In the days of Noah this God showed his ability to destroy a whole world of mankind with one stroke, one “act of God” that was not an accident. Long previous, on the second day of His creative week, he caused a division of the waters so that great masses of water were suspended in space all around the globe, with an atmospheric expanse, or “firmament,” in between. (Gen. 1:6-8, AV) At his appointed time He caused those suspended waters to drop earthward. This produced a global cataclysm that drowned all earth’s human population except the eight human souls in Noah’s ark.​—1 Pet. 3:20.

That this meant a world destruction, the apostle Peter emphasizes again when he adds: “And by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water.”​—2 Pet. 2:5; 3:6.