a fountain (also collectively) · noun, common feminine plural construct
deep
תְּה֔וֹםte.Hom
H8415
an abyss (as a surging mass of water) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
windows
וַֽאֲרֻבֹּ֖תva.'a.ru.Bot
H699
a lattice · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural construct
heaven
הַשָּׁמָ֑יִםha.sha.Ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
stopped
וַיִּסָּֽכְרוּ֙vai.yi.sa.khe.Ru
H5534
to shut up · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
rain
הַגֶּ֖שֶׁםha.Ge.shem
H1653
a shower · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
heaven
הַשָּׁמָֽיִםha.sha.Ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
restrained
וַיִּכָּלֵ֥אvai.yi.ka.Le'
H3607
to restrict · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the…
Matthew 8:26-27 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great ca…
Proverbs 8:28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
Job 37:11-13 Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud: he scattereth his bright cloud:
Job 38:37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,
Jonah 2:3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over…
Matthew 8:9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 8:1-3
Here is, I. An act of God's grace: God remembered Noah and every living thing. This is an expression after the manner of men; for not any of his creatures (Luk 12:6), much less any of his people, are forgotten of God, Isa 49:15, Isa 49:16. but, 1. The whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family, was now extinguished, and driven into the land of forgetfulness, to be remembered no more; so that God's remembering Noah was the return of his mercy to mankind, of whom he would not make a full end. It is a strange expression, Eze 5:13, When I have accomplished my fury in them, I will be comforted. The demands of divine justice had been answered by the ruin of those sinners; he had eased him o…
And God made a wind to pass over the earth - Such a wind as produced a strong and sudden evaporation. The effects of these winds, which are frequent in the east, are truly astonishing. A friend of mine, who had been bathing in the Tigris, not far from the ancient city of Ctesiphon, and within five days' journey of Bagdad, having on a pair of Turkish drawers, one of these hot winds, called by the natives samiel, passing rapidly across the river just as he had got out of the water, so effectually dried him in a moment, that not one particle of moisture was left either on his body or in his bathing dress! With such an electrified wind as this, how soon could God dry the whole of the earth's sur…
The fountains also of the deep, and the windows of heaven, were stopped,.... The passages which let out the subterraneous waters in great quantity upon the earth, and the clouds of heaven, which poured down water upon it like spouts, were stopped from sending forth any more, as they had from the first of the flood unto one hundred and fifty days from thence: Jarchi observes, that it is not said that "all" the fountains of the deep, as when they were broken up, Genesis 7:11 because some of them were left open for the use and benefit of the world; besides, some must be left for the return of the waters:
and the rain from heaven was restrained: which seems to confirm what has been before obser…
The Church Fathers
(Chapter 8, Verse 2) And the water subsided, and the fountains of the deep were revealed, and the floodgates of heaven were opened. The interpreters have translated the phrase 'fountains of the deep were revealed' as 'the closed and sealed fountains were opened'. And regarding the following phrase: 'the water subsided from the earth', it is written that 'the waters returned from the earth, going and coming' (Ecclesiastes 1:7). Note, according to Ecclesiastes, that all waters and torrents return to the hidden veins of the abyss.
And the fountains of the deep were closed, and the windows of heaven, and the rains from heaven were restrained, and the waters returned from the earth, going and coming, and they began to decrease after one hundred and fifty days. What is said, that the waters returned from the earth going and coming, clearly indicates according to the letter that all the courses of rivers and streams return through the hidden veins of the earth to the matrix of the abyss, according to Solomon: All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea does not overflow; to the place where the rivers go forth, they return so that they may flow again (Ecclesiastes I, 7). Mystically, however, after one hundred and fifty days, the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven are closed, the rains ceasing, the waters return, because the words of the sacred oracle, after having trained us in the faith and hope of eternal rest and immortality, will cease to teach us further, because they will have nothing greater to promise, after having perfected us in the immortal glory of flesh and spirit and led us to the blessed vision of our Creator. Hence it is well that the book of Psalms, which is contained in the number of one hundred and fifty, is completed in divine praise. Indeed, the beginning of blessedness takes its rise from continence and meditation on the divine law, saying: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked (Psalm I, 1), and the rest. Near the end, however, it commends the new joys of the future age, saying, and at the very end consummates all in praise of God: Sing to the Lord a new song, praise in the assembly of the saints (Psalm CXLIX, 1); thus concluding; Let everything that has breath praise the Lord (Psalm CL, 6). This hundred and fiftieth psalm is rightfully sung entirely in praise of God, and completed, because evidently the sum of all our blessedness is in this, that dwelling in His house we may endlessly praise Him.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Deluge — The name given to Noah’s flood, the history of which is recorded in Gen. 7 and 8. It began in the year 2516 B.C., and continued twelve lunar months and ten days, or exactly one solar year. The cause…
Dove — In their wild state doves generally build their nests in the clefts of rocks, but when domesticated “dove-cots” are prepared for them (Cant. 2:14; Jer. 48:28; Isa. 60:8). The dove was placed on the…
Altar · Built by Noah — Built by Noah
Deluge, The · Causes of its abatement — Causes of its abatement
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
And God remembered Noah. Moses now descends more particularly to that other part of the subject, which shows, that Noah was not disappointed in his hope of the salvation divinely promised to him. The remembrance of which Moses speaks, ought to be referred not only to the external aspect of things, (so to speak,) but also to the inward feeling of the holy man. Indeed it is certain, that Gods from the time in which he had once received Noah into his protection, was never unmindful of him; for, truly, it was by as great a miracle, that he did not perish through suffocation in the ark, as if he had lived without breath, submerged in the waters. And Moses just before has said that by God's secret…
With the words, "then God remembered Noah and all the animals...in the ark," the narrative turns to the description of the gradual decrease of the water until the ground was perfectly dry. The fall of the water is described in the same pictorial style as its rapid rise. God's "remembering" was a manifestation of Himself, an effective restraint of the force of the raging element. He caused a wind to blow over the earth, so that the waters sank, and shut up the fountains of the deep, and the sluices of heaven, so that the rain from heaven was restrained. "Then the waters turned (ישׁבוּ i.e., flowed off) from the earth, flowing continuously (the inf. absol. ושׁוב הלוך expresses continuation), a…
underground waters . . . torrential rains: See study note on 7:11-12.
Rashi on Genesis 8:2
ויסכרו מעינות AND THE FOUNTAINS … WERE STOPPED –– When they were opened, it was stated that all fountains were opened (7:11), whilst here the word all is omitted: the reason is that such of them as were essential to the world were left unstopped, such as the hot springs of Tiberias and their like (Sanhedrin 108a).
ויכלא means was restrained. withheld, as (Psalms 40:12) “Thou wilt not withhold (תכלא) thy mercies” and (Genesis 23:6) “None of us will withhold (יכלה) from thee.’’
