8:13-19 God consults our benefit, rather than our desires; he knows what is good for us better than we do for ourselves, and how long it is fit our restraints should continue, and desired mercies should be delayed. We would go out of the ark before the ground is dried; and perhaps, if the door, is shut, are ready to thrust off the covering, and to climb up some other way; but God's time of showing mercy is the best time. As Noah had a command to go into the ark, so, how tedious soever his confinement there was, he would wait for a command to go out of it again. We must in all our ways acknowledge God, and set him before us in all our removals. Those only go under God's protection, who follow God's direction, and submit to him.

Verse 14. - And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. יָבְשָׁה The three Hebrew verbs employed to depict the gradual cessation of the floods express a regular gradation; קָלַל (ver. 11), to be lightened, signifying their abatement or diminution (κεκόπακε τὸ ὕδωρ, LXX.); חָרַב (ver. 13), to be dried up, indicating the disappearance of the water (ἐξέλιπε τό ὕδωρ, LXX.); יָבֵשׁ (ver. 14), to be dry, denoting the desiccation of the ground (ἐξηράνθη ἡ γῆ, (LXX.). Cf. Isaiah 19:5, where there is a similar gradation: וְנָהָר יֶךחרַב וְיָבְשׁ, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.

The data are insufficient to enable us to determine whether the Noachic year was solar or lunar. It has been conjectured that the year consisted of twelve months of thirty days, with five intercalated days at the end to make up the solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days (Ewald); of seven months of thirty days and five of thirty-one (Bohlen); of five of thirty and seven of twenty-nine (Knobel); but the circumstance that the period from the commencement of the Deluge to the touching of Ararat extended over five months exactly, and that the waters are said to have previously prevailed for one hundred and fifty days, naturally leads to the conclusion that the months of Noah's year were equal periods of thirty days.

And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month,.... This was the month Marchesvan, as the Targum of Jonathan, which answers to part of our October, and part of our November; though according to Bishop Usher (y), this day was Friday the eighteenth of December, A. M. 1657; it was on the seventeenth of this month that Noah went into the ark, Genesis 7:11 so that be was in it twelve months and ten days, according to a solar year; but if the reckoning is made according to Jewish months, six of which consisted of thirty days, and six of twenty nine only, then the twelve months made but three hundred and fifty four days, add to which eleven days to the twenty seventh, fully ended, it makes three hundred and sixty five days; so that he was in the ark just a full year, according to the course of the sun; but it seems very plain that the months here reckoned consisted of thirty days, since the one hundred and fifty, days when the waters abated are reckoned, from the seventeenth day of the second month, to the seventeenth day of the seventh month; which make exactly five months, and allow thirty days to a month: and at this time, when Noah had waited almost two months, after he had removed the covering of the ark:

was the earth dried; so that it was fit to walk upon, and was become commodious both for man and beast: a different word from that in the preceding verse is here used for "dry", this being a different kind, or, however, a greater degree of dryness than the other.

(y) Ut supra. (Annales Vet. Test. p. 4.)

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