Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
When once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. 'Aleph (') A B C, Vulgate, read х apexedecheto (G553) (omitting hapax (G530), "once")] 'was continuing to wait on' (if haply men in the 120 years of grace would repent) until the end of His waiting came in their death by the flood. This refutes Alford's second day of grace given in Hades. Noah's days are selected, as the ark and the destroying flood answer respectively to "baptism" and the coming destruction of unbelievers by fire. Be not shaken in spirit by the majority hardening themselves against Christ's grace now: it was still more so at the flood, when all but "eight" perished through unbelief.
While the ark was a-preparing - (Hebrews 11:7.) A long period of God's 'long-suffering and waiting,' which rendered the world's unbelief the more inexcusable.
Wherein, х eis (G1519) heen (G3739)] - '(by having entered) into which.'
Few - so now.
Eight - seven (the sacred number) with ungodly Ham.
Souls - used in living persons; why should not "spirits" also? Noah preached to their ears, but Christ in spirit, to their spirits, or spiritual natures.
Saved by water. The same water which drowned the unbelieving buoyed up the ark in which the eight were saved. Others, 'were brought safe through the water' х di' (G1223) hudatos (G5204)]. The sense may be as in 1 Corinthians 3:15, 'they were safely preserved though having to be in the water' (cf. dia (G1223) with genitive, 'spite of,' Romans 2:27).