18 The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface. 19 The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered 20 - the high water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains.
21 Everything died. Anything that moved - dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life - dead. And all people - dead. 22 Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died; 23 he wiped out the whole works - people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived. 24 The floodwaters took over for 150 days.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Genesis 7:18-24
Commentary on Genesis 7:17-20
(Read Genesis 7:17-20)
The flood was increasing forty days. The waters rose so high, that the tops of the highest mountains were overflowed more than twenty feet. There is no place on earth so high as to set men out of the reach of God's judgments. God's hand will find out all his enemies, Psalm 21:8. When the flood thus increased, Noah's ark was lifted up, and the waters which broke down every thing else, bore up the ark. That which to unbelievers betokens death unto death, to the faithful betokens life unto life.
Commentary on Genesis 7:21-24
(Read Genesis 7:21-24)
All the men, women, and children, that were in the world, excepting those in the ark, died. We may easily imagine what terror seized them. Our Saviour tells us, that till the very day that the flood came, they were eating and drinking, 2 Peter 2:5. How tremendous will be the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men! Happy they who are part of Christ's family, and safe with him as such; they may look forward without dismay, and rejoice that they shall triumph, when fire shall burn up the earth, and all that therein is. We are apt to suppose some favourable distinctions in our own case or character; but if we neglect, refuse, or abuse the salvation of Christ, we shall, notwithstanding such fancied advantages, be destroyed in the common ruin of an unbelieving world.