Q: #44. Did it rain before the flood?
A: The answer appears to be no. The reason why we believe this is based on (Gen 2:5-6) which says, “and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. (6) But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”
In addition, in (Gen 9:12-17), we have God making a covenant promise with Noah that He would never again bring a flood to destroy the whole earth. The sign of this promise was a rainbow in the clouds. It seems logical to assume that if it had rained before the flood, they would have seen a rainbow in the clouds previously.
Can you imagine the ridicule Noah would have received for building an ark on dry land? And, when God said in (Gen 7:4) “I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights,” Noah must have been saying, “What is this rain stuff?”
For answers related to this topic, see:
Did man eat meat before the flood?
What do rainbows symbolize in the Bible?
Were there insects on Noah’s Ark?
Could Noah’s Ark really hold all of those animals?
