p. 268 | Notes on Genesis

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1867

Notes on Genesis.

CHAPTER viii. verse 1. And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.

A wind. “The effects of these evaporating winds, frequent in the East, are truly astonishing. A friend of mine, who had been bathing in the Tigris, having on a pair of Turkish drawers, one of these hot winds, called samiel, passing over just as he had got out of the water, so effectually dried him in a moment, that no moisture was left either on his body or in his bathing dress. With such an electrified wind as this, how soon might God dry the whole of the earth’s surface!”—Dr. A. Clarke.

Verse 4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

Ararat. “So Armenia was called, says Theodorus. The Greek translates Isa. xxxviii, 38, Armenia; the original Hebrew is Ararat, which is rendered Armenia in our common version, while at Jer. ii, 27, it retains Ararat. The Vulgate has here the mountains of Armenia; upon which, says Bochart, the most ancient heathen writers agree that the ark rested. [So do Jerome, the Chald. Par. and Arab. version.] Berosus, he adds, relates that people wore as amulets bits of bitumen from the ark which rested upon the mountains of Gordiene, called by the ancients, Carduchi Gordiaei. Nicol. Damasc. speaks of Mt. Baris, [boat, in Egyptian,] in Armenia, on which men were saved from a deluge.” HEIDEGGER. “There is even at this day a region in Armenia called Ararat, in lat. 39°. The mountain where the ark rested must be sought in this region, where Mt. Macis is found, 12 leagues from Erivan, covered with eternal snows, and called by the Persians, Couh Nouh, Mount Noah.” ROSENM. “Mt. Ararat is in the pachalic of Erzeroum. It stands on an extensive plain, and is connected by low hills with Mt. Taurus. Its inaccessible summit is in the form of a sugar loaf, cut into two peaks, [seven miles apart, between which the ark is supposed to have rested.] It presents a formidable appearance with its craggy cliffs [dazzling ice, and snow,] and deep precipices. Its highest peak, Mazis, is in the Persian province of Iran, rising to the height of about 9,500 ft.” ENCYC. AM. “Ararat can be seen at the distance of ten days’ journey.” Dodd. “180 or 200 miles.” Calm. Tavernier says that the city of Nachidchevan, [“the first place of descent,” Naxuana of Ptolemy,] 3 leagues from Mt. Ararat, is the most ancient in the world. Noah settled here when he left the ark; its name signifies, “ship stopped or settled.” “The tradition,” says Rosenmüller, “that the ark lodged upon the range of Ararat, is confirmed by the most weighty testimony of antiquity, and is one of the oldest which has reached us.” “The Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, and Druids, Persians, Hindoos, Burmese, Chinese, Mexicans, Peruvians, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, West-Caledonians, Otaheitans, and Sandwich Islanders; all have recorded the event of the deluge, and it is incorporated in their annals.” “Truth of Rev. demonst.”—Jenks.

Verse 11. And the dove came in to him in the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

Olive leaf, rather branch; so some. “The dove feeds upon the olive.” Chandler. “Gogareen in Armenia is said by Strabo to produce olive trees.” Gill. Modern travelers do not find olives now nearer than 130 miles, by the camel route, from Ararat; so Mr. Smith, in Bibl. Rep., who judiciously adds, that a dove might easily fly from Ararat there and back in a day.—Jenks.

“Theophrastus and Pliny state, that the olive and laurel grow in the Red Sea, and continue green under water. It is sufficient for illustrating the text, to know, that they would grow and continue green, for many months under water.”—Hewlett.