Deluge

“ The transporting power of the greatest deluge which can be imagined sinks into insignificance beside that of the slowly floating, slowly melting iceberg, or the glacier creeping along at its snail's pace of a yard a day. ”

“ At length came the greater curse of the Flood, which destroyed paradise and the whole human race, and swept them from the face of the earth. For if at this day rivers, bursting their banks, inflict by their floods such mighty calamities on men, beasts and fields, what must we suppose to have been the awfulness and horror of the calamities brought upon the earth by the universal Deluge! ”

“ If the statesman watches wind and tide only that his own bark may ride through the storm in safety, while every fresh wave sweeps a landmark away, it is evident that, sooner or later, the deluge must come. ”

“ Forests, fields, houses, human beings, at times take on an ocherous hue, as if the world were dead; and [Pg 245] when a rain falls, it is a deluge of fire from a sky of brass. And sometimes, the cloud-burst will be like a rain of blood, and the whole earth will glow with the most brilliant crimson hue. ”

“ In the midst of the deluge, they raise the cry of fire; when wasting of famine, they hold out to us the terrors of repletion; when sinking from atrophy on the way-side, they strive to terrify us by the dangers of apoplexy. ”

“ It is an ether myth. The attempt to explain the existence of the world on the basis of an ether myth was not uncommon. The deluge was not the last of these destructions. Some races supposed a great fire to have swept over the earth and to have destroyed all save a few who hid themselves in caves."
4. We may understand the basis of the deluge story to be a legend transmitting historical memories which, though mythical and colored, have still the fate of actual men as their subject — an historical origin.
This is the view advanced by Delitzsch. [3]
5. ”

“ The waters of the Deluge are all here, and not a drop lost. Around us, above, below, are the elements whence have proceeded the innumerable millions of men who have trodden the earth, before and since the Deluge. ”

“ The various deluge stories must be viewed in combination and explained on a common principle. What was the original significance of the non-biblical stories ? Not merely an annual recurring river flood such as those of the Euphrates, for the phenomenal basis of myths must be something striking and wonderful as well as frequently recurring. The phenomena of the sky and especially of the sun are daily miracles. The deluge of these stories has been transferred from the skies to the earth. ”

“ Opposite, ‘in darkness visible,’ hangs the famous landscape of the Deluge by the same master-hand, a leaden weight on the walls with the ark ‘hulling’ on the distant flood, the sun labouring, wan and faint, up the sky, and the heavens, ‘blind with rain,’ pouring down their total cisterns on the weltering earth. Men and women and different animals are struggling with the wide-spread desolation ”

“ Until the deluge all nature had been exceedingly hardy and vigorous, but by that vast flood of water which God had spread out over the earth, and by its long abiding there, all saps were diluted; the air, charged with too dense and heavy a moisture, bred ranker principles of corruption. ”

“ Nevertheless there died in the deluge none of those mentioned in the sacred Scripture as descended from Seth. But here is the divine account of the cause of the deluge: “The Lord God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ”

“ But as I have all along insisted, that no Storm since the Universal Deluge was like this, either in its Violence or its Duration, so I must also confirm it as to the particular of its prodigious Extent.
All the Storms and Tempests we have heard of in the World, have been Gusts or Squauls of Wind that have been carried on in their proper Channels, and have spent their Force in a shorter space. ”

“ Yes, men say,—and especially orientals, in whose climate the destructive agencies often run riot; but there is a dire disorder, and the disorder triumphs. Who knows the pathway of the storms, the earthquakes, the lava floods, the drought, and the deluge? who knows and rules their times? ”

“ The deluge is a mythical presentation of creation. Cheyne, the writer on this subject in the Encyclopædia Britannica, presents this view in the following language: "The story of the deluge is a subdivision of the primitive man's cosmogony. The problem with which he had to deal was a complicated one — given the eternity of matter to account for the origin of the world. The best solution which presented itself was to represent creation as having taken place repeatedly, and the world as having passed through a series of demolitions and reconstructions. ”

“ When the light brightened they could see below them the angry water, creeping every instant closer to their places of refuge, beaten into foam by the terrible downpour, and sometimes, moved by a mysterious impulse, rising in sweeping waves which threatened to carry everything before them.
Every few minutes one of the great structures would sway, crack, crumble, and go down into the seething flood, the cries of the lost souls being swallowed up in the thunder of the fall. ”

“ Why the earth was at first so constituted that the deluge should be rendered necessary—why the earth could not have been at first stored with all those substances and endued with all those properties which seemed to have proceeded from the deluge—why so many beings were created, as it appears, for the purpose of being destroyed—are questions which I presume not to answer. ”

“ When we examine the numerous accounts of a deluge among different nations in almost every part of the world, we can easily perceive that they do not refer to one single historical event, but to a natural phenomenon repeated every year, namely, the deluge or flood of the rainy season or the winter. ”

“ The universal tradition of a deluge is most naturally accounted for by admitting that there was a 'universal deluge.' But 'universal' does not apply to the extent as embracing the whole earth, but as affecting the small area then inhabited—an area which was probably not greater than the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris. ”

“ Even the elements when out of order can do but little toward perfecting destruction. A deluge is wanted—or that crash of doom which, whether it is to come or not, is believed by the world to be very distant. ”

“ From that moment the darkened clouds of the impending storm began to close in and gather to a head, till they burst with all the fury of an irresistible tempest, and deluged the land with torrents of blood. ”

“ If there is any country where we should think it likely that the reminiscences of the Deluge would be effaced, it would be in a country periodically subject to inundations, where the people are annually made familiar with its incidents, and where its recurrence is not to them a cause of alarm, but a matter of expectation and joy. ”

“ And if you choose to say that it was the deluge which carried these shells away from the sea for hundreds of miles, this cannot have happened, since that deluge was caused by rain; because rain naturally forces the rivers to rush towards the sea with all the things they carry with them, and not to bear the dead things of the sea shores to the mountains. ”

“ You receive pleasure from various literatures, and from considering those points of character by which nations and men are distinguished; hence, as I think, The Deluge will give you some mental enjoyment, and perhaps turn your attention to a new field of history. ”

“ Wickedness, punishment for wickedness, a great storm or deluge, the destruction of humanity, the deliverance of a few, the adoption of these few as special favorites of the God or gods, — these general ideas are found everywhere. ”

“ Now let Utnapishtim and his wife be like gods—even like us;
204. Let Utnapishtim dwell afar off at the mouth of the rivers!”
205. He took me and caused me to dwell afar off at the mouth of the rivers.
2. Comparison with Genesis 6-9.
The above account of the deluge so closely resembles that in the Bible (Gen. 6:9-9:19) , that nearly all scholars recognize that they are two versions of the same narrative. [399] In each case there is a divine revelation to the hero of the deluge that a catastrophe is coming of which every one else is ignorant. ”

“ Sinking and sinking in his self-insufficiency, he now listened to the wind howling round the house, the storm that had lasted for days, and he seemed to hear voices that came moaning up over the wide heath, as though the wind were alive, as though the storm were a soul, as though it concealed weeping souls, complaining souls, and were their one manifestation: souls blowing up again and again, souls which now, in the night, tapped with soul-fingers at the trembling panes. ”

“ Light from the darkness doth thy hand unfold:
Beauty from dust we in thy deeds behold:
The frail, the dimmed, the withered, worn and old
Thy breath dissolves, that they may shine anew.
The city flames, and melts the tottering wall;
Again she rises fairer for the fall.
Thou beckonest back the flood! and at thy call,
From crust-capped mounts, volcanic splendors pour.
The absent sun his way to morning bends;
The waning star to thy command attends,
Fills out and burns; and man to dust descends,
In hope to live, when thou shalt be no more. ”

“ The flood, and swallowed up the fallow waves,
The struggling sea—the abyss devoured it all. 1590
Yet not the waves alone it swallowed up;
But fourteen men, worst caitiffs of the throng,
Went headlong to destruction with the flood
Under the yawning earth. Then sore afraid
Was many a heart at that calamity;
They feared the slaughter both of men and wives,
A yet more wretched season of distress,
When once those sin-stained cruel murderers,
Those warriors fierce, plunged headlong down the abyss. ”

“ Nothing can describe the appalling crash of the storm wind, rain and thunder in one moment, the roar of the furious sea, the swaying of the ground, the shrieks of the people, who thought death here at every instant. ”

“ I am come into a part void of all light, which bellows like the sea in tempest when it is combated by warring winds. The hellish [311] storm, which never rests, leads the spirits with its sweep; whirling and smiting, it vexes them. When they arrive before the ruin, there the shrieks, the moanings, and the lamentation; there they blaspheme the divine power. ”

“ Far and wide nothing was visible in the white glare through the haze of dust that drove before a screaming gale but tumbled masses of earth and heaps of inchoate ruins, no trees, no houses, no familiar shapes, only a wilderness of disorder, vanishing at last into the darkness beneath the whirling columns and streamers, the lightnings and thunderings of a swiftly rising storm. ”

“ We may have to face storm and cloud, and 'neither sun nor stars may appear'; we may have to fling out the best anchors we can find, if haply they may hold on anything, and may wearily 'wish for the day.' But 'the Lord sitteth upon the flood,' and in the thickest of the night, when we lift our wearied eyes, we shall see Him coming to us across the storm, and the surges smoothing themselves to rest for His pavement, and the waves subside into their caves at His voice. ”

“ For instance, when they heard the awful roar of thunder, and saw vivid flashes of lightning, accompanied by black clouds and torrents of rain, they believed that the great god of heaven was angry, and they trembled at his wrath. If the calm and tranquil sea became suddenly agitated, and the crested billows rose mountains high, dashing furiously against the rocks, and threatening destruction to all within their reach, the sea-god was supposed to be in a furious rage. ”

“ Wherever they have passed wreck and ruin lie behind; but they rush on, till the storm dies away, and they sink down exhausted to their home in the sea. Sometimes in the calm green waters below they find the bodies of those they have drowned in their frenzy, but they know them not; for all that they did when the spirit of the storm was upon them they forget, and it passes from their minds as a dream dies at break of day. ”

“ Suddenly, amid a terrific peal of thunder, a quivering mass of fire crashed down amid our ranks, shaking the earth beneath and the air around us. Horror made us fall upon our knees, every animal hid its head in the earth, and the fearful tumult roared into our ears the judgment of a mighty God. ”

“ That storm will some day burst upon you, you cursed off-scourings, and it will disperse you to the ends of the earth, you scabs on the body of the people—the people from whom you, yourselves are descended. ”

“ Waves are warmth, and storms are shelter, In the upper heaven of love. XVIII Fierce the flood, and wild the danger; Yet the noble desert-ranger Flinches not, nor flags, before He hath brought them safe ashore. Lives there man, who would have striven, Reckless thus of storm and sword ”

“ The hoarse thunder sudden roar’d,
And in many a furious shower
The clear rain-drops downward pour’d;
The fierce lightning frequent glared.
By the ruthless tempest scared,
In an agony of dread,
From the grove my Morvyth fled!
Beaked flame! dread living thunder,
Rending lovers’ hearts asunder ”

“ Let the elm by the road feel a shock to the core,
Lean forward, and totter at the will of the storm!
Let the heights of the rock roll the avalanche down,
Let the torrents rave hoarse, and in night's murky frown
Let old Chaos appear in its primitive form! ”

“ The storm comes, the waters rise, the winds howl, the hail and the rain 'sweep away the refuge of lies,' and the dwellers in these frail and foundationless houses are hurrying in wild confusion from one peak to another, before the steadily rising tide. ”

“ When the storm Is once entangled in this strait of ours, It rages like some savage beast of prey, Struggling against its cage's iron bars. Howling, it seeks an outlet—all in vain; For the rocks hedge it round on every side, Walling the narrow pass as high as heaven. ”