Genesis 8:3

3 And the waters retired from the earth, continually retiring; and in the course of a hundred and fifty days the waters abated.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Genesis 8:3 In-Context

1 And God remembered Noah, and all the animals, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

2 And the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed, and the pour of rain from heaven was stopped.

3 And the waters retired from the earth, continually retiring; and in the course of a hundred and fifty days the waters abated.

4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

5 And the waters abated continually until the tenth month: in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit. 'returned from the earth going and returning.'