Genesis 8:6-16

6 After forty days Noah opened a window

7 and sent out a raven. It did not come back, but kept flying around until the water was completely gone.

8 Meanwhile, Noah sent out a dove to see if the water had gone down,

9 but since the water still covered all the land, the dove did not find a place to light. It flew back to the boat, and Noah reached out and took it in.

10 He waited another seven days and sent out the dove again.

11 It returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water had gone down.

12 Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove once more; this time it did not come back.

13 When Noah was 601 years old, on the first day of the first month, the water was gone. Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked around, and saw that the ground was getting dry.

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

15 God said to Noah,

16 "Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives.

Genesis 8:6-16 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.