. 14; (vide Prov. :xxv. 23); the special instrument-· Numb. x. 36; xi. 25, 26; Isa. xi. 2). In ality employed to divide the watel'B of the the seventh month, 011 the seventeenth day. Red See. (Exod. xiv. 21)-to pa11 over the of the month. /. e. exactly 150 days from\ ea.rth and the waters a11uaged, or began the commencement of the forty days' min, to gr/no calm, after e. ~riod of commoti~n reckoning thirty days to n mouth, which (c( Esther ii 1 ; vii. 10)-the first stage 111 seems to confirm the opinion expressed (eh. the returning of the waters. ~ai iKo,raa, vii. 24) that the forty days were includetl .-i, vlwp, and the water grew tned (LXX. ). in the 150. Supposing the Flood to have Cf. i,d,,raa,v o civ,po~, Matt. xiv. 32; Mark begun in Jlfarchesvan, the eecon~ 1;nonth iv. 39; vi 51. of the civil year (about the begrnnrng of Ver. 2.-The fountains also of the deep, November), "we have then the 1·emorknb]o and tile window, of heaven were ■topped. coincidences that on the 17th day of Ab1b CH. Vlll. 1-B.] THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 126