7:11-12 on the seventeenth day of the second month: Such information gives the flood account a certain solemnity; it reminds readers that this was a true historical event. • underground waters: See 2:6. • rain fell: The flood undid the boundaries established on the second and third days of creation (1:6-13). Elsewhere, the Bible describes God’s judgment as an undoing of creation (see Jer 4:23-26; Amos 7:4). • forty days and forty nights: See study note on 7:4.

7:17 floodwaters grew deeper (literally waters multiplied): The same word used for the proliferation of humans and animals during creation (see 1:22, 28) is now used ironically of the water that would annihilate them. • covering the ground: The Hebrew word translated “ground” or “earth” is mentioned eight times in eight verses (7:17-24). The earth is the domain that humankind had polluted and that was now the object of a cleansing deluge.

7:2 of each animal I have approved: In addition to the animals that were to repopulate the earth, these “clean” animals were for food and for Noah’s sacrifice after the flood (8:20-21). This passage does not use the precise technical language that is found in the regulations concerning “clean” and “unclean” given to Israel at Sinai (see Lev 11; Deut 14:3-12), but the underlying concept is the same (perhaps God revealed it directly to Noah).