In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's age. The year, as has been already stated (see the note at Genesis 5:1-32), is reckoned in this history as comprising a period of twelve months, or 360 days.
In the second month. Previous to the Exodus the Hebrew people commenced their year with Tisri, which was in the autumnal equinox, corresponding to the middle of our September, and formed the commencement of the seedtime. Josephus (Book 1: 3, 3) states that this was the season of Noah's entrance into the ark; and his declaration, which has been adopted as the opinion of Keil, Baumgarten, Ewald, Knobel, Delitzsch, is further recommended by the circumstance that the flood would have happened shortly after the fruits of the earth had been reaped, when abundant store of provisions would be secured for the ark, and also that the waters would be pouring upon the earth during the winter months; because if the first month began on September 21st, the 17th of the second month (March-esvan) would be November 7th. But others are of opinion that Moses, writing for the immediate benefit of his countrymen, reckoned according to the Hebrew calendar, with which they were familiar. The sacred or ecclesiastical year of the Israelites began in Nisan (the middle of March), and therefore the second month, called Jar, corresponded to the latter half of April and the former half of May-a fair and dry season, when the serene atmosphere and unclouded sky would make a flood of water the least of all probable events. This is the mode of computing the year which the sacred historian usually observes throughout the Pentateuch (see, further, the note at Genesis 8:4).
The fountains of the great deep broken up, х tªhowm (H8415)]. The sea is called the great deep, implying an unfathomable mass of waters, only in solemn language, as in the history of the creation (Genesis 1:2) and the flood, or in poetical passages containing descriptive scenes of desolation borrowed from those narratives (Psalms 36:7; Psalms 104:6; Deuteronomy 33:13; Amos 8:4; Isaiah 61:10). Its aqueous reservoir, which having, through some latent forces, burst their natural barriers, produced a mighty eruption of waters.
The windows of heaven were opened, х 'ªrubot (H699)]. This Hebrew term denotes windows or apertures closed with lattice, not with glass (cf. Genesis 6:16 with Ecclesiastes 12:3; Isaiah 60:8), and hence, they are represented as "opened;" so that the waters from the clouds, instead of oozing slowly and gently, as through a piece of compact network, were poured down, as through sluices or spouts [Septuagint, Katarraktai]; (cf. 2 Kings 7:2; 2 Kings 7:19; Isaiah 24:18; Malachi 3:10). The language is highly figurative, intended to conveys vivid idea of the awful inundation, proceeding at the same time from two opposite sources, atmospheric and subterranean receptacles; the one expression indicating a copious and continued descent of rain, and the other betokening either an upheaval of the beds of rivers and the sea, or the subsidence beneath the level of the ocean of that portion of the earth which was the actual habitation of man.