📖 Biblical Definition
The Flood of Genesis 6-9 was God's catastrophic judgment upon a world filled with violence and corruption. "The LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth" (Genesis 6:7). Only Noah, a man who "found grace in the eyes of the LORD," and his family were preserved through the ark. The Flood demonstrates three truths: God judges sin, God preserves a remnant, and God establishes covenants. After the waters receded, God made a covenant with Noah, placing the rainbow as its sign (Genesis 9:13). Peter uses the Flood as a type of coming judgment: "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (2 Peter 3:6).
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
A great flow of water; an overflowing; an inundation. The Deluge in Noah's days.
expand to see more
FLOOD, n. [Sax. flod.] 1. A great flow of water; a body of moving water. 2. The Deluge; the great body of water which inundated the earth in the days of Noah. 3. A river; a stream. 4. A great quantity; an overflowing abundance. Note: Webster treated the Genesis Flood as historical fact, consistent with the universal understanding of English-speaking Christians in his era.
📖 Key Scripture
• Genesis 6:7 — "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth."
• Genesis 7:11 — "All the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."
• Genesis 9:13 — "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth."
• 2 Peter 3:5-7 — "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now... are reserved unto fire."
• Matthew 24:37-39 — "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
The Flood has been demoted from historical event to myth, allegory, or local flood.
expand to see more
Modern biblical scholarship, under pressure from uniformitarian geology, has systematically dismantled the historicity of the Genesis Flood. Some reduce it to a local Mesopotamian flood; others treat it as Hebrew mythology borrowed from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Even within evangelical circles, the Flood is increasingly treated as theological narrative rather than historical event. But Jesus Himself treated the Flood as literal history (Matthew 24:37-39), and Peter used it as a warning type of future judgment. If the Flood did not happen, then Christ was mistaken, Peter was deceived, and the rainbow covenant is meaningless. The dismissal of the Flood is not a minor interpretive adjustment — it is an assault on the reliability of Scripture, the words of Christ, and the doctrine of divine judgment.
Usage
• "The Flood was not a natural disaster — it was a divine judgment, the most severe in human history short of the final judgment to come."
• "Jesus treated the days of Noah as literal history and a pattern for the end times — to deny the Flood is to contradict Christ."
• "The rainbow is not a symbol of human pride — it is the covenant sign of a God who once destroyed the world and promised not to do so again by water."