The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.
Parallel translations
- WEB It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.
- KJV And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
- BSB And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
- NKJV And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
- NASB The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. The downpour matches God's earlier announcement.
Overview
The forty days and nights mark a sustained, overwhelming judgment, fulfilling exactly what God had said. The number forty recurs in Scripture as a period of testing and judgment. This relentless rain shows the thoroughness of God's righteous response to a world filled with violence.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Gen 7:4In seven days, I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will destroy every living thing that I have made from the surface of the ground.”
- Matt 4:2When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.
- Gen 7:17The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth.
- Deut 10:10I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights: and Yahweh listened to me that time also; Yahweh would not destroy you.
- Exod 24:18Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
- Deut 9:9When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.
- 1 Kgs 19:8He arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, God’s Mountain.
- Deut 9:18I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 7:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.