Genesis 7:20-24

7:20 The waters rose more than twenty feet¹ above the mountains.² 7:21 And all living things³ that moved on the earth died, including the birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all humankind. 7:22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life⁴ in its nostrils died. 7:23 So the Lord⁵ destroyed⁶ every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky.⁷ They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived.⁸ 7:24 The waters prevailed over⁹ the earth for 150 days.

¹tn Heb “rose fifteen cubits.” Since a cubit is considered by most authorities to be about eighteen inches, this would make the depth 22.5 feet. This figure might give the modern reader a false impression of exactness, however, so in the translation the phrase “fifteen cubits” has been rendered “more than twenty feet.”

²tn Heb “the waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward and they covered the mountains.” Obviously, a flood of twenty feet did not cover the mountains; the statement must mean the flood rose about twenty feet above the highest mountain.

³tn Heb “flesh.”

⁴tn Heb “everything which [has] the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils from all which is in the dry land.”

⁵tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶tn Heb “wiped away” (cf. NRSV “blotted out”).

⁷tn Heb “from man to animal to creeping thing and to the bird of the sky.”

⁸tn The Hebrew verb שָׁאָר (sha’ar) means “to be left over; to survive” in the Niphal verb stem. It is the word used in later biblical texts for the remnant that escapes judgment. See G. F. Hasel, “Semantic Values of Derivatives of the Hebrew Root só’r,” AUSS 11 (1973): 152-69.

⁹sn The Hebrew verb translated “prevailed over” suggests that the waters were stronger than the earth. The earth and everything in it were no match for the return of the chaotic deep.