And it came to pass, in the six hundred and first
year
Of Noah's life, and so the Septuagint adds, in the first month,
[the first day] of the month;
so that it was the first day of the year, New Year's Day, and a
joyful one it was to Noah and his family, when they saw dry
ground; which they had not seen for above ten months: according
to R. Joshua, this was the month Nisan, which was the first month
with the Jews on sacred accounts; but according to R. Eliezer it
was the month of Tisri, as Jarchi observes, which was their first
month on civil accounts, and was their most ancient way of
reckoning; and so the Targum of Jonathan explains it, adding, and
Tisri; which answers to part of September, and part of October;
and according to Bishop Usher {x}, this day was Friday, October
23, A. M. 1657:
the waters were dried up from off the earth:
by the wind that continued to pass over it, and by the sun, which
exhaled great quantities of it throughout the whole summer
season; as it was from the end of the one hundred days, when the
wind was first made, and the waters began to assuage to this
time; as well as also by their soaking into the earth, and by
returning to the cavities and receptacles in it:
and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and
looked;
not the roof of it, at least not the whole, only a board or two;
though perhaps this was a covering made of skins, that was thrown
over the ark, like that which was put over the tabernacle of
Moses, and was made of skins, ( Exodus 26:14
) where the same word is used as here: the use of this might be
to hang over the window and defend it from the rain; so that the
uncovering of the ark was only putting by, or turning up this
covering, that he might be able more clearly to see, out of the
window, how things were:
and, behold, the face of the ground was dry;
the ground or surface of the earth looked dry; but was not so dry
and hard as to bear heavy bodies, or the foot to tread on it,
being soft and tender, through the water so long upon it, and had
left mud and slime, not yet sufficiently hardened by the wind and
sun to walk upon.