Discovery BoxGenesis 7:11-17 
Context7:11 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. 7:12 And the rain fell 3 on the earth forty days and forty nights.
7:13 On that very day Noah entered the ark, accompanied by his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, along with his wife and his sons’ three wives. 4 7:14 They entered, 5 along with every living creature after its kind, every animal after its kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, everything with wings. 6 7:15 Pairs 7 of all creatures 8 that have the breath of life came into the ark to Noah. 7:16 Those that entered were male and female, 9 just as God commanded him. Then the Lord shut him in.
7:17 The flood engulfed the earth for forty days. As the waters increased, they lifted the ark and raised it above the earth.
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 “was.”
4 tn Heb “On that very day Noah entered, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and the wife of Noah, and the three wives of his sons with him into the ark.”
5 tn The verb “entered” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “every bird, every wing.”
7 tn Heb “two two” meaning “in twos.”
8 tn Heb “flesh.”
9 tn Heb “Those that went in, male and female from all flesh they went in.”
