Genesis 7:12

12 And there was rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Genesis 7:12 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 7:12

And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights,
&c.] So long it was falling upon it, after the windows of heaven were opened. Aben Ezra would have it, that all things were in such confusion, during the flood, that there was no difference between day and night, since, it is said, "day and night shall not cease any more"; and that after the waters ceased, then Noah knew that forty days and nights had passed, for God had revealed this secret to him; but the text seems more to make against him than for him.

Genesis 7:12 In-Context

10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

12 And there was rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

13 In that same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered into the ark,

14 they and every animal after its kind and all the beasts after their kind and every creeping thing that moves upon the earth after its kind and every fowl after its kind, every bird, every thing with wings.