The waters rose and covered the mountaintops to a depth of fifteen cubits.
We are here told, I. How long the flood was increasing - forty days, Gen 7:17. The profane world, who believed not that it would come, probably when it came flattered themselves with hopes that it would soon abate and never come to extremity; but still it increased, it prevailed. Note, 1. When God judges he will overcome.
Commenting on Genesis 7:17-20
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life,.... Whether of fowls, beast, cattle, or creeping things: of all that was in the dry land, died; by which description fishes were excepted, since they breathe not, having no lungs, and are not on the dry land, where they cannot live, but in the waters.
Fifteen cubits upward . . . and the mountains were covered--twenty-two and a half feet above the summits of the highest hills. The language is not consistent with the theory of a partial deluge.