Genesis 8:3

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

Genesis 8:3 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 8:3

And the waters returned from off the earth continually,
&c.] Or "going and returning" ^F19; they went off from the earth, and returned to their proper places appointed for them; some were dried up by the wind, and exhaled by the sun into the air: and others returned to their channels and cavities in the earth, or soaked into it:

and after the end of the hundred and fifty days, the waters were
abated;
or began to abate, as Jarchi and the Vulgate Latin version; which days are to be reckoned from the beginning of the flood, including the forty days' rain; though Jarchi reckons them from the time of the ceasing of it; so that there were from the beginning of the flood one hundred and ninety days; six months, and ten days of the year of the flood now past; and in this he is followed by Dr. Lightfoot ^F20: but the former reckoning seems best, and agrees better with what follows.

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FOOTNOTES:

F19 (bwvw Kwlh) , "eundo et redeundo", Pagninus, Montanus.
F20 Works, vol. 1. p. 6.

Genesis 8:3 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.