It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Parallel Translations
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It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.
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And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
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And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to Genesis 7:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 7:4 In seven days, I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will destroy every living thing that I have made from the surface of the ground.”
- Genesis 7:17 The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth.
- Matthew 4:2 When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.
- Exodus 24:18 Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
- Deuteronomy 9:9 When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.
- Deuteronomy 9:18 I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
- Deuteronomy 10:10 I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights; and Yahweh listened to me that time also. Yahweh would not destroy you.
- 1 Kings 19:8 He arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, God’s Mountain.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (7 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 12. And the rain was upon the earth. Although…
12. And the rain was upon the earth. Although the Lord burst open the floodgates of the waters, yet he does not allow them to break forth in a moment, so as immediately to overwhelm the earth, but causes the rain to continue forty days; partly, that Noah, by long meditation, might more deeply fix in his memory what he had previously learned, by instruction, through the word; partly, that the wicked, even before their death, might feel that those warnings which they had held in derision, were not empty threats. For they who had so long scorned the patience of God, deserved to feel that they were gradually perishing under that righteous judgment of his, which, during a hundred years, they had treated as a fable. And the Lord frequently so tempers his judgments, that men may have leisure to consider with more advantage those judgments which, by their sudden eruption, might overcome them with astonishment. But the wonderful depravity of our nature shows itself in this, that if the anger of God is suddenly poured forth, we become stupefied and senseless; but if it advances with measured pace, we become so accustomed to it as to despise it; because we do not willingly acknowledge the hand of God without miracles; and because we are easily hardened, by a kind of superinduced insensibility, at the sight of God’s works.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth…
Gen 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Ver. 12. Forty days and forty nights.] This was God’s last warning-piece, shot off at these secure sinners, to arouse them, if haply they would awake out of "the snare of the devil," who lay "taken captive by him, at his will": {2Ti 2:26} God loveth to fore-signify, saith the heathen historian.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain God by this gradual proceeding both awakened to repentance,…
God by this gradual proceeding both awakened to repentance, and gave them space for it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain They, and every beast after his kind, and all…
They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind,.... They, Noah and his family, went into the ark; as did all sorts of beasts and cattle, reckoned one hundred and thirty sorts, by some one hundred and fifty, including serpents:
and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; supposed to be scarce thirty sorts; not one sort of creature was left out, though ever so small, and despicable:
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every fowl after his kind; Bishop Wilkins has divided them into nine sorts, and reckons them up to be one hundred and ninety five in the whole:
every bird of every sort, or "bird of every wing" (k), let their wings be what they will; some, as Ainsworth observes, are winged with feathers, others with skin, as bats.
(k) "omnes aves cujuscunque alae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schmidt.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain It rained without intermission or abatement, forty days and…
It rained without intermission or abatement, forty days and forty nights - And that upon the whole earth at once.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 12. The rain was upon the earth] Dr.…
Verse 12. The rain was upon the earth] Dr. Lightfoot supposes that the rain began on the 18th day of the second month, or Marcheshvan, and that it ceased on the 28th of the third month, Cisleu.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gen 7:12. Forty days and forty nights — By…
Gen 7:12. Forty days and forty nights — By proceeding in this gradual way, God, it is hoped, both awakened many to repentance, and gave them space for it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.