Bible Commentaries

The Story of the Flood

Genesis 7:8

It has been remarked that though the narrative [of the Flood] is vivid and forcible, it is entirely wanting in that sort of description which in a modern historian or poet would have occupied the largest space. "We see nothing of the death-struggle; we hear not the cry of despair; we are not called upon to witness the frantic agony of husband and wife, and parent and child, as they fled in terror before the rising waters. Nor is a word said of the sadness of the one righteous man who, safe himself, looked upon the destruction which he could not avert." The Chaldean tradition, which is the most closely allied to the Biblical account, is not so reticent. Tears are shed in heaven over the catastrophe, and even consternation affected its inhabitants, while within the ark itself the Chaldean Noah says: "When the storm came to an end and the terrible water-spout ceased, I opened the window and the light smote upon my face. I looked at the sea attentively observing, and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like seaweed the corpses floated. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and wept and my tears fell upon my face."

—Marcus Dods.

References.—VII:1.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Bible Object Lessons, p1. M. Badger, American Pulpit, p96. J. Keble, Sermons for Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p171. Sermons for the Christian Year, vol. iii. p171. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p118. VII:1-7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii. No1336. VII:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. liii. No3042. VII:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No1613.