Does Genesis 7:6 chronologically follow Genesis 7:11?

Question

Genesis 7:5-12

5 And Noah did according to all that the LORD commanded him.6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth. 7 So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood.8 Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth,9 two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth.11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.12 And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

This is in relation to the question How can the 3 Questions be resolved with the math still correct?

Answer 1

I looked at your chronology charts from the other question to understand the context of your question here. There is certainly no linguistic or exegetical reason that v.6 could not be a "summary" statement about the age of Noah during the flood. Verse 6 simply states a fact:

Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.

He may have been 600 for most of that year, but to be a true statement, he only needed to be 600 but one day of that time in which the floodwaters were on the earth. Such a summary would technically be referring to something chronologically after the start of the flood when he was 599 years old "in the six hundredth year" of his life.

Further evidence that v.6 may be summary (chronologically after v.11) is that v.5 is also such a summary. God commanded Noah about loading the ark in vv.1-3, noting that in v.4 that in "seven days" the rain would come. Verse 5 then summarizes that Noah did this command, but the actual narrative of doing that command comes in vv.7-9 (and again in vv.13-16). So v.5 summarizes vv.7-9 and 13-16, and there is no reason to not see v.6 summarizing the entire flood event from its beginning in v.10-11 (after the seven days), up to such a time as the flood waters were abated.

To me, there seems to be good reason to see vv.5-6 as both being summarizations of Noah obeying God's command to enter the ark in light of the coming flood, and that such a flood did occur (as God promised) during the time Noah became 600 years old--which is the only birthday he passed while on the ark for just over a year, since it was while he was 600, in his 601st year that he exited (Gen 8:13-19). This singular birthday date may be why the 600 is mentioned in the summary.