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in tlie sky, continuing uninterruptedly forty days and forty 
nights, there was — what a mere spectator might suppose to be 
due to fountains breaking out at the bottom of the deep — a 
welling up of the waters of seas and oceans, whereby the lands 
encompassed by them were flooded. The narrative appears to 
ascribe the waters of the Deluge to the simultaneous operation 
of the two causes. 
“ And the waters prevailed and bare up the ark, and it was 
lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed and were 
increased greatly on the earth, and the ark was borne upon the 
face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon 
the earth ; and all the high hills that were under the whole 
heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters 
prevail, and the mountains were covered” (vii. 17 — 20). These 
words not only describe the great extent and height of the 
waters of the cataclysm relatively to the land, but indicate also 
that it continually advanced by gradations to a maximum height. 
In verse 24 of the same chapter, it is said that the waters pre- 
vailed (vxpivOii, were elevated, Sept.) on the earth an hundred 
and fifty days. During this interval of five months, which is 
to be reckoned from the day of Noah's entrance into the ark, 
the height of the waters was continually on the increase up to 
a certain time, which, as being the epoch of a maximum, would 
not be definitely marked ; afterwards it continually decreased. 
The increase might go on after the cessation of the rain at the 
end of the forty days, and, as will presently appear, the decrease 
commenced before the end of the hundred and fifty days. 
In the statements given in viii. 1 and 2 respecting the opera- 
tions which produced the abatement of the waters, and caused 
them to return continually from the face of the earth, it is said, 
generally, that “ God made a wind to pass over the earth, and 
the waters were assuaged”; and then, specifically, that “the 
fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, 
and the rain from heaven was restrained.” This cessation of 
the rain took place at the end of forty days, and appears to be 
here mentioned in connection with the stoppage of the fountains 
of the deep, and the assuagement of the waters by “ the wind,” 
as being a necessary antecedent condition of these operations. 
It may be remarked that the Hebrew word for “ wind ” in this 
passage is translated in the Septuagint by irvtvma, whereas the 
same word, employed inExod. xiv. 21, in giving the account of 
the dividing of the Red Sea by “ a strong east wind,” is trans- 
lated by livtfjLoe. Possibly the LXX. Interpreters preferred 
7 rvtvpu in the present instance because, as the Hebrew word 
appears to have been used to designate generally an invisible 
