1But God hadn't forgotten about Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the ark. God sent a wind to blow over the earth, and the floodwaters started to drop. 2The subterranean waters were closed off, and the heavy rainfall was stopped. 3The floodwaters steadily receded from the earth. They had gone down so much that by 150 days after the flood began 4the ark grounded on the mountains of Ararat. This happened on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. 5The waters continued to drop so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of mountains could be seen.

6Forty days later Noah opened the window he'd made in the ark, 7and sent a raven out. It flew back and forth until the water on the earth had dried up. 8Then he sent a dove out to see if the waters had gone down enough to expose dry ground. 9But the dove couldn't find anywhere to land. So it came back to Noah in the ark because water was still covering the whole earth. He reached out his hand, picked up the dove, and took it back into the ark with him. 10He waited another seven days and sent the dove out from the ark again. 11When it came back to him in the evening it had a freshly-picked olive leaf in its beak, so Noah knew the floodwaters were mainly gone from the earth. 12Again he waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, but this time it didn't return to him.

13By now Noah was 601, and by the first day of the first month, the floodwaters on the earth were gone. Noah pulled back the ark's covering and saw that the ground was drying out. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry.

15Then God told Noah, 16“Leave the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives. 17Let all the animals go—the birds, the wild animals, the creatures that run along the ground—so that they can breed and increase their numbers on the earth.” 18So Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives, left the ark. 19All the animals, all the creatures that run along the ground, all the birds—everything that lives on land—also left, each kind leaving together.

20Noah built an altar, and sacrificed some of the clean animals and birds as a burnt offering. 21The Lord accepted#8:21. “Accepted”: literally, “smelled a pleasing aroma.” This is a “figurative extension” of this sensory process which meant that in the same way when we like something, and by extension, accept it, so does God. the sacrifice, and said to himself, “I won't ever again curse the ground because of human beings, even though every single thought in their minds is evil from childhood. I won't ever destroy all life again as I have just done. 22As long as the earth exists, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never come to an end.”

Dr. Jonathan Gallagher. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Version 4.3. For corrections send email to jonathangallagherfbv@gmail.com

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Genesis 8

The Flood Recedes

1God remembered Noah,#Gn 19:29; Ex 2:24; 1Sm 1:19; Ps 105:42 as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth,#Ex 14:21; 15:10; Jb 12:15; Ps 29:10; Is 44:27; Nah 1:4 and the water began to subside. 2The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky stopped.#Gn 7:11 3The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the water had decreased significantly.#Gn 7:24 4The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.#2Kg 19:37; Is 37:38; Jr 51:27

5The water continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible. 6After forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made, 7and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8Then he sent out a dove to see whether the water on the earth’s surface had gone down, 9but the dove found no resting place for its foot. It returned to him in the ark because water covered the surface of the whole earth. He reached out and brought it into the ark to himself. 10So Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove from the ark again. 11When the dove came to him at evening, there was a plucked olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water on the earth’s surface had gone down. 12After he had waited another seven days, he sent out the dove, but it did not return to him again. 13In the six hundred first year,#8:13 = of Noah’s life in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water that had covered the earth was dried up. Then Noah removed the ark’s cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry.

The Lord’s Promise

15Then God spoke to Noah, 16“Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17Bring out all the living creatures that are with you — birds, livestock, those that crawl on the earth — and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”#Gn 1:22,28; 9:1 18So Noah, along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, came out. 19All the animals, all the creatures that crawl, and all the flying creatures — everything that moves on the earth — came out of the ark by their families.

20Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma,#Ex 29:18; Lv 1:9; Ezk 16:19; 20:41; 2Co 2:15; Eph 5:2; Php 4:18 he said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground#Gn 3:17; 5:29; 6:7; Is 54:9 because of human beings, even though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth onward.#Gn 6:5; Ps 51:5; Jr 17:9; Rm 1:21; 3:23; Eph 2:1–3 And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.#Gn 9:11,15

22As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, and day and night

will not cease.”#Jr 33:20,25

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Genesis 8

Genesis 8