10. Noah begat three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11. But the earth was corrupted in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with wickedness. 12. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had perverted its way on the earth. 13. And God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; and behold, I will destroy them from the earth.

The four verses in this section are an almost literal repetition of the above in verses V:32; VI:5–7. But this should not confuse anyone: since in verse 9 of this chapter, as we have noted, a new history began, the story of Noah and the flood, which originally formed a special and independent narrative, such a repetition is more than natural; and the surprising coincidence in content is only a new proof of the truth of the very events that are the subject of the narratives under consideration.

"The end of all flesh has come before the face..." Many commentators, not without reason, have suggested that this refers to the end of the one hundred and twenty-year period which God appointed for the repentance of men, and during which he waited in vain for their correction (1 Peter III:19-20 [410]; 2 Peter III:9-15 [411]).

14. His building of the ark.

14. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; Thou shalt make compartments in the ark, and tar it with pitch within and without.

"Make thee an ark of gopher wood..." In the Hebrew text this "ark" is designated by the term theba, which is again applied in the Bible to the basket in which Moses was saved (Exodus II:5); from which it is false to think that Noah's ark of colossal size is a type of such a primitive structure. The gopher tree itself, from which the ark was built, belongs to the species of light, resinous trees, like cedar or cypress (Exodus XXVII:1; XXX:1). In the construction of the wooden ark, where the primitive world, in the person of its representatives, escaped destruction from the water element, the Church Fathers see a symbolic indication of the tree of the cross and the water of baptism, by means of which New Testament mankind finds its salvation.

"Make compartments in the ark..." Literally from Hebrew, "nests" (kinnim) or cages, apparently for the birds and beasts that Noah had divinely commanded to place in the ark.

15. And thou shalt make it thus: the length of the ark is three hundred cubits; And the breadth thereof is fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.

"The length of the ark is three hundred cubits; its breadth..." We still cannot get an accurate idea of the size and capacity of the ark from these testimonies, mainly because the cubit, as a measure of length, was not a stable metric value and its size allowed for strong fluctuations, as can be seen from the Holy Scriptures themselves (Num XXXV:4-5; 1 Kings VII:15 [412]; 2 Peter III:15 (???); Ezekiel XL:5 [413]; XLIII:13 [414]). In the opinion of Metrop. Philaret, the longitude of the ark inside it was about 500 feet, the width was 80 feet. and the height is 50 feet, with which the calculations of a French scientist are quite agreed, determining the length of the ark at 156 meters, the width at 26 meters, and the height at 16 meters. The capacity of such a structure, according to the calculations of specialists (e.g., Vice-Admiral Thevenar), was quite sufficient for its purpose, i.e., to accommodate Noah's family and a minimum number of all animal genera with a supply of annual food necessary for all.

16. And thou shalt make a hole in the ark, and bring it together at the top of the cubit, and make the door of the ark at its side; arrange in it the lower, second, and third (dwelling).

"And thou shalt make a hole in the ark... arrange in it the lower, second and third dwellings." The details of the construction of the ark further convince us that it was not at all like our modern ships, but rather resembled a large chest, or box, or huge houseboat, which had an almost flat roof (descending from the top only one foot) and was lit by a single, more or less significant window at the top of it. In 1609, a Dutch Mennonite, a certain Peter Jansen, built a special vessel on the type of an ark, only on a reduced scale, from which he was convinced by experience that, although such a ship was poorly adapted for navigation, it was much more spacious than any other ship (almost a full third) of another type with the same cubic volume.

17. And behold, I will bring a flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh that has the spirit of life under the heavens; everything that is on earth will lose its life.

"And behold, I will bring a flood of water upon the earth..." These words are for the first time definitely called the means or instrument of divine punishment over the primitive, corrupt world, which was the universal flood (Isaiah LIV:9 [415]).

"Everything that is on earth will lose its life..." Since the whole earth has become corrupt and filled with iniquities of those who dwell in it, all those who are guilty of its defilement perish in it, headed by the first and foremost of them, the people. However, this universal flood cannot be regarded as something like personal revenge on the part of God on man: no, it was a necessary consequence of the spiritual death of primitive, morally degenerate mankind. This humanity was an exceptional "flesh," as if it had lost its soul forever and represented a decaying corpse, the further preservation of which would not only be useless, but also positively harmful to the spiritual and moral atmosphere of the world. And so, the first world perishes in the waves of the flood in order to wash away the filth lying on it and begin to live on new (regenerated) principles.