Genesis chapter 8
The Flood recedes. The LORD God’s promise to Noah.
THE FLOOD RECEDES
VERSE 1. God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.
God made a wind to pass over the earth. Thanks to that wind, the global floodwaters gradually subsided. Finally, the day came when the earth was dry.
In our own lives, it can seem like we are flooded by troubles and difficulties. But the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit can cause the flood to subside.
It may take some time, but eventually we will be free of the flood. Eventually, the earth of our lives will be dry.
Most often, God uses gradual processes rather than sudden dramatic miracles to heal and restore us.
Obviously, God can do anything, in any way he chooses. But he generally seems to prefer the gradual, natural processes in most cases.
VERSE 2. The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
VERSE 3. The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded.
one hundred fifty days. That was a very long time to be in such a (presumably) crowded space.
VERSE 4. The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains.
Ararat’s mountains. Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It is the highest mountain in the Near East.
VERSE 5. The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
VERSE 6. At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,
VERSE 7. and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.
raven. It was a raven that fed the prophet Elijah in the Wadi Cherith:
1 Kings 17:6. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.
VERSE 8. He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground,
VERSE 9. but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned into the ship to him, for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship.
VERSE 10. He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship.
VERSE 11. The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth.
VERSE 12. He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more.
VERSE 13. In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
VERSE 14. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
VERSE 15. God spoke to Noah, saying,
VERSE 16. “Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you.
VERSE 17. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.”
VERSE 18. Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him.
VERSE 19. Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.
THE LORD GOD’S PROMISE TO NOAH
VERSE 20. Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
offered burnt offerings on the altar. For his offering to God, Noah did not use vegetables. Rather, he killed animals.
This was the first time God’s people killed animals.
VERSE 21. The LORD smelled the pleasant aroma. The LORD said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.
VERSE 22. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
summer and winter. Prior to the Flood, seasons were never mentioned. Perhaps they did not exist until after the Flood.
GENESIS
CHAPTERS: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
RESOURCES: Summary, Outline, Memorize
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.