And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
Tops of the mountains seen. Since the latter of these verses has been said to contradict the former, the following translation may serve to reconcile them:-The waters had abated so much that in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the mouth, the ark rested on (one of) the mountains of Ararat. And the waters were continually decreasing until the tenth month; and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains
(i:e., the Armenian highlands) were visible.' The entire duration of the deluge comprised, according to Lightfoot, a solar year. 'Forty-six days were occupied in storing the ark with provisions, and seven in receiving the inferior animals. The rains, which began to fall on the 17th of the Hebrew month Marchesvan, continued forty days, and the waters were on the increase for one hundred and fifty days. The decrease commenced on the first of Sivan, and continued one hundred and twenty days.
Thus, we trace the counsel of heaven, in allowing Noah time to reap the harvest before the rain, and in bringing him out of the ark at a season proper for following the waters with the seeds for the succeeding year' (see the note at Genesis 7:11). It is highly probable that it was a solar, not a lunar year (see Delitzsch, 'Commentary'). But there are difficulties that oppose this conclusion (see Kalisch).