“It was in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water began to dry from upon the earth; Noah removed the cover of the ark, and he saw, and behold, the surface of the ground had begun to dry” (Genesis 8:13). “It was in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month” – we learned: The judgment of the generation of the Flood lasted twelve months.51It began on the seventeenth day of the second month (Genesis 7:11), and ended on the twenty-seventh of the second month the following year (Genesis 8:14).
How [did it progress]? “In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month,52That being Marḥeshvan. on the seventeenth day of the month” (Genesis 7:11); and it is written: “The rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights” (Genesis 7:12) – that is [the remainder of] Marḥeshvan and [nearly all of] Kislev. “The water accumulated upon the earth for one hundred and fifty days” (Genesis 7:24) – that accounts for Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Nisan, and Iyar.53And the following day, at the beginning of Sivan, the water began to recede.
“The ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 8:4) – this refers to Sivan, which was the seventh [month counting] from the cessation of the rain.54It cannot be referring to Nisan, which is the actual seventh month counting from Rosh HaShana, because the accumulation continued into Iyar, as explained previously. For sixteen days the water receded, one cubit every four days,55The water began to recede on the first of Sivan, as explained previously, and reached ground level on the first of Av, as the Midrash mentions later, for a total of sixty days of recession.
The water was fifteen cubits deep (Genesis 7:20). The recession of the water, then, took place at the rate of one cubit per four days. being one and a half handbreadths per day.56There are six handbreadths in a cubit. You thus come to the conclusion that the ark was submerged eleven cubits into the water.57Since the water began receding on the first of Sivan, and the bottom of the ark touched ground sixteen days later, when the water had gone down to a height of eleven cubits.
And it [the water] receded completely over the course of sixty days. That is what is written: “The water gradually receded until the tenth month” (Genesis 8:5) – this is Av, which is the tenth [month counting] from the falling of the rain. Another interpretation:58The midrash is addressing the fact that Scripture states twice that the wetness dried up (8:13–14). “It was in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water began to dry from upon the earth” – it [the earth] became like a soaking wet object.
“And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth dried” (Genesis 8:14) – it became like completely dry land. They sowed it, but it did not grow anything. Why? Because it59The moisture in the ground. represented a curse,60The water in the soil, which was leftover from the Flood, was cursed water. and that which represents a curse cannot bring about blessing.
So they waited until rain fell, and they sowed [again]. The verse should have rather said: “And on the sixteenth day of the second month, the earth dried.”61That would have made the duration of the Flood exactly one year long, as it began on the seventeenth of the second month in the previous year. Why, then, does the verse state: And on the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth dried” (Genesis 8:14)?
These [extra days] were the eleven days that the solar year is longer than the lunar year.62A solar year is 365 days, whereas twelve lunar months add up to 354 days. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: Anyone who wishes to ascertain that the solar cycle is eleven days longer than the lunar cycle, let him make a scratch on the wall [where the sun reaches at a given time of day] during the season of Tamuz.63Summer The next year at the same time, the sun will not reach that point until eleven days later. From this you can ascertain that the solar cycle is eleven days longer than the lunar cycle.