Albert Barnes Commentary Genesis 7:10-16

"And it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah`s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah`s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him: and Jehovah shut him in." — Genesis 7:10-16 (ASV)

The date is given here at which the flood began and the entrance into the ark was completed. In seven days. On the seventh day from the command. In the second month. The primeval year began around the autumnal equinox; we may say, on the nearest new moon. The rains began about a month or six weeks after the equinox and, consequently, not far from the seventeenth of the second month.

All the fountains of the great deep, and the windows of the skies. It appears that the deluge was produced by a gradual commotion of nature on a grand scale. The gathering clouds were dissolved into incessant showers. However, this by itself was not sufficient to cause the overwhelming desolation that followed.

The beautiful figure of the windows of the skies being opened is preceded by the equally striking one of the fountains of the great deep being broken up. This was the chief source of the flood. A change in the level of the land was accomplished.

That which had emerged from the waters on the third day of the last creation was now again submerged. The waters of the great deep now broke their bounds, flowed in on the sunken surface, and drowned the world of humankind, with all its inhabitants. The accompanying heavy rain of forty days and nights was, in reality, only a subsidiary instrument in the deluging of the land. We may imagine the sinking of the land to have been so gradual as to occupy the whole of these forty days of rain. There is an awful magnificence in this constant uplifting of the billows over the yielding land.

(Genesis 7:13–16)

There is a simple grandeur in the threefold description of the entrance of Noah and his retinue into the ark: first, in the command; next, in the actual process during the seven days; and lastly, in the completed act on the seventh day. Every living thing after its kind is here unaccompanied by the epithet רעה rā‛âh — evil, or the qualifying term “of the land” or “of the field,” and therefore, we understand, may be taken in the sense of (Genesis 6:20; Genesis 7:2–3, Genesis 7:6). In any case, all the wild animals did not need to be included in the ark, as their range was greater than that of antediluvian man or of the flood. And the Lord shut him in. This is a fitting close to the scene.

The whole work was manifestly the Lord’s doing, from first to last. The personal name of God is appropriately introduced here. For the Everlasting now shows Himself to be the one who causes and brings about the covenant blessing promised to Noah. In what way the Lord shut him in is an idle question, altogether unworthy of the grandeur of the occasion. We can tell nothing more than what is written. We are certain that it would be accomplished in a manner worthy of Him.