3:6 overflowed. The antediluvian world (Greek kosmos, meaning “ordered system”) was “overflowed” (Greek katakluzo, a word used only here, but obviously related to kataklusmos, which was the Noahic cataclysm) with the primeval waters, both above and below the firmament (“the fountains of the deep” and “the windows of heaven”—see notes on Genesis 7) and perished (not annihilated but utterly devastated and transformed).

3:6 perished. The “perishing” of the “world that then was” is especially evidenced by the vast beds of fossils of plants and animals that have been preserved in the sedimentary rocks of the earth’s crust. These fossil beds have been misinterpreted by evolutionary scientists as a record of the evolution of life over many ages (despite the ubiquitous absence of any true transitional forms in these billions of fossils). What they really represent is the cataclysmic destruction of life in one age, at the time of the great Flood. Both sedimentary rocks and unhardened sediments have mostly been deposited under water, and they now cover most of the earth’s land surface, as well as ocean bottom surface. Furthermore, flood traditions somewhat similar to the Flood record in Genesis have been found among almost all nations and tribes of the earth. The genuine facts of science and history thoroughly support the Biblical account of the flood, while only willful ignorance can warrant the evolutionary interpretation of these evidences, and Peter said it would be so in the last days! Most important of all, of course, is the divinely inspired record in the Bible itself (Genesis 6–9), confirmed by Christ (Luke 17:26,27; Matthew 24:37-39), Peter and others that the Flood indeed was a worldwide cataclysm. That being the case, the fossil record (which is the main hope of the evolutionist) is mostly a record of the Flood, not of evolution.