20 During the twenty-eighth jubilee [1324-72] Noah began to prescribe for his grandsons the ordinances and the commandments — every statute which he knew. He testified to his sons that they should do what is right, cover the shame of their bodies, bless the one who had created them, honor father and mother, love one another, and keep themselves from fornication, uncleanness, and from all injustice. 21 For it was on account of these three things that the flood was on the earth, since it was due to fornication that the Watchers had illicit intercourse — apart from the mandate of their authority — with women. When they married of them whomever they chose, they committed the first acts of uncleanness. 22 They fathered as their sons the Nephilim. They were all dissimilar from one another and would devour one another: the giant killed the Naphil; the Naphil killed the Elyo; the Elyo mankind; and people their fellows.

“AND IT CAME TO PASS AT THE END OF FORTY DAYS, THAT NOAH OPENED THE HALON [WINDOW] OF THE ARK.” This supports the view that it was a window [trapdoor]. “AND HE SENT FORTH A RAVEN (VIII, 7): thus it is written, ‘He sent darkness, and it was dark’ (Ps. cv, 28). AND IT WENT FORTH TO AND FRO (YAZO WASHOB). R. Judan said in the name of R. Judah b. R. Simon: ‘It began arguing with him: ‘Of all the birds that thou hast here, thou sendest none but me!’ ‘What need then has the world of thee?’ he retorted; ‘for food? for a sacrifice?’ R. Berekiah said in R. Abba's name: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him [Noah]: ‘Take it back, because the world will need it in the future.’ ‘When?’ he asked. ‘When the waters dry off from the earth.’ He replied: ‘A righteous man will arise and dry up the world, and I will cause him to have need of them [the ravens],’ as it is written, ‘And the ravens (’orbim) brought him bread and flesh, etc.’ (I Kings xvii, 6). R. Judah said: It refers to a town within the borders of Bashan called Arbo. R. Nehemiah said: ‘Ravens literally are meant, and whence did they bring him [food]? From Jehoshaphat's table.’ R. Akiba preached in Ginzak on the theme of the Flood, and the audience did not weep, but when he mentioned the story of the raven they wept. He then quoted this verse: ‘The womb (rehem) forgetteth him; the worm feedeth sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and unrighteousness is broken as a tree’ (Job xxiv, 20). ‘Rehem forgetteth’: They [the generation of the Flood] forgot to be merciful to their fellow men, therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, made His mercy forget them. ‘The worm feedeth sweetly on him’: the worm became sweet through [feeding on] them. ‘He shall be no more remembered, and unrighteousness is broken as a tree’: R. Aibu said: It is not written, ‘is uprooted’ but ‘is broken’: i.e. like something which is broken, yet produces another stock in exchange; and to what does that allude? To the generation of the Separation [of races].