“Fear not,” said Falsehood, “I will spread the toils and thou shalt have the booty.”
So they went together to the ark, and Noah was unable to refuse them admission. And when the Flood was passed and the beasts went forth out of the ark, Falsehood said angrily, “I have done my work and have caused evil, but thou hast all the plunder; share with me.”
“Thou fool!” answered Injustice, “dost thou forget the agreement? Thine it is to spread the net, mine alone to take the spoil.”[[183]]
At the time of the Deluge the giants were not all drowned, for Og planted his foot upon the fountains of the great deep, and with his hands stopped the windows of heaven, or the water would have risen over his head. The Rabbi Eliezer[[184]] said that the giants exclaimed, when the Flood broke out, “If all the waters of the earth be gathered together, they will only reach our waists; but if the fountains of the great deep be broken up, we must stamp them down again.” And this they did, but God made the waters boiling hot, and it scalded them so that their flesh was boiled and fell off their bones.[[185]] But what became of Og in the Deluge we learn from the Talmud.[[186]] He went into the water along with a rhinoceros[[187]] beside the ark, and clung to it; now the water round the ark was cold, but all the rest was boiling hot. Thus he was saved alive, whereas the other giants perished.
According to another authority, Og climbed on the roof of the ark; and on Noah attempting to dislodge him, he swore that, if allowed to remain there, he and his posterity would be the slaves of the sons of Noah. Thereupon the patriarch yielded. He bored a hole in the side of the vessel, and passed through it every day the food necessary for the giant’s consumption.[[188]]
It is asserted by some Rabbinic writers that the Deluge did not overflow the land of Israel, but was partial; some say the Holy Land was alone left dry, and a rhinoceros had taken refuge on it and so escaped being drowned. But others say that the land of Israel was submerged, though all agree that the rhinoceros survived without having entered the ark. And they explain the escape of the rhinoceros in this manner. Its head was taken into the ark, and it swam behind the vessel. Now the rhinoceros is a very large animal, and could not be admitted into the ark lest it should swamp it. The Rabbi Jannai says, he saw a young rhinoceros of a day old, and it was as big as Mount Tabor; and Tabor’s dimensions are forty miles. Its neck was three miles long, and its head half a mile. It dropped dung, and the dung choked up Jordan. Other commentators object that the head was too large to be admitted into the ark, and suppose that only the tip of its nose was received. But as the ark swayed on the waters, Noah tied the horn of the rhinoceros to the side of the vessel, lest the beast’s nose should slip off in a lurch of the ark, and so the creature perish.
All this is from the Talmud.
Let us now turn to some of the Mussulman legends of Noah. His history is briefly related in the Koran, in the chapter entitled “Hud.”
“Noah built the ark with our assistance and that of the angels, following the knowledge we revealed to him, and we said to him: Speak no more in behalf of the sinners; they shall all be drowned.
“Whilst Noah was building his ark, all those who passed by mocked him; but he said to them: Though you rail at me now, the time will come when I shall rail at you; for you will learn to your cost, Who it is that punishes the wicked in this world, and reserves for them a further punishment in the world to come.”