In the six hundredth year; either complete, or rather current or begun; otherwise he had lived three hundred and fifty one years after the flood, not three hundred and fifty only, as it is written, Genesis 9:29. In the second month; either,
1. Of that year of Noah's life; or,
2. Of the year. Now as the year among the Hebrews was twofold; the one sacred, for the celebration of feasts, beginning in March, of which see Exodus 12:2; the other civil, for the better ordering of men's political or civil affairs, which began in September. Accordingly this second month is thought, by some, to be part of April and part of May, the most pleasant part of the year, when the flood was least expected or feared; by others, part of October and part of November, a little after Noah had gathered the fruits of the earth, and laid them up in the ark. So the flood came in with the winter, and was by degrees dried up by the heat of the following summer. And this opinion seems the more probable, because the most ancient and first beginning of the year was in September; and the other beginning of the year in March was but a later institution among the Jews, with respect to their feasts and sacred affairs only, which are not at all concerned here. The fountains of the great deep, i.e. of the sea, called the deep, Job 38:16, Job 38:30, Job 41:31, Psalms 106:9; and also of that great abyss, or sea of waters, which is contained in the bowels of the earth. For that there are vast quantities of waters there, is implied both here and in other scriptures, as Psalms 33:7 2 Peter 3:5; and is affirmed by Plato in his Phaedrus, and by Seneca in his Natural Questions, 3.19, and is evident from springs and rivers which have their rise from thence; and some of them have no other place into which they issue themselves, as appears from the Caspian Sea, into which divers rivers do empty themselves, and especially that great river Volga, in such abundance, that it would certainly drown all those parts of the earth, if there were not a vent for them under ground; for other vent above ground out of that great lake or sea they have none. Out of this deep therefore, and out of the sea together, it was very easy for God to bring such a quantity of waters, as might overwhelm the earth without any production of new waters, which yet he with one word could have created. So vain are the cavils of atheistical antiscripturists in this. The fountains are said to be broken up here, also Psalms 74:15, by a metonymy, because the earth and other obstructions were broken up, and so a passage opened for the fountains; as bread is said to be bruised, Isaiah 28:28, and meal to be ground, Isaiah 47:2, because the corn, of which the meal and bread were made, was bruised and ground. The windows of heaven were opened; which some understand of the waters, which, from Genesis 1:7, they suppose were placed by God above the visible heavens, and reserved and kept, as it were, in prison for this very purpose; and now the prison-doors were opened, and they let loose and sent down for the destruction of the world. But others more fitly understand it of the clouds, which are called the windows of heaven, Zechariah 3:10; so 2 Kings 7:2, 2 Kings 7:19, Psalms 78:23, Isaiah 24:18, which then grew thicker and bigger with waters; nor is there any inconvenience in it, if we say that God created a great quantity of waters for this end, which afterwards he annihilated.