The raven and the dove in early reading

Says Noah opened the window (חַלּוֹן, khallon) and sent out a raven: וַיֵּצֵא יָצוֹא וָשׁוֹב, vayyetse yatso vashov, “it went out, going out and returning”, until the waters dried up (Gen 8:6–7; BSB “It kept flying back and forth”). The dove “found no place to rest her foot” (8:9), returned with “a freshly plucked olive leaf” (8:11), and the third time “did not return to him” (8:12).

Pseudo-Jonathan keeps “going forth and returning”, and has the olive leaf taken “from the Mount of the Meshiha” (Etheridge’s note: the Mount of Olives). Josephus has the raven sent to learn “whether any other part of the earth were left dry”, “but the raven returned not”; the dove “came back to him covered with mud, and bringing an olive branch”. For the Greek of 8:7, see LXX Gen 8:1–12: the waters recede, the raven and the dove. Calvin wonders “whence a negation, which Moses has not in the Hebrew text, has crept into the Greek and Latin version”; his editor adds that the Chaldee paraphrase, the Samaritan text and the Arabic omit it. Calvin holds that Noah chose the raven knowing it “might be allured by the odour of carcasses”; Keil, that it came and went “without being taken back into the ark”. Keil calls the dove with the olive leaf “a herald of salvation”. These are their views.

Uncertain Whether the raven kept returning (Hebrew) or did not return (Greek, Josephus) is open. No lean is taken, and these readings do not fix the meaning of 8:6–12.