Genesis 7:17 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 7:17

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The ark was lift up above the earth, high above the mountains and the hills, it could not founder. Verses 18 and 19 use a strange word – ‘The waters prevailed.’ It has a military ring about it. The waters did not simply flood the earth, they prevailed, because this is also a type of judgment; it is like a great military campaign. The whole population of the world was against God, against his interference, and against accountability to him. So the judgment is seen in terms of a battle. It's the human race versus God, ‘And the waters prevailed.’ They were no match for God's power and God's judgment. So it's a very well-chosen word in the context. They were greatly increased upon the earth, ‘and the ark went up upon the face of the waters.’ They kept their conquering stance upon the earth 150 days. The final day of judgment will be like a battle, as God metes out judgment upon those who have rejected him. ‘And all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.’ And the details are given in verse after verse. ‘And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.’ The rains continued without ceasing forty days and forty nights, but once the flood waters had come, the earth remained in this flooded state for ‘an hundred and fifty days.’It is described as a universal flood. The waters covered all the high mountains of the earth by a depth of at least fifteen cubits – perhaps equal to the draught of the ark. The only way that this could not be understood as a universal flood is by attributing limited knowledge to the writer, as if he could only describe the limited part of the world he knew about, and there were other parts of the world of which he was ignorant, where the waters did not go over the mountains. The terms are very clear – ‘all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.’ But the author of Scripture is not man with limited knowledge, but God who knows all things and who knows what the highest mountains under the whole heaven, and tells us they were covered. And besides this, according to Genesis the only living witness to the flood was Noah who was shut up in the ark and not in a position to monitor the state of the whole world; he was reliant on God to know the extent of the flood.Again, the same categories of creature are named which had been created in the first place (Genesis 1:20, 24, 26), so that it is abundantly clear that only those on the ark were preserved. The earth now resembled its state at the beginning of the third day of creation before the dry land appeared.

Application

How overwhelmingly terrifying this must have been for those outside the ark, and how awesome for Noah and his family within the ark! Man was faced with a threat he was powerless to stave off. Originally, God created the earth as a safe habitation for mankind, and provided every good thing that he needed for life and happiness. When man fell and sin came into the world, the world was profoundly changed in ways which we do not fully understand, but which included the introduction of the principle of suffering, and decay, and death. God introduced miseries into our world which were not there at the beginning. Nevertheless life continued and man learnt to live under these conditions. He now had ample tokens of God’s anger towards him, and yet the Lord did not altogether take away the possibility of children being born and new generations growing up and spreading across the globe. And so he again trusted in the fabric of the world and its structures: the sun, the moon, the seas, the dry land, and the clouds and rain. These things were given to him, and were far beyond his ability to provide for himself. Even so, unbelieving man received them, as always, not as gifts from God as they are in truth, but as brute facts of nature. But this did not alter his sense of dependence on them. He adjusted his outlook to receive these things as necessary for life, but he still refused to give thanks and to acknowledge his Creator. But now the earth was turning against him. What could he do to defend himself? What could he do to ward off this judgment? Nothing! He was taught how powerless he is. All cries to God remained unanswered. Now it was too late to pray to God, for the day of repentance was past, and God would not now reverse the destruction of the earth which had been threatened so long. Let men and women consider the final judgment which Scripture makes equally clear; let them consider it before it comes and not harden their hearts against the Lord. ‘Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him’ (Psalm 2:12).

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Genesis 7:17 Commentary and Bible Study