Tebel is the third important Hebrew word that surrounds the flood story. As noted previously, the flood account of Genesis 6 uses only the words kol erets when speaking of the flood.
Tebel occurs some 37 times in the Old Testament. When the word tebel is found, it can properly be translated to mean the entire world. The facinating aspect of tebel is that it is never used once to describe the flood of Noah. In fact, kol erets which is used exclusivly to describe the flood of Noah in Genesis 6 signifies a local area in over 80% of the times it is used in the Old Testment. If we just work with percentages and look at the context of the flood story, then perhaps Moses (the author of Genesis) is trying to say that the flood was indeed local or regionl in nature.
Next time, I will consider other passages outside of Genesis 6 that some say refer to the flood of Noah.
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