Genesis 8:1-19

The Flood Recedes

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^[a] 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.^[b]

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.

6 After 40 days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made,

7 and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth.

8 Then he sent out a dove to see whether the water on the earth's surface had gone down,

9 but the dove found no resting place for her foot. She returned to him in the ark because water covered the surface of the whole earth. He reached out and brought her into the ark to himself.

10 So Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove from the ark again.

11 When the dove came to him at evening, there was a plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew that the water on the earth's surface had gone down.

12 After he had waited another seven days, he sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again.

13 In the six hundred and first year,^[c] in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water [that had covered] the earth was dried up. Then Noah removed the ark's cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.

14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry.

The Lord's Promise

15 Then God spoke to Noah,

16 "Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you.

17 Bring out every living thing of all flesh that is with you-birds, livestock, creatures that crawl on the ground-and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth."

18 So Noah, along with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, came out.

19 All wildlife, all livestock, every bird, and every creature that crawls on the earth came out of the ark by their groups.

Genesis 8:1-19 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 8

This chapter gives an account of the going off of the waters from the earth, and of the entire deliverance of Noah, and those with him in the ark, from the flood, when all the rest were destroyed: after an one hundred and fifty days a wind is sent over the earth, the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven are stopped, the waters go off gradually, and the ark rests on Mount Ararat, Ge 8:1-4 two months and thirteen days after that the tops of the mountains were seen, Ge 8:5 and forty days after the appearance of them, Noah sent forth first a raven, and then a dove, and that a second time, to know more of the abatement of the waters, Ge 8:6-12. When Noah had been in the ark ten months and thirteen days, he uncovered it, and the earth was dry, yet not so dry as to be fit for him to go out upon, until near two months after, Ge 8:13,14 when he had an order from God to go out of the ark, with all that were with him, which was accordingly obeyed, Ge 8:15-19 upon which he offered sacrifice by way of thankfulness for his great deliverance, which was accepted by the Lord; who promised him not to curse the earth any more, nor to drown it, but that it should remain, and as long as it did there would be the constant revolutions of the seasons of the year, and of day and night, Ge 8:20-22.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or spirit; Gn 1:2
• [b]. Turkey or Armenia
• [c]. Dating from the birth of Noah