The narrative here becomes more circumstantial than it has been in chapters four and five, for the Flood is the first event of crucial importance since the Creation and the beginnings of man upon earth (chapters one to three), of which Hebrew tradition told. The Flood marks the end of a past age and the beginning of a new one; it is thus an event in which the purposes of God may be expected to declare themselves with peculiar distinctness; and it is, accordingly, treated as the occasion of a great manifestation both of judgment (chapter 6) and of mercy (8:15 to 9:17). The Flood is a judgment upon a degenerate race: Noah, with his family, is delivered from it on account of his righteousness; as humanity starts upon its course afresh, new promises and new blessings are conferred upon it.—_The Book of Genesis_, _S. R. Driver_. What, then, is the purpose of inspiration? Is it to insure that we shall have clear and infallible information on certain questions of geology and astronomy, or on the way in which God created the heavens and the earth? Is it to keep us from mistakes about the history of Israel?... Surely not. God had no intention of giving us an encyclopedia of scientific knowledge, and thus depriving us of the discipline of acquiring such knowledge for ourselves.... Inspiration is concerned with what is to us of infinitely more importance—even the guidance of our conduct, the building up of noble characters for God. It has been well said that conduct forms three fourths of human life, and it is with these three fourths that the inspired writings have to do. Their inspiration therefore consists not so much in their infallible science or minutely accurate details of history, as in their teaching God’s will and God’s relation to men.... These writings concern themselves with the great moral and spiritual facts, duty, character, moral responsibility, the happiness that comes from harmony with the will of God. Their object is to teach the eternal contrast between Righteousness and Unrighteousness, Obedience and Disobedience, Selfishness and Self-sacrifice, Purity and Lust; to teach men that God is on the side of holiness and good, that his help and sympathy are near in the fierce fight with temptation, and that even when the fight is lost and the life defiled, there is a way back to holiness and God if men will but earnestly seek it.—_How God Inspired the Bible_, _J. Paterson Smyth_.