Genesis 8:3

3 The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the waters had decreased significantly.

Genesis 8:3 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 8:3

And the waters returned from off the earth continually,
&c.] Or "going and returning" F19; they went off from the earth, and returned to their proper places appointed for them; some were dried up by the wind, and exhaled by the sun into the air: and others returned to their channels and cavities in the earth, or soaked into it:

and after the end of the hundred and fifty days, the waters were
abated;
or began to abate, as Jarchi and the Vulgate Latin version; which days are to be reckoned from the beginning of the flood, including the forty days' rain; though Jarchi reckons them from the time of the ceasing of it; so that there were from the beginning of the flood one hundred and ninety days; six months, and ten days of the year of the flood now past; and in this he is followed by Dr. Lightfoot F20: but the former reckoning seems best, and agrees better with what follows.


FOOTNOTES:

F19 (bwvw Kwlh) , "eundo et redeundo", Pagninus, Montanus.
F20 Works, vol. 1. p. 6.

Genesis 8:3 In-Context

1 God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside.
2 The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky stopped.
3 The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the waters had decreased significantly.
4 The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.