Notes on Genesis | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 7, 1867

Notes on Genesis.

CHAPTER vi, verse 4. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

“Violent men of extraordinary stature and strength.” Dutch Ann., Heidegger, Dodd, Rosenm., Calmet, Assemb. Ann., Ainsworth, Patrick, Robertson, Bush, Brown, Orton. “The Greek and Latin historians and poets, and particularly Pliny, relate that there were giants in the first ages of the world; and record that, on opening sepulchers, bodies of men have been found of larger than modern size.”—Gleig.

Verse 14. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

Gopher-wood.] “Cypress. So Calmet, Bochart, and Fuller, because of the similarity of names in the Heb. and Gr., the durability of the cypress, which was very fit for ship-building, and so used, and its abundance in Assyria where Noah built the ark. [So Heidegger.] Avenarius, Münster, Taylor, &c. think it was the pine, its relative gophrith signifying sulphur, brimstone, &c., and no wood produces so much of these as the pine. After all, gopher may be a general name for resinous trees. [So Vossius.]” Calmet, by Robinson.

Verse 15. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

Ark.] “After the nicest examination and computation, and taking the dimensions with the greatest geometrical exactness, the most learned and accurate calculators, and persons most conversant with the building of ships, conclude, that if the ablest mathematicians had been consulted about proportioning the several apartments in the ark, they could not have done it with greater correctness than Moses has done:” thus this narrative confirms the authority of Scripture, since this accuracy of proportion, in Noah’s time, can be attributed only to inspiration.” Wilkins, Saurin.

“The proportion of the ark is that of the size of a rightly framed man.” Assemb. Ann. “If we reckon the cubit at 21 inches, the ark was 512 feet long, 87 wide, and 52 high; and the internal capacity, 357,600 cubical cubits. If the cubit was 18 inches, the length was 450 feet, width 75, and height 45. The height might be divided into four stories, allowing 3½ cubits to the first, 7 to the second; 8 to the third, and 5½ to the fourth; and allotting 5 cubits for the thickness of the top and bottom, and the floors. The first story, (not reckoned a story by Moses) might be the bottom, or hold, and contain fresh water; the second, a magazine; the third might contain the beasts; and the fourth the fowls.” Calmet. “As to the number of beasts, it is not necessary to suppose that each species now known was represented, for naturalists are generally of opinion that their number has greatly increased, from the influence of climate, food, intermixture of races, &c. Dr. A. Clarke suggests that the genera of animals only was meant; if so, the land animals necessary to be preserved in the ark will number 43 genera of the mammals, (543 species,) 74 genera of birds, (2372 species,) 10 genera of amphibia, 316 land species. [Or, according to Cuvier, about 70 genera of land beasts, (including 5 fossil genera,) and 109 of birds.] Calmet calculates that all the four-footed beasts, including 3650 sheep (if necessary for the food of the carnivorous animals,) would scarcely occupy more room than 120 oxen, 3730 sheep and 80 wolves; and that all the beasts might easily have been lodged in 36 stables, and all the birds in as many lofts, allowing each apartment to be 52½ feet in length, 29 in width, and 13½ in height. The hold might contain 31,174 bushels of water: there was ample room for a much greater number than entered the ark—and for chambers &c. for the family of Noah. ‘This,’ says Boothroyd, ‘Bp. Wilkins has proved, and that a first rate man of war would be capacious enough for the purpose.’ ‘Despite,’ says Rosenmuller, ‘as to the dimensions of the ark are vain, because measures vary so much with time.’”—Jenks.

“No fact that ever occurred in the world is so well attested as the deluge, both by natural and civil history.”—T. H. Horne.

“Heathen writers traditionally describe Noah under the various names of Xisuthrus, Saturn, [Annacus,] Prometheus, Deucalion, Ogyges, Liber or Bacchus, and Janus, &c. In the East the true name of Noah was better preserved; he was there called Noas, Naus, and sometimes contractedly Nous. Throughout the whole kindred family of languages, from India to us, the syllable Na or Nach is one of the fundamental sounds by which water and many ideas connected with it are designated, as navigate, &c. &c.” Calmet, by Rob. and Bryant’s Mythology.

“Of these traditions, that exhibited by Lucian is most correspondent to Moses.”—Jenks.

“The most ancient writers, as Berosus the Chaldean, Abydenus the Syrian, Molo, Jerome the Egyptian, Manæus, and Nicholaus of Damascus, as also Polybius, Lucian and Apollodorus have told of the ark, and the mountains on which it rested. Joseph Acosta and Antony Herrera relate, that traditions of the flood exist among the Cubans, Mexicans, and Nicaraguas. Augustine Corata and Lopez Gomera relate the same of the Peruvians and Mexicans. Martin Martinius states that the Chinese have the same story.” [“And the Brahmins also.” Gill.] Heidegger.

CHAPTER vii, verse 2. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

It is probable, that the clean beasts signify such as were not rapacious, and which were exclusively offered in sacrifice by the express appointment of God. The grant of animal food seems not to have been explicitly made before the flood; the distinction of meats could not therefore have been appointed.

Verse 7. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

Sons’ wives.]—Though each of Noah’s sons was at this time nearly a hundred years old, and none had children living; and the whole earth was to be desolated: yet no exception, even on this extraordinary occasion, was made to the original constitution of marriage, ‘they twain shall be one flesh;’ a decisive proof that polygamy is contrary to the original institution of marriage, and not at all needful for the increase of the human species, or even conducive to it. Malte-Brun observes, ‘it diminishes population, and deteriorates the human race.’”—Scott*.

Verse 11. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

“Every attempt to explain the manner, in which the earth was overflowed, too much resembled the presumption of those who inquired, ‘How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?’ It is no more incredible that God should drown the world, than that he should raise the dead: and, by his almighty power, he caused ‘the waters from above the firmament, and the waters under the firmament,’ which he had before separated, to meet together for that purpose. The patriarchal year began in September.”—Scott.

Verse 19. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

“The highest eminence of the earth, every mountain of every region under heaven, where search has been made, all conspire in one uniform, universal proof, that they all had the sea spread over their summits; being found to contain shells, skeletons of fish, and sea-monsters of every kind.”—Greenfield.

“It must be recollected, that the highest mountain—of near 27,000 feet—is but as 5 to 8,000, compared with the diameter of the earth; that is, on a globe of 12 feet in diameter, the highest mountain would rise above the surface but a few lines.”—Jenks.

“Mr. Woodward supposes that the whole earth being dissolved in the waters, a new earth was formed, by different layers deposited according to their gravities. So that plants, and animals, particularly shell-fish, not being dissolved, were enclosed in minerals and became fossils; thus accounting for the shells found remote from the sea, and teeth, bones, petrified fishes, &c. found on the tops of mountains. See Robinson’s Calmet. Besides geological evidences, traditions and coins have preserved the memory of the deluge over the whole earth.”—Jenks.