In telling us about the world-changing
Flood in the days of
Noah, the
Bible gives us much information about where the waters came from and where they went. The sources of the water are given in
Genesis 7:11 as “the fountains of the great deep†and the “windows of heaven.â€
The Fountains of the Great Deep
The “fountains of the great deep†are mentioned before the “windows of heaven,†indicating either relative importance or the order of events.
What are the “fountains of the great deep?†This phrase is used only in
Genesis 7:11. “Fountains of the deep†is used in
Genesis 8:2, where it clearly refers to the same thing, and
Proverbs 8:28, where the precise meaning is not clear. “The great deep†is used three other times:
Isaiah 51:10, where it clearly refers to the ocean;
Amos 7:4, where God's fire of judgment is said to dry up the great deep, probably the oceans; and
Psalm 36:6 where it is used metaphorically of the depth of God's justice/judgment. “The deep†is used more often, and usually refers to the oceans (e.g.,
Genesis 1:2; Job
38:30,
41:32; Psalm
42:7,
104:6; Isaiah
51:10,
63:13;
Ezekiel 26:19;
Jonah 2:3), but sometimes to subterranean sources of water (
Ezekiel 31:4, 15). The Hebrew word (
mayan) translated “fountains†means “fountain, spring, well.â€
[1]
So, the “fountains of the great deep†are probably oceanic or possibly subterranean sources of water. In the context of the flood account, it could mean both.
“Fountains of the great deep†scene from
The World That Perished
If the fountains of the great deep were the major source of the waters, then they must have been a huge source of water. Some have suggested that when God made the dry land appear from under the waters on the third day of creation, some of the water that covered the earth became trapped underneath and within the dry land.
[2]
Genesis 7:11 says that on the day the flood began, there was a “breaking up†of the fountains, which implies a release of the water, possibly through large fissures in the ground or in the sea floor. The waters that had been held back burst forth with catastrophic consequences.
There are many volcanic rocks interspersed between the fossil layers in the rock record—layers that were obviously deposited during Noah's flood. So it is quite plausible that these fountains of the great deep involved a series of volcanic eruptions with prodigious amounts of water bursting up through the ground. It is interesting that up to 70 percent or more of what comes out of volcanoes today is water, often in the form of steam.
In their catastrophic plate tectonics model for the flood, Austin et al. have proposed that at the onset of the flood, the ocean floor rapidly lifted up to 6,500 feet (2,000 meters) due to an increase in temperature as horizontal movement of the tectonic plates accelerated.
[3] This would spill the seawater onto the land and cause massive flooding—perhaps what is aptly described as the breaking up of the “fountains of the great deep.â€
During the Flood, the world was deluged in 40 days of rain. But this was not the major source of the Flood waters. (Scene from the award-winning Christian video,
The World that Perished.)
The windows of heaven
The other source of the waters for Noah's flood was “the windows of heaven.â€
Genesis 7:12 says that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights continuously.
Genesis 2:5 tells us that there was no rain before man was created. Some have suggested that there was no rainfall anywhere on the earth until the time of the flood. However, the Bible does not actually say this, so we should not be dogmatic.
[4]
Some have argued that God's use of the
rainbow as the sign of His covenant with Noah (
Genesis 9:12-17) suggests that there were no rainbows, and therefore no
clouds or
rain, before the
flood. However, if
rainbows (and clouds) existed before the flood, this would not be the only time God used an existing thing as a special “new†sign of a
covenant (e.g.,
bread and
wine in the
Lord's Supper).
It is difficult to envisage a pre-flood water cycle without clouds and rain, as the sun's heat, even in that era, must have evaporated large volumes of surface waters which would have to eventually condense back into liquid water. And droplets of liquid water form clouds from which we get rain.
The expression “windows of heaven†is used twice in reference to the flood (Genesis
7:11,
8:2). It is used only three times elsewhere in the Old Testament: twice in 2 Kings
7:2 and
19, referring to God's miraculous intervention in sending rain, and once in
Malachi 3:10, where the phrase is used again of God intervening to pour out abundant blessings on his people. Clearly, in Genesis the expression suggests the extraordinary nature of the rainfall attending the flood. It is not a term applied to ordinary rainfall.
What about “the waters above�
We are told in
Genesis 1:6-8 that on the second day of creation God divided the waters that were on the earth from the waters that He placed above the earth when He made a “
firmament†(Hebrew:
raqiya, meaning “expanseâ€) between those waters.
[5] Many have concluded that this “expanse†was the atmosphere, because God placed the birds in the expanse, suggesting that the expanse includes the atmosphere where the
birds fly. This would put these waters above the atmosphere.
However,
Genesis 1:20, speaking of the creation of the birds, says (literally) “let the
birds fly above the ground
across the face of the expanse of the
heavens.â€
[6] This at least allows that “the expanse†may include the space beyond the atmosphere.
Dr. Russell Humphreys has argued that since
Genesis 1:17 tells us that God put the sun, moon, and stars also “in the expanse of the heaven†then the expanse must at least include interstellar space, and thus the waters above the expanse of
Genesis 1:7 would be beyond the stars at the edge of the universe.
[7]
However, prepositions (in, under, above, etc.) are somewhat flexible in Hebrew, as well as English. A submarine can be spoken of as both
under and
in the sea. Likewise, the waters could be
above the expanse and
in the expanse, so we should be careful no to draw too much from these expressions.
So what were these “waters above� Some have said that they are siply the clouds. Others thought of them as a “water vapor canopy,†implying a blanket of water vapor surrounding the earth.