Genesis 8:2

2 The springs of the deep sea and the skies closed up. The skies held back the rain.

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 God remembered Noah, all those alive, and all the animals with him in the ark. God sent a wind over the earth so that the waters receded.

2 The springs of the deep sea and the skies closed up. The skies held back the rain.

3 The waters receded gradually from the earth. After one hundred fifty days, the waters decreased;

4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, the ark came to rest on the Ararat mountains.

5 The waters decreased gradually until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the mountain peaks appeared.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or the windows of the skies