THE development of sin, after the fall of our first parents, was such that God determined to sweep the offending race from the face of the earth by a mighty deluge. This was consummated sixteen hundred and-fifty-six years after the creation of Adam, or two thousand two hundred and sixty-two years by the chronology of the Septuagint. The Bible contains the only historical record of this great event; but traditions, said to be found in almost all parts of the world, confirm the fact that a destructive deluge once occurred. It is hard to account for the universality and similarity of these traditions, supposing them to exist, without granting them an historical basis. Cuneiform inscriptions on clay tablets in Assyria and at Babylon corroborate the Mosaic account.
The object of the flood was to destroy the race of Adam. It was the wickedness of ” the Adamite ” that God saw was great in the earth,” and “it repented God that he had made the Adamite on the earth.”
“And the Lord said, I will destroy the Adamite whom I have created from the face of the earth.” I give here the translation “the Adamite,” instead of “man,” for, whether “ha-Adam” can generally be translated “the Adamite” or not, it is plain that in these two texts it refers to the descendants of Adam.
To perpetuate the race God resolved to save Noah and his family. This pious patriarch is described as “a just man and perfect in his generations” that is, in his genealogy: his family history proved him to be of unmixed blood running back to Adam.