The Waters Prevailed (Part 2)

Genesis 7:11-24
2009-11-15
one28 Sunday worship

Last time we considered:

The Flood Erupts (7:11-16)

In the 600th year of Noah’s life, from fountains of the great deep below and from heavenly windows, Noah and his family are spared.

The Flood Prevails (7:17-24)

The emphasis of this paragraph is not on those delivered, but those destroyed. The focus moves from inside the ark to outside, some were shut in and others shut out. It highlights not the dating and the sources of the flood, but the duration and depth of it.

The Depth of the Flood (17-20)

Four times in this paragraph, and three times in verses 17-20 alone, the word prevailed occurs. The water wins; it triumphs mightily over everyone and everything not in the ark.

The waters were at least 15 cubits (or 22.5 feet) over the tallest mountain peak. Using Mt. Ararat as our base (since it is the mountain mentioned in chapter 8), at roughly 16,900 feet tall, that means the water was over three miles higher than normal sea level. If Mt. Everest, at 29,000 feet tall, were in existence, then the water would have been well over five miles deep. Using the Ararat figures, if the waters rose over the course of 150 days, the water level increased 112 ft/day. If it only rose for the 40 days of rainfall, then the water level rose 420 feet or day, or 3.5 inches per minute.

Those Destroyed by the Flood (21-23)

Perhaps there were a few hours when men and women ran for higher ground. In most places, however, titanic waves probably crushed thousands of lives within minutes. All flesh…on the earth, everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life, every living thing on the face of the ground, were blotted out, just as the LORD determined.

It’s impossible to imagine this kind of cataclysmic event. No other “act of God” in history comes close. Without seeing it for ourselves, we might as well try to picture the eighth dimension (as well as the fourth through seventh dimensions, too). The havoc, the panic, the terror, the death, is incomparable. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of small floods, with buildings and cities demolished. Families separated. Generations lost. Those floods aren’t in the same league with Noah’s flood.

This week, before we finish our study of the paragraph and chapter seven, I do want to take time to address a very popular, and very wrong, view of the flood. As with the creation account, many evangelicals (professing Christians) compromise when it comes to the flood. They submit to the guesses of unbelieving geologists who deny a global flood and propose that Genesis 7 is the story of a mere local flood, perhaps caused by an overflow of the Euphrates or some other Middle Eastern river.

There are a few reasons why I think this wrong view is worth addressing.

First, as I said, it is a popular view. I may have thrown my ESV Study Bible out the window of my study at home, if my study at home actually had a window. The ESV Study Bible is a serious culprit of this misinterpretation:

Although God intends the flood to destroy every person and his remarks have a strong universal emphasis, this in itself does not necessarily mean that the flood had to cover the whole earth. Since the geographical perspective of ancient people was more limited than that of contemporary readers, it is possible that the flood, while universal from their view point, did not cover the entire globe….Many interpreters, therefore, argue that a huge regional flood may have been all that was necessary for God to destroy all human beings. The expression “all the earth” does not exclude such a possibility. (62)

There are many redeeming elements to the ESVSB, but this is a FAIL, a blue screen of death, an epic error. In this note they basically claim that ancient peoples are dumb, their “geographical perspective…was more limited.” Who says? Maybe that’s true, but just because they didn’t have satellite coverage and Google Earth doesn’t mean they were ignoramuses.

Another reason to address the wrong view of a local flood is because of authority. The best I can tell, the only reason anyone questions whether the flood was global is because somewhere, some scientist, motivated by a compelling need to debunk Scripture, suggested that maybe the flood could have been local. After persistent questioning, and after “science” deemed itself credible, men began to see science as a greater authority than the Bible. If something seems to go against the biblical account, the first response is to question Scripture, not science. It makes science the authority.

We’re in great danger when we listen to anyone or anything over the Bible. We abandon sola Scriptura to our peril. Scripture alone is the ultimate authority. Believing in sola Scriptura doesn’t require that we ignore every other source, but it does mean every other source takes its place under Scripture.

The local flood model is a popular view, it’s a view that neuters Scripture’s authority, and it’s a view that impoverishes meaning. It’s lazy reading, or rebellious reading, at least bad reading, or maybe no reading at all. How could a person possibly read the account as Moses writes it and walk away with any other conclusion?

I was always amazed when I taught Bible classes, or when I’ve lead small group discussions, that having turned to a passage, and asking questions about the passage, how many people do not look at the Book! It’s an open book quiz! The answers are right in front of you! It’s not a trick question! It’s not a scavenger hunt. Just read the Book!

There are evidences for a global flood outside of Genesis 6-9. Henry Morris lists 100 reasons in his commentary on Genesis. Scientific data, such as the existence of fossils, defy explanation without a cataclysmic event such as the flood. The New Testament–divinely inspired and inerrant–speaks of entire world destruction (cf 2 Peter 3:5-7). But really, everything we need is in the story itself.

For my part, I want to love the Bible loudly. I want to shake the biblical branches until all the fruit falls into my basket. I want to point people to their copy of God’s story, and I want to be faithful to pass that message on without messing it up. You might not know every apologetic, scientific argument, but if you can read the passage well, you can give all the answers you need.

Here are a flood of reasons for world-wide water, or, a biblical barrage that bursts the local flood bubble, or, gushing water going global, or, pulling the plug on a local flood model.

1. Nonfiction Classification

If you went to your local library to borrow a copy of this story, you’d find it in a certain section on specific shelves, not in the children’s area or the fiction department.

The bulk of the book of Genesis is in the narrative genre. Remember, “Narratives are stories, purposeful stores retelling the historical events of the past, that are intended for a given people in the present” (Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 90). Moses is telling a story, but it is a nonfiction story, an historical record of actual events at specific times in particular places with real characters.

The flood is extraordinary and dramatic, as is the creation account. But God is amazing, so Him doing miraculous and supernatural things doesn’t make them unbelievable. The story is not make-believe. Nothing in the narrative suggests that it’s a fanciful or figurative fairy-tale. An unprejudiced reading of the story itself elbows us with reality.

2. Proportional Punishment

The reason God determined to flood the earth in the first place was because “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth” (6:5). “And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth” (6:6), “so the LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land’” (6:7). The size of the flood was in proportion to the extent of sinful flesh. The wickedness of men wasn’t limited to a certain locale; it was everywhere. In order for the judgment to match, to correspond, the flood must have been global.

3. Exhaustive Eradication

Each and every living thing was “blotted out,” that is, it was eradicated, completely destroyed. The death was exhaustive: every living thing that I have made I will blog out from the face of the ground (7:4), all flesh died that moved on the earth (7:21), everything on the dry land in shoes nostrils was the breath of life died (7:22), He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground (7:23). “All” or “every” or “everything” is used three times in verse 21, twice in verse 22, and again in verse 23. The comprehensive obliteration involves a globe-covering flood.

4. Unique Vocabulary

The Hebrew term for “flood” used in Genesis 6-9 is mabbul, found only in this story and in Psalm 29:10. There are other Hebrew words for local or regional floods. I realize this observation requires more than an English copy of God’s Word, but it’s still an evidence from the Genesis story itself.

5. Earth Echoes

The flood continued forty days on the earth (7:17), The ark…rose high above the earth (7:17). The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth (7:18). The waters prevailed so mightily on the earth (7:19). All flesh died that moved on the earth (7:21).

It is possible that “earth” could be translated as “land,” but when contrasted with heaven (heaven and earth), earth refers to the planet in contrast to the space above the planet. When God created the “earth” in Genesis one, “earth” included a planet’s worth of dirt.

6. Missing Migration

Arguments from silence are not as powerful, but this silence thunders.

Building and stocking the ark would have been “an absurd waste of time and money if the Flood were only a local flood. Migration would have been a far better solution to the problem, for Noah as well as the birds and beasts” (Morris, 200). Especially, we’d think, the birds would have been able to escape, even if they needed to travel a far distance.

In fact, the fact that birds could find nowhere to alight (8:6-9) is probably it’s own argument.

7. Winning Waters

As we read the story, the building intensity of increasing and prevailing waters is unmistakable. The waters prevailed (v.18), they “prevailed mightily,” or “exceedingly exceedingly,” a Hebrew superlative (v. 19). A three-mile deep flood cannot be contained in a region.

8. Under Cover

Not much more of an explicit statement could be made than this:

And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. (7:19)

The waters covered “all the high mountains under the whole heaven.” So there is a geospatial limitation of the flood; the flood is limited to whatever area of earth the heavens cover.

9. Broken Promises

If all that occurred in chapter 7 was a large regional flood, and if that’s what God promises never to do again, then hasn’t God broken His promise?

[T]he Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.” (8:21)

I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. (9:11)

[T]he waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. (9:15)

Though we haven’t studied chapters eight or nine yet, God’s covenant with Noah (and with all the earth) is the final part of the flood story.

We asked this question when we talked about the days of creation and theistic evolution, but really, how much more plain could Moses have been? What else could Moses have written to make it clearer that the flood covered the face of the entire globe?

The Summary of Prevailing (v. 24)

And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

Conclusion

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-39)

Many are frittering away the final minutes of God’s patience with them. Only those who were in the ark were spared when God judged the world with the flood. Only those who are in Christ will be spared when God judges the world when the Son of Man comes. As trustworthy as God’s Word was in Noah’s day, it is as trustworthy today.