And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Ver. 39. And knew not] i.e. They took no knowledge of Noah's predictions, or their own peril. Their wits they had buried in their guts, their brains in their bellies (as of the ass fish it is said (Arist. de Anim.) that contrary to all other living creatures, he hath his heart in his belly); "whoredom, wine, and new wine take away the heart," Hosea 4:11. Carnal sins disable nature, and so set men in a greater distance from grace, which is seated in the powers of nature. I read of some desperate wretches that drinking together, when one of them had drunk himself stark dead, the other, no wit warned by that fearful example of God's wrath, poured his part of drink into the dead man's belly, in quodam episcopatu potaverunt aliqui, &c. in which a certain bishop drank some. (John Manl.)
And took them all away] Men are never less safe than when they are most secure. Babylon bore itself bold upon the twenty years' provision laid up beforehand, to stand out at siege. When it was nevertheless taken by Cyrus, some part of the city would not know or believe of three days after, that there was any such matter. (Herodot. lib. 1; Arist. Polit. lib. 3.)