And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth. This is the first intimation of the mode in which the threatened destruction was to be effected-namely, by water. [Hebrew, hamabuwl (H3999), the deluge-a word used only in one other place of the Bible (Psalms 29:10), which contains an unmistakable reference to this narrative. Mayim (H4325), which is added, may either be taken as accusative, in apposition, 'the mabbul, waters,' or in the form of a genitive, "a flood of waters."] The element employed was to be water, which when increased to overwhelming depth, was called mabbul (Genesis 9:15). The repetition of the announcement was intended to establish the certainty of the event (cf. Genesis 41:22). Whatever opinion may be entertained as to the operation of natural laws and agencies in the deluge, it was brought on the world by God as a punishment for the enormous wickedness of its inhabitants. Geology informs us of many an inundation or cataclysm from the influence of secondary causes in the earth, when it was populated by races without souls. But the sacred historian expressly assigns a moral cause for the deluge-the sin of man, the moral agent, the lord of the earth. He represents the Almighty himself as declaring to Noah that his own omnipotent arm was to be the great efficient, the direct agent, in the accomplishment of so tremendous a catastrophe, and though the dispensation might have been brought on by the action of natural causes, the supernatural character of it appears in the fact of its being a judgment, Sund-fluth (sin-flood, Luther), announced 120 years previous to its infliction.
`The Maker justly claims the world He made In this the right of Providence is laid.'