Reflections on Genesis 8

Genesis 08 (Contemporary English Version)
1. God did not forget about Noah and the animals with him in the boat. So God made a wind blow, and the water started going down.
   
2. God stopped up the places where the water had been gushing out from under the earth. He also closed up the sky, and the rain stopped.
   
3. For one hundred fifty days the water slowly went down.
   
4. Then on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the year, the boat came to rest somewhere in the Ararat mountains.
   
5. The water kept going down, and the mountain tops could be seen on the first day of the tenth month.
   
6. Forty days later Noah opened a window to send out a raven, but it kept flying around until the water had dried up.
   
7. (SEE 8:6)
   
8. Noah wanted to find out if the water had gone down, and he sent out a dove.
   
9. Deep water was still everywhere, and the dove could not find a place to land. So it flew back to the boat. Noah held out his hand and helped it back in.
   
10. Seven days later Noah sent the dove out again.
    
11. It returned in the evening, holding in its beak a green leaf from an olive tree. Noah knew that the water was finally going down.
    
12. He waited seven more days before sending the dove out again, and this time it did not return.
    
13. Noah was now six hundred one years old. And by the first day of that year, almost all the water had gone away. Noah made an opening in the roof of the boat and saw that the ground was getting dry.
    
14. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.
    
15. God said to Noah,
    
16. "You, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law may now leave the boat.
    
17. Let out the birds, animals, and reptiles, so they can mate and live all over the earth."
    
18. After Noah and his family had gone out of the boat,
    
19. the living creatures left in groups of their own kind.
    
20. Noah built an altar where he could offer sacrifices to the LORD. Then he offered on the altar one of each kind of animal and bird that could be used for a sacrifice.
    
21. The smell of the burning offering pleased God, and he said: Never again will I punish the earth for the sinful things its people do. All of them have evil thoughts from the time they are young, but I will never destroy everything that breathes, as I did this time.
    
22. As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.
    
    

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    days, just over a year, Noah and the animals were in the ark. This in itself is amazing. Only by God's intervention would this be possible. After the rains stopped falling, it took 150 days for the waters to recede enough for the ark to come to rest on mount Ararat. Another 40 days and Noah sent out the raven to check the progress of the receding waters. The raven went back and forth until it need not return again. On each return to the ark it may not have gone into the ark but perched itself on the outside. Then Noah sent out a dove which returned to the ark. Noah reached out and brought the dove inside. The two birds were in search of different things. The raven, being a carrion, was likely in search of carcasses and similar debris while the dove, which feeds off seeds was in search of greenery.
    
    While the raven may have found items of interest in floating debris, the dove "found no resting place for her foot" (8:9) Noah waited a week and sent out the dove again, and again the dove returned, but this time it brought back an olive leaf. A sign of life and restoration. After another week, Noah sent out the dove a third time and it did not return. It was time for all to leave the ark. But Noah did not leave the ark until God gave the instructions. God gave the instructions to enter the ark, and again to leave it. Scripture does not say it, but I have the sense that God sealed the ark for the period Noah was in it. Otherwise there may have been attempts by the perishing to enter it and for Noah and his family to allow them in. But, of course, I am just speculating.
    
    Noah's first activity after leaving the ark was to build an altar and make an offering to the Lord. The aroma of the offering is said to have been pleasing to the Lord and He vowed never again to "curse the ground because of man, even though man's inclination is evil from his youth. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease."  (8:21-22)