been cursed, rejoices at the birth of his son, and hopes that this son will share his labours, and thus comfort him when he is worn out, and provide for him when he is old and

feeble.' But this destroys the force of the special reference to Noah; for it is no more than any patriarchal father might have felt and said at the birth of any son.

CHAPTER VI.

1 The wickedness of the world, which provoked God's wrath, and caused the flood. 8 Noah findeth grace. 14 The order, form, and end of the ark.

AND it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of re

nown.

5 And GoD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that 'every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 'continually.

6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; 'both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

8 ¶ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and 'perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

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14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood;

1 Or, the whole imagination. The Hebrew word signifieth not only Matth. 15. 19. • Heb. every day. 4 Heb. from man unto beast.

Heb. nests.

rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

GOPHER TREE. Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens).

17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

18 But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons wives with thee.

19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the the imagination, but also the purposes and desires. 2 Chap. 3. 21. 5 Ecclus. 44. 17. 2 Pet. 2. 5. 6 Or, upright. 7 Or, from the earth.

earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee;

and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

22 "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Verse 2. Sons of God-daughters of men.'-Many Jewish writers, and some of the early Christian fathers, entertained the notion that the sons of God' were angels, who, charmed with the beauty of the daughters of men, united themselves to them, and became the parents of a race of lawless giants or heroes, who corrupted the earth. They seem to have derived this notion from the Septuagint, in which they appear to have read ǎyyeλo, ‘angels,' instead of viol, 'sons,' as we still find in the Alexandrine and three other manuscripts. It is now justly regarded as utterly untenable, and is cherished only by the poets, who have made it the vehicle of imaginings more beautiful than reverent. That the 'sons of God' were the descendants of Seth, and the daughters of men' children of Cain, is not in itself incredible, and is an ancient opinion; but there is nothing to show it in the text. The obvious and reasonable sense is, that upright and true men ('sons of God') formed ill-advised unions with apostate and unbelieving women (daughters of men'); and that the combination of influences resulting from this parentage, enabled their children to become conquerors and chiefs mighty men, men of renown.' We seem here to be witnessing the first efforts of men coveting dominion over their fellows.

4. 'Giants.'-It is by no means agreed by commentators that the word (nephilim), thus translated, means men remarkable for their stature. The derivation of the word, and the context in which it is here used, concur to render it more probable that it here characterizes the men who first departed from the religion taught to Adam, and who sustained their apostacy by acts of violence and oppression. They were probably the men who first endeavoured to gain for themselves power in the earth. Several very different words in the Hebrew, signifying eminence, not only in wickedness, but in knowledge, courage, piety, virtue, etc., are equally translated by the same English word giant;' and it is never safe to understand it as meaning large stature, unless the context fixes that signification. In the present connection, apostacy seems the leading idea.

14. Make thee an ark.'-There is much difference of opinion respecting the form of the ark. The common representations are given under the impression that it was intended to be adapted to progressive motion; whereas no other object was sought than to construct a vessel which should float for a given time upon the water. For this purpose it was not necessary to place the ark in a sort of boat, as in the common representation; and we may be content with the simple idea which the text gives, which is that of an enormous oblong box, or wooden house, divided into three stories, and apparently with a sloping roof. The most moderate statement of its dimensions makes the ark by far the largest of vessels ever made to float upon the water. As the measurements are given, the only doubt is as to which of the cubit measures used by the Hebrews is here intended. It seems that the standard of the original cubit was the length of a man's arm from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about eighteen inches. This was the common cubit; but there was also a sacred cubit, which some call a hand's breadth (three inches) larger than the common one; while others make the sacred cubit twice the length of the latter. The probability is that there were two cubit measures besides the common, one being of twenty-one inches, and the other of three feet. Some writers add the geometrical cubit of nine feet. Shuckford says we must take the common or shortest cubit as that for the ark; and Dr. Hales, following this advice, obtains the following result: It must have been of the burden of 42,413 tons.

A first-rate man-of-war is between 2200 and 2300 tons; and, consequently, the ark had the capacity or stowage of eighteen such ships, the largest in present use, and might carry 20,000 men, with provisions for six months, besides the weight of 1800 cannon and all military stores. It was then by much the largest ship ever built.'

Dr. Lindsley, a writer cited more fully below, regards this ark as illustrating the state of the arts before the Deluge: for although it was constructed by Divine command, it was done, as far as we know, without any extraordinary aid or direction. This was probably the most astonishing structure, on several accounts, that ever rested on the earth or floated upon the waters-a ship of at least 100,000 tons burden (?). What a specimen of architectural skill was not this last memento of antediluvian art! Noah was its builder-its architect; he directed and superintended the work. Thousands of artisans, mechanics, and labourers were no doubt employed on it, who perished beneath the waves which bore it from their reach and from their view for ever.'

If this writer means to imply that ship-building had made considerable progress before the Deluge, this conclusion is open to the serious objection that, in that case, those who were in ships when the flood came on, or who were able to escape to their vessels, might, as well as Noah's family, have escaped the Deluge. And yet, again, this objection is open to the answer, that they must have perished from want during the year in which the waters covered the earth; for none of the people believed in the approaching Deluge, and would not therefore have victualled their ships with reference to any such contingency. It may even be thought that it was to ensure this result-that none should thus escape that the waters remained so long upon the earth. For the sole object of the Flood was the destruction of 'every living thing,' save such as the ark contained; and that object might have been accomplished in a much shorter time, if ships had not afforded, to some, the means of protracting for a time the struggle for existence.

Gopher wood,' or rather, Gopher-tree.'-When we consider that and kʊnápiσσos have the same radical consonants, we are at once led to select a species of cypress as the 'gopher wood,' or rather the gopher-tree in question. The wood of the cypress possesses an unrivalled fame for its durability, and its resistance to those injuries which are incident to other kinds of wood. The divine appointment had doubtless a reason founded in the nature of things, and no better reason can be found than the matchless excellence of the wood recommended. The compact and durable nature of the cypress rendered it peculiarly eligible for sacred purposes; hence we find it was employed in the construction of coffins among the Athenians, and mummycases among the Egyptians. The Cupressus sempervirens, a straight and elegant tree of the cone-bearing family, seems therefore to have the best title to the credit of having furnished the material for the most important vessel that was ever constructed.

- ‘Pitch.'—copher. The pitch here mentioned was of the mineral kind, and essentially of the same nature as that inflammable substance which is often seen bubbling up in a piece of coal when laid upon a clear fire. Naphtha, petroleum, mineral tar, &c., seem to be, in fact, but one substance in different conditions. They are all remarkable for their inflammable character. Neither the inventions of art nor the researches of science have discovered any other substance so well adapted to exclude the water and to repel the injuries of worms, as the mineral pitch or bitumen. In reading the Bible in a cursory manner, we are too apt to

regard the directions of the Almighty as founded upon some arbitrary or mysterious reason, instead of assuming, that if they are not to be accounted for upon the principles of common sense, it is because we have failed to interpret them rightly. The original word copher is worth remembering, since it is the parent of our word cover, and is preserved in all the Shemitic languages, or those spoken by the descendants of Shem.

Here, on reaching the close of the chapters which relate to the Antediluvian period, it may be well to remark that it offers no trace of savage life. This fact is strongly against the opinion that man emerged by degrees from a condition originally savage. It would rather appear that savageism was a degeneracy in different families of men from an original condition of some civilization. And this degeneracy may perhaps be referred to the confusion at Babel: for while men kept together and had but one language, they could not but maintain their original civilization; but when they were broken up into different and separated bodies, isolated by diversity of language, the lapse of some of them into barbarism ceased to be difficult. A very ingenious writer, Dr. Philip Lindsley, in an essay On the Primitive State of Mankind, printed in the American Biblical Repository for 1841, urges this consideration by arguments and facts which cannot be easily gainsaid. He reminds us that man was created vigorous and mature in all his faculties of body and mind; ready for every work and duty which his station demanded; with God for his friend and instructor. Horticulture was his first employment. This has never been the occupation of savage life. Hunting, then, or the chase, could not have been the primitive mode of procuring a subsistence; or, in other words, the hunting state is not the state of nature, or of man in his original natural condition. And yet savages in every age and country have been and still are hunters. So that hunting may be assumed as a universal predicate or characteristic of savage life. Adam was therefore not a savage. He must have been eminent in the knowledge of nature, at least of zoology, if he gave significant names to all animals. Of his first two sons, one was a farmer and the other a shepherd. Cain, the first-born of the human race, built a city, and called it Enoch after his eldest son; and, of course, must have known all the arts which such an undertaking implies or requires. And that cities might have been very necessary, or at least very convenient, will appear sufficiently obvious when we consider the amount of population which probably existed even at that early period. According to several profound biblical antiquaries and expositors, there might have been many hundreds of thousands. ... Lamech, the fifth in descent from Cain, was the father of Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain, who are represented by Moses as having been extraordinary proficients

CHAPTER VII.

1 Noah with his family and the living creatures enter into the ark. 17 The beginning, increase, and continuance of the flood.

AND the LORD said unto Noah, 'Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

in several of the arts, both useful and ornamental. (About 500 A.M.) Jabal "was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle;" or, he was a famous shepherd and tent-maker, and a teacher of others. Abel had been a shepherd long before. Jubal "was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ;" or all stringed and all wind instruments, the original terms being generic. Tubalcain was an "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron;" the first smith on record; a noted manufacturer of warlike instruments and domestic utensils; an ingenious artist, and a teacher of others. Agricultural implements, at least, must have been in use several centuries before; for Cain was "a tiller of the ground," and Adam a gardener. The former, too, had built a city; and of course, it may be presumed, made use of iron in sundry ways. Savages know nothing of iron.'

The same writer goes on to urge various grave considerations in favour of his conclusion, that man was in any thing rather than a barbarous state in his earliest condition-1. The great age of the antediluvians, and probably their greater size and strength. Many of that very small number of individuals whose age is recorded by Moses lived nearly a thousand years; and others may have lived much longer for aught we know to the contrary. What might have been achieved in science and the arts, by genius and perseverance, during a single life protracted through a period of eight or ten centuries, can only be conjectured from the efforts of modern intellect, when life has been limited to threescore years and ten. 2. They had stronger inducements to the erection of superior, more costly, and more capacious edifices and monuments, public and private, than exist at present, for they might reasonably calculate to reap the benefit of their labours and expenditures. 3. The supposed large population before the Deluge is used by Dr. Lindsley as an argument in favour of his position; for he is of those who believe that population to have been immense. 'Arts must flourish where population is dense. Even the necessaries of mere animal existence could not be procured by such a multitude in a savage or uncivilized state.' 4. One language before the Deluge. This peculiar distinction of the antediluvians probably contributed more than any or all others to the steady advancement in knowledge and the arts, and certainly their degeneracy into savages. 5. "The earth was probably more fertile, and the climate more healthful, and more auspicious to longevity, and consequently to every species of mental and corporeal exertion and enterprise, than at present.'

Some of the details adduced in illustration of this view may be open to question; but enough will remain to satisfy any reasonable mind that mankind was not in an uncivilized condition during the period from the Creation to the Deluge. See the note on ix. 20.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I 'destroy from off the face of the earth.

5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

7 ¶ And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

15 ¶ And God spake unto Noah, saying, 16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons wives with thee.

17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons wives with him :

19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their 'kinds, went forth out of the ark.

20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the 'imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

22 "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not

cease.

Verse 4. The mountains of Ararat,'-that is, not a mountain called Ararat, but one of the mountains of a country called Ararat. This country of Ararat is also mentioned in 2 Kings xix. 37, Isa. xxxviii. 38, and Jer. li. 27. That it means Armenia, or a district of that country, is a very old belief, which has every probability as well as general opinion in its favour, and which we find no reason to disturb. We may therefore assume that the ark rested on the mountains, or rather among the mountains-for no one particular mountain is specified-of Armenia. But we have no historical or geographical data which would enable us to identify the mountain or moun

VOL I.

7 Chap. 6. 5. Matth. 15. 19.

tains which the sacred historian had in view. The tradition is however very old which points to the mountain called by the Armenians Macis, and by the Turks AghurDagh, meaning the Heavy or Great Mountain, and the faint resemblance of which to Ararat is merely accidental. Europeans, however, always in haste to embody uncertain conclusions in fixed names, call it Ararat, and to them it will never be known by any other name. This name is not given to it in Armenia, although it is the general belief of Western Asia that it is the mountain of Noah's Ark. The particular mountain to which people of different nations and religions concur in awarding this distinction,

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