Commentaire sur La Genèse 8:3

מקצה חמשים ומאת יום AFTER THE END OF ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DAYS they began to decrease: that was on the first day of Sivan. How so? The rains ceased to fall on the twenty-seventh day of Kislev — you have three days left in Kislev, and the 29 days of Tebeth make 32, and Shebat, Adar, Nisan and Eyar have together 118, making altogether 150.

וישובו המים מעל הארץ. The waters retreated from the earth's surface. The waters which had flooded the earth kept retreating towards the oceans. They decreased naturally, starting 150 days after the onset of the deluge.

וישבו המים..הלוך ושוב, this formulation described the gradual nature of the waters abating and the water level on the globe falling. The period this took corresponded to the 40+150 days described during which the waters rose, giving us a total of 340 days. When you add the 3 times 7 days which elapsed for the 3 missions of the raven and the pigeon respectively, you have a total of 361 days, very close to the 365 days described in the Torah as the period which elapsed from the onset of the rain until Noach left the ark. The beginning of the return to normal commenced on the second day of Sivan. As soon as the waters had peaked, they began to recede.

They began to diminish. We cannot say they were completely diminished on Sivan 1, as the waters continued diminishing until the 27th of the second month, when the earth became dry (v. 14). Rather, they now began to diminish.

וישיבו kehrten in die aufgeschlossene Tiefe, aus welcher sie gekommen, zurück. —

ויחסרו המים מקצה חמשים ומאת יום, “the waters decreased at the end of one hundred and fifty days.” This date was identical with the first day of the month of Sivan. The ark came to rest in the seventh month, the month of Sivan, counting from the month of Kislev which was the month during which the rains had ceased descending. The “seventh” month here could not have been the seventh month after the rains began to descend, as that would have been Iyar, seeing that it had commenced during the second month of the year, i.e. during Marcheshvan. If we were to assume that the Torah referred to the seventh month after the rains had begun, a count of 40 days of rain falling, plus 150 days of the waters continuing to rise, this would bring us only to the 17th day in Iyar. Clearly, we must allow for days during which the waters had begun to recede, else how could the ark come to rest anywhere, seeing that the Torah told us that at its highest, the waters were 15 cubits above the highest peaks on earth? If we accept our interpretation the ark would have come to rest on Arrarat on the sixteenth day after having risen to its highest level. That date had been in the tenth Av, not Ellul. When the Torah, in verse 5, speaks of the tenth month, on the tenth of which the highest peaks became visible once more. According to Rashi’s calculation forty days elapsed (verse 6) elapsed before Noach for the first time lifted the window at the top of the ark to dispatch the raven on its mission, which it did not really carry out. Apparently sixty days passed between the time when the highest peaks became visible until the surface of the earth was no longer covered with water. If we were to assume that the highest peaks had not become visible until the month of Ellul (the tenth month when commencing with Marcheshvan when the rains first descended) we would therefore have to conclude that the waters subsided at a rate of one cubit per four days, 15 cubits during the 60 days commencing with the highest peaks having become visible again. According to this calculation, the bottom of the ark had been in eleven cubits of water at one stage at least.
According to Rashi’s calculation we face the following problem: if as the Torah writes, (verse 6) Noach opened the window of the ark after forty days of it having come to rest on Arrarat and he sent the pigeon out more that 40 days after the ark had come to rest, how come that the pigeon did not find any place to park on? It surely should have been able to rest on some mountains slightly lower than Arrarat which was near there? Rashi was aware of this problem, and this is why he wrote on verse 6 that the highest peaks had become visible. According to my understanding we must assume that the mountain range of Arrarat at the time was not above the tree line, and that the tops of these trees were visible even earlier that the peaks themselves. Accordingly, we must understand the whole period as follows: the water level on earth began to recede after having constantly risen for 150 days. These days had come to an end on the first day of Sivan. On the seventeenth of that month the ark ran aground. Forty days after continuing receding of the water levels, Noach opened the window of the ark, i.e. on the tenth day of Tammuz. He immediately dispatched the raven. When after seven days the raven had not performed his mission, he sent out a pigeon. This was on the 17th day of Tammuz. The pigeon returned not having a place where to rest its feet. I venture to add on my own that we see an allusion to the dates of the beginning of the eventual destruction of the Temple which began on the seventeenth of Tammuz when the wall of Jerusalem was breached by the Romans. Israel- also known lovingly as יונה, pigeon, (Song of Songs 2,14) has never again found rest historically since that date when Noach’s pigeon could not find rest. Noach then waited another seven days to send out the pigeon again, and on that occasion it returned with a torn olive leaf in its beak, signaling that the earth was on the way to becoming normal again. This occurred in the month of Av, on the first of the month when the receding of the waters had come to an end. The next time the pigeon never returned having found it possible to live in freedom outside the confinements of the ark, seeing that the tops of the trees had become visible. This completed the 60 days it took from when the tips of the mountains to become visible as Rashi had stated. The month of Av was the tenth month, counting from when the rains first stated descending. All this is in accordance with what the Torah reported when it wrote that on the first day of the first month of the following year, the surface of the earth had become dry [though too soft to walk on without sinking into the ground. Ed.] I have found that Seder Olam, chapter 4 agrees with my explanation though it is worded differently. However, I find it difficult to understand that if as Rashi assumes the tops of the trees became visible before the peaks themselves had become visible why did the Torah write about the tops of the peaks being visible, instead of writing about the tops of the trees on them becoming visible? Even if we were to assume that only olive trees survived the deluge until that time as a result of what is written in verse 23, something that might be understood as the result of Rashi’s comment on that verse, [I fail to see how; Ed.] our author, bases himself on the tradition that Noach must have taken branches of fruit trees into the ark, else how could he have planted a vineyard, this was as he did not assume that any trees would survive. If indeed a single tree survived, the day on which this became evident was hardly worth a special mention. Regardless of all this, why would only the olive tree be the one surviving the deluge? If you were to answer that this was because in the future this tree and its fruit would be a basic necessity for the Jewish people in the Temple service, the same argument would be true also of the vines in the vineyard, whose fruit featured equally in the Temple service; so why did Noach have to take a branch with him into the ark instead of relying on some vines to survive the deluge? We would have to answer that the fruit of the vine was sufficient for Noach as a sample with which to start a vineyard, whereas a branch of an olive tree would dry out during the year in the ark so that it could not be revived when Noach came out of the ark.

ויחסרו המים, “the waters diminished;” according to Rashi, this process began 150 days after the outbreak of the deluge, on the first day of the month of Sivan. Rashi arrives at this calculation from the Torah’s report that the deluge (rains) began on the 17th day of the second month (Cheshvan) the rains which lasted for 40 days having stopped falling on the 27th day of Kislev. It is reasonable to assume that according to Rashi’s calculation no rain fell on the 28th of Kislev, so that day was already one of the 150 days during which the water level on the earth kept rising without additional rainfall. On the other hand, when the Torah had written in verse 12 of chapter 7 that the rainfall persisted for 40 days, the impression given is that the twenty eighth day of Kislev was still a rainy day, as Rashi specifically states that the first day mentioned in the Torah did not count, as the rain had started during the daylight hours, i.e. long after the day had already commenced. The Torah describes the sky as breaking open during the daylight hours. According to this calculation the rains would only have stopped during the 28th of Kislev. We are forced therefore to understand Rashi’s words as follows: “the first day of rainfall mentioned is the Torah is not to be considered as a “day” in the same sense as all the other days, seeing that all the other “days” mentioned included the preceding night; this day did not include the preceding night.”When you follow this approach you can understand Rashi’s saying that the 17th of Cheshvan was the first day on which rain fell and continued falling for 40 days. There were 12 days left in that month, followed by 27 days in the month of Kislev, all of which included the preceding nights until daybreak on the 28th day of Kislev. This tallies with what the Torah wrote: “The rain (came down) onto the earth for 40 days and forty nights.” (7,12) When the Torah referred to 150 days, these days do not need to include the preceding nights, as the Torah itself states: “it was at the end of 150 days.”(8,3). In other words: from daybreak on the 28th of Kislev until nightfall on the first day of Sivan. If you wish to count the 150 days as whole days including the preceding nights, you would have to count from the morning of the 28th of Kislev until the morning until the morning of the first day of Sivan, giving you a total of 150 days and 150 nights. Even if you were to deduct the night of the 28th of Kislev according to Rashiג something irrelevant to the descent of rain for 40 days, the first of Sivan as the seventh month the first of Sivan, as stated in the Torah, would still be the beginning of the seventh month after the beginning of the deluge. [The significance of the number “seven” as a number signaling beneficial developments is most important in Judaism, Ed.] The reason why the manner in which the Torah reported these details is significant is because if we were to start the count of the deluge (40 days of rainfall) from Cheshvan, the ark would not have come to rest on Mount Arrarat on the seventeenth of the seventh month (Sivan) from the daylight period of the seventeenth, but on the eighteenth. Our author demonstrates how this would have contradicted other dates mentioned later in the account of the gradual abating of the waters. The most important date mentioned is that on which the ark came to rest on solid ground, the first day of the first month of the 601st year of Noach’s life, i.e. on New Year’s day according to the Jewish calendar. It signaled a new and more propitious beginning in the history of mankind. On that day the waters had dried from the surface of the earth. [as distinct from “dry” as opposed to “muddy.” Ed.]

On Kislev 27 the rains ceased. You might ask: Did Rashi not say before (7:12) that they ceased on Kislev 28? The answer is: There, Rashi explained that they ceased on Kislev 28 because the first day did not count in the forty days of rain. It did not count because its [preceding] night did not have rain. For it says (7:11), “On that day, all the wellsprings... burst open.” This means at daytime, not at night. Nevertheless, it was considered a [half] day. Thus, Marcheshvan counted for twelve full days and one [half] day, and Kislev counted for twenty-seven full days. And the rain did not cease until the morning of the 28th. So the last night, when added to the first day, completed the forty full days. Thus it could be said that the rains ceased on Kislev 28, as they still fell on its [preceding] night. And it could be said that the rains ceased on Kislev 27, because in the daytime of the 28th there was no rain.

Which accounts for three days in Kislev. This counts the following night. Also the 29 days of Teves counts the following night.