Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 7:11

11. In the six hundredth year of Noahs Life , in the second moneth , the seventeenth day of the moneth, the same day were all the Fountains of the great deep broken up , and the Windows of Heaven were opened.

Either compleat: Or rather current or begun; otherwise he had lived three hundred fifty one years after the Flood, not three hundred fifty onely, as it is written, Gen. 9. last.

Either 1. Of that year of Noahs Life. Or, 2. of the year. Now as the year among the Hebrews was two-fold, the one sacred, for the celebration of Feasts, beginning in March, of which see Exod. 12. 2. The other Civil for the better ordering of mens Political or Civil Affairs, which began in September. Accordingly this second moneth is thought by some to be part of April, and part of May, the most pleasant part of the year, when the Flood was least expected or feared: By others part of October and part of November, a little after Noah had gathered the Fruits of the Earth and laid them up in the Ark. So the Flood came in with Winter, and was by degree[illegible: 1+ letters] dried up by the heat of the following Summer: And this opinion seems the more probable, because the most antient and first beginning of the year was in September, and the other beginning of the year in March, was but a latter institution among the Jews with respect to their Feasts and Sacred Affairs only, which are not at all concerned here.

(i. e.) Of the Sea, called the deep, Iob 38. 16, 30. and 41. 31. Psal. 106. 9. and also of that great abyss or Sea of Waters, which is contained in the Bowels of the Earth. For that there are vast quantities of Waters there, is implied both here and in other Scriptures, as Psal. 33. 7. 2 Pet. 3. 5. and is affirmed by Plato in his Phaedrus, and by Seneca in his natural questions, 3. 19. and is evident from Springs and Rivers which have their rise from thence, and some of them have no other place into which they issue themselves, as appears from the Caspian Sea, into which divers Rivers do empty themselves, and especially that great River Volga, in such abundance, that it would certainly drown all those parts of the Earth, if there were not a vent for them under ground, for other vent above ground out of that great Lake or Sea they have none. Out of this deep therefore, and out of the Sea, together, it was very easie for God to bring such a quantity of Waters as might overwhelm the Earth, without any production of new Waters, which yet he with one word could have created. So vain are the cavils of Atheistical Anti-Scripturists in this.

The Fountains are said to be broken up here, also Psal. 74. 15. by a Metonymy, because the Earth and other obstructions were broken up, and so a passage opened for the Fountains: As Bread is said to be bruised, Isa. 28. 28. and Meal to be ground, Isa. 47. 2. Because the Corn, of which the Meal and Bread were made, was bruised and ground.

Which some understand of the Waters which, from Gen. 1. 7. they suppose were placed by God above the visible Heavens, and reserved and kept as it were in prison for this very purpose, and now the Prison doors were opened, and they let loose and sent down for the destruction of the World: But others more fitly understand it of the Clouds, which are called the windows of Heaven, Mal. 3. 10. So 2 Kings 7. 2. 19. Psal. 78. 23. Isa. 24. 18. Which then grew thicker and bigger with Waters; nor is there any inconvenience in it, if we say that God created a great quantity of Waters, for this end, which afterwards he annihilated.

Marginal references: Or, Flood-gates