Genesis 8: The Waters Recede

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. The springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained. The waters receded steadily from the earth, and after 150 days the waters had gone down. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 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. After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth. Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground. 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. Noah waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 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. And Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but this time she did not return to him. 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. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was fully dry. (BSB)

Says The chapter opens after the waters have prevailed a hundred and fifty days (7:24). “But God remembered Noah and all the animals and livestock that were with him in the ark” (8:1, BSB). The Hebrew is וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת־נֹחַ, and God remembered Noah. Then וַיַּעֲבֵר אֱלֹהִים רוּחַ עַל־הָאָרֶץ, and God caused a wind to pass over the earth. The BSB has sent a wind; the verb is a Hiphil of 'avar, pass over, and the wind is what God causes to pass. וַיָּשֹׁכּוּ הַמָּיִם, and the waters abated. The BSB has began to subside, but the Hebrew has no separate verb for began. See the Hebrew note.

Implies God remembered is God acting in covenant faithfulness toward Noah, not recall after forgetting. With God as subject the verb is followed at once by action for the one remembered: here the wind and the abating of the waters; at Gen 19:29, Lot is brought out of the overthrow when God remembered Abraham; at Exod 2:24, God remembered His covenant and acted. Noah is the man to whom God had promised a covenant at 6:18, a promise that this chapter does not yet complete; the covenant of 9:8–17 is pointed to and is not treated here. See the Hebrew xrefs from 8:1 to 19:29 and to Exod 2:24, and the Genesis 6 note on the first naming of the flood and the covenant.

Uncertain רוּחַ, wind, over the waters shares that word, and the name God, with 1:2, where the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. The shared wording is real. Whether 8:1 is meant as a picture of a new creation is not stated, and no lean is taken. See the Hebrew xref from 8:1 to 1:2.

Says In 8:2 מַעְיְנֹת תְּהוֹם, the springs of the deep, and וַאֲרֻבֹּת הַשָּׁמָיִם, the windows of the heavens, were stopped, and the rain was restrained. These are the same fountains and windows that 7:11 had opened; the BSB has springs here and fountains at 7:11, and floodgates here for the windows of 7:11. 8:2 closes what 7:11 opened. That verbal link is in the xref from 7:11 to 8:2 and is not restated at length. In 8:3 וַיָּשֻׁבוּ הַמַּיִם, and the waters went back, הָלוֹךְ וָשׁוֹב, going and returning (the BSB has receded steadily), and they decreased מִקְצֵה חֲמִשִּׁים וּמְאַת יוֹם, at the end of a hundred and fifty days (the BSB has after 150 days). The hundred and fifty days are the figure of 7:24, now brought to their end.

Says “On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (8:4, BSB). The Hebrew is וַתָּנַח הַתֵּבָה, and the ark rested, a Qal of nuakh, which is rest, settle down and remain, with עַל, on. The place is עַל הָרֵי אֲרָרָט, on the mountains of Ararat: הָרֵי is a plural construct, so the text names a mountain region, not one peak. Elsewhere Ararat is a land: Sennacherib’s sons fled to the land of Ararat (2 Kgs 19:37; Isa 37:38), and Jer 51:27 summons the kingdoms Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Early readers placed the landing in Armenia, or named Qardania, Lubar, or other mountains; those readings are in the historical note. This commentary does not identify a single named peak, and it makes no claim about ark remains or about archaeology.

Implies וַתָּנַח at the ark’s rest, מָנוֹחַ for the resting place the dove does not find (8:9), and הַנִּיחֹחַ, the soothing smell (8:21), share the consonants of נֹחַ, Noah. The three words fall at three turns of the story, so the sound-play is there as far as the text bears it, though the text does not comment on it. See the Hebrew note on 8:4–5.

Says In 8:5 the waters were going and decreasing (הָלוֹךְ וְחָסוֹר; the BSB has continued to recede) until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen. The Masoretic Text thus dates the rest to the seventeenth of the seventh month and the appearing of the tops to the first of the tenth. Swete has the twenty-seventh day at 8:4 and the eleventh month at 8:5; at 8:14, the twenty-seventh of the second month, it agrees with the Masoretic Text. The Samaritan main text has the Masoretic figures at 8:4 and 8:5. The printed wording is the Masoretic Text, with medium confidence. The grounds and objections are in the textual note: the Hebrew and the Samaritan text agree; Swete’s twenty-seventh matches its own date at 7:11, and a translator could have made the dates agree. No lean is taken on which figures are original. The date at 7:11, already treated in the textual note on 7:11 and in the Genesis 7 notes on the chronology and the calendar, is pointed to and is not taken up again.

Uncertain How the figures of this chapter fit with 7:11, with the forty days, and with the two seven-day waits, is open, and no reconstruction is adopted. With months of thirty days, the seventeenth of the second month (7:11) to the seventeenth of the seventh is five months, the hundred and fifty days of 7:24 and 8:3. Others count the hundred and fifty days from the end of the rain, or reckon a lunar calendar. From 7:11 (second month, seventeenth day, year 600) to 8:14 (second month, twenty-seventh day, year 601) is a year and ten days in the Masoretic figures; whether that span is meant as a lunar year plus ten days, so as to equal a solar year, or is simply a year and ten days, is debated. The words state the figures; they do not adopt a calendar. See the chronology note, and the historical note on the flood calendar in Genesis 7.

Uncertain How far the waters reached is likewise open, and this chapter is read in agreement with the Genesis 7 note on the flood’s extent. In 8:5 the tops of the mountains become visible; in 8:9 the dove finds no resting place, “because the waters were still covering the surface of all the earth” (BSB). (1) A flood of the whole earth: ground, all the earth here and the widest terms of chapter 7. Objection: all and the earth can name a land and its people. (2) A flood of a region: ground, that narrower use, and a horizon from the ark. Objection: the chapter still uses its wide wording. The New Testament use of Noah and the flood does not settle the extent. No geology is brought in, and no lean is taken.

Says After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven (8:6–7). The window is חַלּוֹן, the ordinary word, not the word used for the opening in 6:16. The raven וַיֵּצֵא יָצוֹא וָשׁוֹב, went out, going out and returning, until the waters dried from the earth. The two infinitives describe a movement kept up over time. The BSB has It kept flying back and forth, which carries one reading of whether the raven came back into the ark. Swete adds a purpose clause, to see whether the water had abated, and has having gone out, it did not return. No manuscript in Swete’s notes lacks the not. The Samaritan main text agrees with the Masoretic wording, with no negative. The printed wording is the Masoretic Text, with medium confidence, and no lean is taken on which reading is original. Early readers took both sides: some kept going out and returning; Josephus and the Greek have the raven not returning. Those readings are in the historical and Greek notes; they do not fix the meaning.

Says Then Noah sent out a dove to see whether the waters were light (הֲקַלּוּ, a Qal of qalal; the BSB has receded) from the surface of the ground (8:8). The dove found no מָנוֹחַ, resting place, for the sole of her foot, and returned, because waters were still on the face of all the earth; Noah reached out his hand and brought her back into the ark (8:9). He waited seven days and sent her again (8:10). She returned in the evening with a plucked olive leaf in her mouth (עֲלֵה־זַיִת טָרָף; the BSB has a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak), and Noah knew that the waters were light (8:11). He waited seven more days and sent her, and she did not again return (8:12). The two waiting verbs are different forms, as the Hebrew note sets out. The forty days and the two waits of seven days are stated as they stand; they are not fitted here to a reconstruction of the year.

Uncertain Babylonian accounts also tell of a window opened after a flood, of birds sent out, and of a landing on a mountain. In the Eleventh Tablet a dove and a swallow return, for there was no resting place, and a raven does not come back; Berossos has birds sent three times, the second time with soiled feet; a Sumerian text has the great boat opened and a sacrifice made. These share features with 8:4–12 and also differ, especially in the birds and their order. How the traditions relate is open. No derivation or dependence is claimed in either direction, and the background does not fix the meaning of this chapter. The storm itself was treated in the Genesis 7 historical note and is pointed to. See the historical note on the ending of the flood.

Says In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, חָרְבוּ הַמַּיִם, the waters were dried from upon the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark and saw that the face of the ground was dried (8:13). On the twenty-seventh day of the second month יָבְשָׁה הָאָרֶץ, the earth was dry (8:14). The two verbs are distinct: kharav in 8:13, yavesh in 8:14. The BSB marks the step as dried up and fully dry. The preposition with the day in 8:14 is on, not By. Swete’s second clause at 8:13 has the water, not the face of the ground, as the subject, and dates the year in the life of Noah; those differences belong in the Greek note and in the box below, not in a separate textual unit. The earth is now dry, and God will speak.

The dates and the days (Genesis 8:3–14)

God remembered Noah (Genesis 8:1–5)

The raven and the dove (Genesis 8:6–12)

Minor variants

Says The printed text of this chapter is the Masoretic Text throughout. For 8:1–22 the English verse numbers agree with the Hebrew and with Swete. At 8:17 the written and read forms are two spellings of the same Hiphil imperative bring out; that is a box line, not a separate unit. The dates at 8:4–5 (seventeenth or twenty-seventh day; tenth or eleventh month) and the raven at 8:7 (going out and returning, or did not return) are the two units that have their own textual notes, and they are not repeated as a table here. At 8:14 both the Masoretic Text and Swete have the twenty-seventh of the second month. The Greek is otherwise different at a number of points, set out in the note on minor variants and in the Greek notes, and not used to reconstruct a Hebrew wording: at 8:1 it adds the birds and the creeping things; at 8:13 it has the year in the life of Noah, and in the second clause the water is the subject; it has the Lord God at 8:15 and 8:21 and to God at 8:20; at 8:21 it has having considered, because of the works of men, and diligently; at 8:22 summer and spring; at 8:18 the wife before the sons; at 8:17 nothing for swarm on the earth. Other notes in Swete, in plain words, include the Cotton and Bodleian Genesis lacking the creeping things in part at 8:1, another verb for returned at 8:9 in two manuscripts, and saw that in Alexandrinus written over an erasure at 8:13, two phrases at 8:18 first lacking in Alexandrinus and supplied in the margin by a corrector, the creeping things before the birds at 8:19 in two, and one manuscript lacking the first God and the word living at 8:21.

Uncertain Whether the Greek differences reflect other Hebrew or the translator is open. No lean is taken here, including on the dates at 8:4–5 and on the raven at 8:7.

Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife, along with your sons and their wives. 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.” So Noah came out, along with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. Every living creature, every creeping thing, and every bird—everything that moves upon the earth—came out of the ark, kind by kind. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.” (BSB)

Says Then God said to Noah, and told him to come out of the ark, he and his wife, his sons and their wives, and to bring out the living creatures so that they would swarm on the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it (8:15–17). The command to go out answers the earlier command to go in. At 8:17 the written form and the read form are two spellings of the Hiphil imperative bring out, a box line in the variants above. וְשָׁרְצוּ בָאָרֶץ, and they shall swarm on the earth (the BSB has spread out), and וּפָרוּ וְרָבוּ עַל־הָאָרֶץ, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. In 8:18 Noah comes out, and his sons are named before his wife, where 8:16 had the wife first; Swete names the wife before the sons at 8:18, as 8:16 does. In 8:19 the animals go out לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתֵיהֶם, by their families. The BSB has kind by kind, but the noun is not min, the kind of 6:20 and 7:14; it is mishpakhah, family, clan. See the Hebrew note.

Uncertain Whether be fruitful and multiply in 8:17 renews for the animals the charge of creation (1:22, 28), or simply states that life resumes on the earth, is open. The two verbs are those of 1:28, as the Hebrew xref sets out. No lean is taken.

Says “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar” (8:20, BSB). The clean beasts and birds are the clean animals of 7:2, now taken for offering; that verbal link is in the xref from 7:2 to 8:20 and is not restated at length. The altar is built לַיהוָה, to the Lord. The offerings are עֹלֹת, burnt offerings.

Implies Noah comes out at God’s word, as he had entered at God’s word, and answers with worship. What the Lord does with that offering is told in 8:21.

Uncertain Babylonian accounts also tell of a sacrifice after the flood whose smell rises: in the Eleventh Tablet the gods smell the sweet savor; Berossos has an altar erected; a Sumerian text has an ox sacrificed. In this chapter the Lord alone smells the aroma and resolves not to curse the ground again. How the traditions relate is open. No dependence is claimed, and the background does not fix the meaning. Early Jewish and Christian readings of the offering—an altar already used, a prayer that the order of nature might go on, atonement for the earth, the first altar, accommodated language—are in the historical note, and are their views. See the historical notes on the ending of the flood and on Noah’s offering.

Says The Lord smelled רֵיחַ הַנִּיחֹחַ, the soothing smell. The BSB has the pleasing aroma; the noun is a quieting, soothing, tranquillizing smell, used of sacrifices acceptable to the Lord. וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־לִבּוֹ, and the Lord said to His heart (the BSB has said in His heart). He will not again curse the ground because of man, כִּי the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth, and He will not again strike every living thing as He has done (8:21). The verb of cursing is לְקַלֵּל, a Piel of qalal, not the 'arar of 3:17, where the ground was cursed because of Adam. 5:29 had hoped for comfort from the ground that the Lord had cursed; the verb and the ground of that verse are taken up here by the xref from 5:29, with this other verb. The words on the heart have the noun יֵצֶר and the evil of 6:5, without the every of that verse, and with from his youth rather than all the time. The Lord will not again לְהַכּוֹת, strike, every living thing (the BSB has destroy). 8:22 then gives the pledge: עֹד כָּל־יְמֵי הָאָרֶץ, yet all the days of the earth (the BSB has As long as the earth endures), seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. The second noun of the third pair is glossed harvest-time, autumn in the lexicon used here; the BSB has winter; Swete has summer and spring. See the Hebrew notes, and the xrefs from 6:5, 5:29 and Phil 4:18.

Implies The Lord accepts Noah’s offering and resolves to preserve. The human heart is what it was before the flood: the wording of 6:5 recurs here, so the promise does not rest on a changed humanity, but on the Lord’s resolve. 8:22 is God’s pledge to preserve the created order. Day and night, set apart at creation (1:5, 14), are named last; the Hebrew xref from 8:22 to 1:14 marks the shared words. The covenant of 9:8–17 follows, already linked to 6:18 in the xref on that covenant, and is not treated here. Jeremiah later calls the order of day and night a covenant, and grounds the covenant with David on it; that is pointed to in the Hebrew xref and is not taken up at length.

Uncertain Several questions in 8:21–22 are left open, and no lean is taken. (1) כִּי may be for, giving the reason for the Lord’s restraint (the heart is still evil, so another flood would not change it), or though (the BSB has even though): He will not curse the ground again, though the heart is still evil. (2) Never again curse the ground may look back to 3:17 and 5:29, or it may speak of relief from the flood itself; the verb is not the verb of 3:17, and both relations have been held. (3) Smelled, and to His heart, are read by some as accommodated language, God spoken of in human terms, and by others as the sacrificial idiom of acceptance. The text is described as it stands; nothing is added about God needing the offering. (4) Whether the second noun of the third pair in 8:22 names autumn or winter is open. These options are presented on their grounds; the historical note on the offering sets out early readings of smelled, and does not fix the meaning.

Uncertain Some read the change of divine names in this chapter—God in 8:1 and 8:15, the Lord in 8:20–21—as a mark of two accounts, a dated strand and an undated strand. Others read the chapter as a single composition in which both names are used of the one God. The question is treated in the Genesis 2 historical note and is not argued again here. No lean is taken.

The exit and the altar (Genesis 8:15–20)

Never again, and the seasons (Genesis 8:21–22)

New Testament reading

Says “And walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God” (Eph 5:2, BSB). The phrase a fragrant sacrificial offering answers to the Greek a smell of fragrance used of the offering in Swete 8:21, the wording set out in the Greek note on form. “For we are to God the sweet aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2 Cor 2:15, BSB), with the same noun of fragrance. “So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt 7:11, BSB). Matthew speaks of people as evil who nonetheless give good gifts; 8:21 states that the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth, and that the Lord still resolves not to strike every living thing again. Phil 4:18, already treated in the xref from that verse to 8:21, calls the Philippians’ gifts a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, and is pointed to rather than taken up again. James 5:7 speaks of the farmer waiting for the fall and spring rains until the precious fruit of the soil; the Greek note sets out that it shares no seasonal term with Swete 8:22, and no verbal claim is made here. The New Testament’s own use of Noah and the flood as a past judgment and a past deliverance is set out in the Genesis 7 note on the New Testament reading, and in the notes and xrefs there on Matthew 24:37–39, Luke 17:26–27, Hebrews 11:7, 1 Peter 3:20 and 2 Peter 2:5. Those texts are pointed to, not taken up again.

Implies Those Genesis 7 texts read Noah as a real person who entered the ark and was preserved. This chapter is the going down of the same waters and the Lord’s resolve that follows.

Uncertain Form agreement is not a claim about which text a writer used. Ephesians 5:2 is the New Testament’s own use of the offering-aroma idiom, applied to Christ’s self-giving; no further typological system is built from it. The New Testament use does not settle the extent of the waters, the calendar, or the wording of the raven. No application is drawn.

Genesis 8 in the New Testament