Genesis 8:1-19

The Ark Rests on Ararat

1 But God remembered Noah and all the animals and livestock that were with him in the ark. And God sent a wind over the earth, and the waters began to subside.

2 The springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.

3 The waters receded steadily from the earth, and after 150 days the waters had gone down.

4 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

5 And the waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

Noah Sends a Raven and a Dove

6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark

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

8 Then Noah sent out ^[a] a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.

9 But the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him in the ark, because the waters were still covering the surface of all the earth. So he reached out his hand and brought her back inside the ark.

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

11 And behold, the dove returned to him in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.

12 And Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but this time she did not return to him.

Exiting the Ark

13 In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth. So Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.

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

15 Then God said to Noah,

16 “Come out of the ark, you and your wife, along with your sons and their wives.

17 Bring out all the living creatures that are with you—birds, livestock, and everything that crawls upon the ground—so that they can spread out over the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it.”

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

19 Every living creature, every creeping thing, and every bird—everything that moves upon the earth—came out of the ark, kind by kind.

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]. Literally sent out from him or sent out from it