The verse continues saying...

The verse continues saying: “…And the deluge overtook them while they were unjust.” And thus the length of their disgraceful life ended and their castles, palaces, and dead bodies were buried under the waves of flood.

The application of ‘a thousand years save fifty years’ in the verse, while it could say 950 years from the beginning, refers to the greatness and length of this time, because the figure ‘one thousand’ which is used in the form of ‘a thousand years’ for ‘the length of the time of propagation’ is counted a very enormous figure: The apparent of the above verse shows that this amount was not the whole lifetime of Noah, though the present Torah has mentioned this figure for the entire lifetime of Noah[^1], but he lived another length of time after Flood either, and according to some commentators this time was three hundred years.

Of course, this long lifetime comparing the usual life times of our age is very long and it does not seem natural. It is probable that the length of lifetime in those days was different from that of today. Some documents indicate that, in principle, the people of Noah had a long lifetime and, in this course, Noah had also been extraordinary. However, this shows that the man’s structure lets him have a long lifetime.

The studies of the scientists show today that man’s lifetime has not a fix and determined restriction. Some people consider it as limited to 120 years, or less and more than that which is completely baseless, and with the change of conditions it may vary. Now, by some experiences, scientists could prolong the lifetime of some plants, or some other living creatures, to twelve times of their ordinary lifetime, and in some instances, if you do not wonder, to nine hundred times.

If they succeed they can increase the man’s lifetime with the same criterion, and man may live thousands of years.[^2] By the way, it must be noted that the Arabic word /tufan/ originally means any event that surrounds man. (It derives from Tawaf). Then it has been used for abundant water, or a strong flood which covers a vast land and overtakes it, and also it has been used for any thing that is severe, much, and stretched, irrespective of wind, fire, and water.

Sometimes it has also been used in the sense of severe darkness of the night.[^3] It is interesting that the holy verse says: /wa hum zalimun/ (while they were unjust) which means: at the time of the occurrence of the flood, they were going on their injustice.