Genesis 7:11

7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month – on that day all the fountains of the great deep ¹  burst open and the floodgates of the heavens ²  were opened.

Genesis 7:23

7:23 So the Lord ³  destroyed ⁴  every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. ⁵  They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived. ⁶ 

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¹ tn The Hebrew term תְּהוֹם (tÿhom, “deep”) refers to the watery deep, the salty ocean – especially the primeval ocean that surrounds and underlies the earth (see Gen 1:2).

sn The watery deep. The same Hebrew term used to describe the watery deep in Gen 1:2 (תְּהוֹם, tihom) appears here. The text seems to picture here subterranean waters coming from under the earth and contributing to the rapid rise of water. The significance seems to be, among other things, that in this judgment God was returning the world to its earlier condition of being enveloped with water – a judgment involving the reversal of creation. On Gen 7:11 see G. F. Hasel, “The Fountains of the Great Deep,” Origins 1 (1974): 67-72; idem, “The Biblical View of the Extent of the Flood,” Origins 2 (1975): 77-95.

² sn On the prescientific view of the sky reflected here, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World (AnBib), 46.

³ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “wiped away” (cf. NRSV “blotted out”).

⁵ tn Heb “from man to animal to creeping thing and to the bird of the sky.”

⁶ tn The Hebrew verb שָׁאָר (sha’ar) means “to be left over; to survive” in the Niphal verb stem. It is the word used in later biblical texts for the remnant that escapes judgment. See G. F. Hasel, “Semantic Values of Derivatives of the Hebrew Root só’r,” AUSS 11 (1973): 152-69.