"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 great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."
"And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, . . . in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried."
The interval from the commencement of the deluge to its close was therefore twelve lunar months and ten days; i. e. 364 or 365 days. The beginning of the rain would, no doubt, be sharply marked; the end of the drying would be gradual, and hence the selection of a day exactly (so far as we can tell) a full tropical year from the beginning of the flood would seem to be intentional. A complete year had been consumed by the judgment.
No such total interruption of the kindly succession of the seasons shall ever occur again:—
"While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."
The rain is no longer for judgment, but for blessing:—
"Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it,
Thou greatly enrichest it;
The river of God is full of water:
Thou providest them corn, when Thou hast so prepared the earth.
Thou waterest her furrows abundantly;
Thou settlest the ridges thereof:
Thou makest it soft with showers;
Thou blessest the springing thereof.
Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness."
FOOTNOTES:
[311:1] P. I. Hershon, Genesis with a Talmudical Commentary, p. 30.