All the Fountains of the Deep

Genesis 7:11 When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters (the great deep)erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.

Genesis 7:11 describes the primary physical causes for the Flood of Noah’s day, as well as the primary sources for the vast waters which covered the earth. The first source is very interesting from a geological point of view, and to grasp some semblance of its meaning is necessary if we would understand the Flood.

seventeenth day.The exact date of the Flood's onset must have been noted for some reason. The ark landed on the mountains of Ararat exactly 150 days or five months later (see Genesis 8:3,4). The implication is that the primeval year contained twelve months of thirty days each (see also Revelation 11:2, 3).

fountains of the great deep. The physical cause of the Flood is clearly identified as the eruption of the waters in the "great deep" and the opening of the floodgates of heaven. These are quite sufficient in themselves to cause and explain all the phenomena of the Flood. The antediluvian hydrologic cycle was apparently controlled by a system of subterranean pressurized reservoirs and conduits, but these fountains were all cleaved open in one day, releasing tremendous quantities of water and magma to the earth's surface and dust and gas into the atmosphere. The resulting combination of atmospheric turbulence and dust nuclei of condensation was probably the immediate cause of the precipitation of the vapor canopy. The cataclysmic restoration of the primeval deep that resulted left the antediluvian world completely devastated and inundated.

As the “deep” in Scripture usually refers to the ocean

Genesis 1:2The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters

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so the “great deep” which was “broken up” evidently speaks of great subterranean reservoirs or chambers deep inside the earth, all of which spewed forth their contents at the same time. This breakup continued all over the earth for 150 days

Genesis 7:24And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.

Genesis 8:2The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped.).

The reference to “broken up” merits attention, for it implies a wrenching of the earth’s crust, a great tectonic event. The same word that describe the supernatural opening up of a great pit into which the rebellious Korah and his followers and their families fell, thereby squelching their mutiny against Moses’s leadership.is used in:

Numbers 16:30-33 But if the Lord does something entirely new and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them and all their belongings, and they go down alive into the grave,[a] then you will know that these men have shown contempt for the Lord." He had hardly finished speaking the words when the ground suddenly split open beneath them.The earth opened its mouth and swallowed the men, along with their households and all their followers who were standing with them, and everything they owned. So they went down alive into the grave, along with all their belongings. The earth closed over them, and they all vanished from among the people of Israel.

Any such breaching of the earth’s crust results in earthquakes and if occurring under water, results in devastating tsunamis (sometimes called tidal waves) traveling through the water at speeds approaching the speed of sound. Continued pulsation of these fountains all over the earth for 150 days would totally restructure the surface of the earth, demonstrating God’s hatred for the sin of the antediluvian world. Coupled with the other factors involved in the flood, it is no wonder that

2 Peter 3:6“Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood.“.