Genesis 8:2

2 Also ¹the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and ²the rain from the sky was restrained;

Genesis 8:2 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 8:2

The fountains also of the deep, and the windows of heaven,
were stopped
The passages which let out the subterraneous waters in great quantity upon the earth, and the clouds of heaven, which poured down water upon it like spouts, were stopped from sending forth any more, as they had from the first of the flood unto one hundred and fifty days from thence: Jarchi observes, that it is not said that "all" the fountains of the deep, as when they were broken up, ( Genesis 7:11 ) because some of them were left open for the use and benefit of the world; besides, some must be left for the return of the waters: and the rain from heaven was restrained:
which seems to confirm what has been before observed, that after the rain of forty days and nights it ceased not to rain, more or less, though not so vehemently, until the end of an hundred and fifty days, and then it entirely ceased.

Genesis 8:2 In-Context

1 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.

2 Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained;

3 and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.

4 In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.

5 The water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.

Cross References

• 1. Genesis 7:11
• 2. Genesis 7:4, 12

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "windows of the heavens"