(27) They did eat, they drank.--Better, as in St. Matthew, they were eating and drinking, marrying, . . .; the tense throughout being that which implies continuous and repeated action.

The flood.--The Greek word is always used in the New Testament for the deluge of Noah, that meaning having been stamped on it by the use of it in the LXX. version in Genesis 6:17; Genesis 7:6-7; Genesis 7:10; Genesis 7:17.

17:20-37 The kingdom of God was among the Jews, or rather within some of them. It was a spiritual kingdom, set up in the heart by the power of Divine grace. Observe how it had been with sinners formerly, and in what state the judgments of God, which they had been warned of, found them. Here is shown what a dreadful surprise this destruction will be to the secure and sensual. Thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. When Christ came to destroy the Jewish nation by the Roman armies, that nation was found in such a state of false security as is here spoken of. In like manner, when Jesus Christ shall come to judge the world, sinners will be found altogether regardless; for in like manner the sinners of every age go on securely in their evil ways, and remember not their latter end. But wherever the wicked are, who are marked for eternal ruin, they shall be found by the judgments of God.They did eat, they drank,.... That is, the inhabitants of the old world ate and drank, not merely in a common way, with moderation, and for the support and comfort of life, which is not blameworthy, nor inconsistent with religious exercises; but they lived in an extravagant and luxurious manner; they indulged their sensual appetites, and put away the evil day far from them, that Noah told them of:

they married wives, they were given in marriage; not as should have been done by professors of religion among themselves; but the sons of God, or professors of the true religion, the posterity of Seth took them wives of the daughters of men, of the wicked, of the seed of Cain; and very likely gave their daughters in marriage to the sons of men; see Genesis 6:2 and so they went on in a secure manner, notwithstanding all the remonstrances, warnings, and threatenings of God, by his servant:

until the day that Noe entered into the ark; which he had built by divine direction, for the saving of himself and family, and the creatures that were with him, from the waters of the flood; and this was in the six hundredth year of his life, in the second month, the month of October, and in the seventeenth day of that month; Genesis 7:11

and the flood came and destroyed them all; all the inhabitants of the earth, every living substance, men, cattle, creeping things, and fowls of the heaven; all but Noah, and his wife, and his three sons, and their wives, and the creatures that were with him in the ark: the flood came not of itself, or by chance, or through the influence, or by the concurrence of second causes merely; though these were used, ordered, and directed by the first cause of all things; but it came by the power of God, according to his will; he brought it on the world of the ungodly; see 2 Peter 2:5 The mode of expression is Jewish; it is said of Cain, who is supposed by the Jews to have lived till the flood, , "the flood came", and washed him away (g).

(g) Bereshit Rabba, sect. 32. fol. 27. 2. & Shemot Rabba, sect. 31. fol. 134. 4.