Genesis 7:12

12 The rain continued to fall for 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 After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth.

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

12 The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.

13 That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives.

14 With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind.