Genesis 8.1-14-The Flood Subsides and Ends
Thursday September 22, 2005
Genesis: Genesis 8:1-14-The Flood Subsides and Ends
Lesson # 32
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 8:1.
This evening we will study Genesis 8:1-14, which records the Flood subsiding and then finally ending.
Genesis 8:1, “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts (chayyah, “wild animals”) and all the cattle (behemah, “domestic animals”) that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.”
When the Bible says, “God remembered Noah” it does “not” mean that He had forgotten Noah but rather it signifies that God is about to act upon a previous commitment and contract He made with Noah that is recorded in Genesis 6:18 and by acting on His earlier promise to Noah, God demonstrates Himself to be a trustworthy covenant partner.
“A wind” is the noun ruach (j^Wr) (roo-akh) is correctly translated referring to air in motion that moves along the surface of the earth or in Genesis 8:1, air that moves across the surface of the Flood waters in order to evaporate these waters sufficiently so that Noah and his family could finally leave the Ark.
Genesis 8:2, “Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.”
According to Genesis 8:1, the two sources of water that God employed to flood the earth are prevented from doing their damage: (1) “All the fountains of the great deep burst open” (2) “The floodgates of the sky were opened.”
“The fountains of the great deep” refers to the vast springs or reservoirs of water that resided in pockets deep in the earth’s crust, which were put there by the Lord when on the third day of restoration He restored the dry land by gathering into place the waters that completely flooded the earth (see Genesis 1:9-13).
“The floodgates of the sky were opened” refers to the vast transparent water vapor canopy that resided above the earth’s atmosphere, which was placed there by the Lord on the second day of restoration, which is recorded Genesis 1:6-8.
Genesis 8:1-2 records three specific actions that were taken by God:
1. God caused a wind to pass over the earth in order to evaporate vast quantities of water.
2. God shut up the subterranean waters from further eruptions.
3. The water from the vast water transparent vapor canopy was precipitated and God put an end to the rain.
With the vast transparent water vapor canopy gone, sharp temperatures differentials would have been established between equator and poles and great air movements would have begun.
These would be complicated by the earth’s rotation, so that the present complex system of atmospheric circulations would finally be initiated.
The early phases of this would have been violent.
With nothing but a shoreless ocean, these winds would generate tremendous waves and currents, and vast quantities of water would be evaporated, especially in the equatorial regions.
However, winds, waves and evaporation could hardly account in themselves for more than a minor lowering of water level.
Unless of course the winds were so violent as to sweep quantities of water clear off into outer space, which seems impossible on a nonsupernatural basis.
Somehow there must also be a drastic rearrangement of the earths’ topography, with continental landmasses rising from the waters, and ocean basins deepening and widening to receive the waters draining off the lands.
This is what happened according to Psalm 104:6-9.
Psalm 104:5, “He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter forever and ever.”
Psalm 104:6, “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; The waters were standing above the mountains.”
Psalm 104:7, “At Your rebuke they fled, at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away.”
Psalm 104:8, “The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which You established for them.”
Psalm 104:9, “You set a boundary that they may not pass over, so that they will not return to cover the earth.”
During the Flood itself, the breaking up of the great deep complex of subterranean reservoirs and conduits, the tremendous release of heat energy, and the outflow of great quantities of water and magma without a doubt left the earth’s crust highly unstable.
The erosion of the antediluvian mountains and continents had resulted in the deposition of great quantities of sediment in the seas.
These great subterranean caverns were no longer pressurized and collapsed and the surface elevations sank correspondingly.
Genesis 8:3, “and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.”
Genesis 7:24 records that the Flood waters prevailed for one hundred and fifty days and Genesis 8:3 records that they receded steadily in the same amount of time.
Genesis 8:4, “In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.”
Genesis 8:5, “The water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.”
The Ark rested on the highest peak in this mountain range since Genesis 8:4 records that the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat and Genesis 8:5 indicates that on the first day of the ten month, the tops of the mountains could be seen and this could only happen if the Ark was on the highest peak.
The highest peak in the Ararat mountain range is Mount Ararat, which is 16,945 feet above sea level in Armenia where today the frontiers of Turkey, Iran and Russia converge in the general area of the Caspian and the Black Seas (cf. 2 Kgs. 19:37; Jer. 51:27).
Chronology of the Flood up to Genesis 8:4:
1. According to Genesis 7:7-9, Noah entered the ark on the tenth day of the second month (Iyyar) and waited in the ark seven days (Gen. 7:10).
2. According to Genesis 7:10-11, seven days after Noah entered the Ark, the vast transparent water vapor canopy precipitated and the subterranean waters burst open on the seventeenth day of the second month.
3. According to Genesis 7:12, the vast transparent water vapor canopy precipitated or fell upon the earth for forty days and nights and stopped on the twenty-seventh day of the third month.
4. According to Genesis 7:24 and 8:3-4, one hundred ten days after the heavy rains of the forty day and nights had stopped, the waters of the Flood receded and the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.
Exactly five months after the Flood began, the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat since Genesis 7:11 records that the Flood began on the seventeenth day of the second month and Genesis 8:4 records that the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.
This means that Noah and his family had been in the Ark for one hundred and fifty seven days up to this point in the narrative.
It would be another seven months before they were able to leave since they had to wait for the waters to recede and the ground to dry sufficiently so it could support human and animal and bird life.
It is significant that the Ark is said to have “rested” as though it had been laboring for five months in accomplishing its work of saving its occupants from sin and judgment.
This is the second mention of “rest” in Scripture with the first being when God rested after His work of restoring the earth in six days (Gen. 2:2-3).
It is interesting since the Ark is a type of Christ as God “finished” His work of creation and as the Ark “finished” its mission, so Christ “finished” (John 19:30) His work of salvation.
A comparison of 8:4 with 8:5 indicates that seventy-four days or two and a half months after the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, the tops of the mountains appeared on the first day of the tenth month.
Genesis 8:6, “Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.”
A comparison of Genesis 8:5 and 6 teaches that forty days after the tops of the mountains appeared, Noah opened the window of the Ark, which would be on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Genesis 8:7, “and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth.”
Genesis 8:8, “Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land.”
Genesis 8:9, “but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he put out his hand and took her, and brought her into the ark to himself.”
It appears that Noah was not able to make any definite observations after opening the window of the Ark.
Therefore, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month he sent out a raven and a dove on reconnaissance missions in order to ascertain the situation outside and to determine if the earth could support animal and bird life and human life.
The raven is a scavenger bird and found carrion in abundance, floating probably on the waters, and did not need to return but the dove returns to Noah indicating that the earth was not ready to support life since it is not a scavenger like the raven.
Genesis 8:10, “So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark.”
Genesis 8:11, “The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth.”
On the eighteenth day of the eleventh month, Noah sends out the dove again a second time seven days after he sent the dove out the first time and this time the dove returned with a freshly picked olive leaf indicating that seedlings or cuttings from the hardy olive tree were already beginning to grow again on the mountainsides.
Genesis 8:12, “Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; but she did not return to him again.”
On the twenty-fifth day of the eleventh month, seven days after sending the dove out a second time, Noah sent out the dove again a third time, which didn’t return indicating to Noah that the land was sufficiently dry and vegetation sufficiently established to support bird life.
Noah didn’t immediately leave the Ark after the dove failed to return but instead waiting another twenty-two days before he removed the covering from the Ark and then it was another fifty-seven days before he finally did leave the Ark.
This is indicated by the following events:
(1) The waters of the Flood receded steadily for one hundred fifty days according to Genesis 8:3.
(2) On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat according to Genesis 8:4.
(3) On the first day of the tenth month, seventy-four days after the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, the mountain tops appeared to Noah according to Genesis 8:5.
(4) Forty-days later, Noah sends out a raven, which doesn’t return and a dove, which does according to Genesis 8:6-9.
(5) Seven days later, Noah sends out the dove a second time and this time returns with a freshly picked olive branch according to Genesis 8:10.
(6) Seven days later, Noah sends out the dove a third time but this time she doesn’t return according to Genesis 8:12.
During all this one hundred twenty eight days elapsed, thus indicating that Noah waited still another twenty-two days after sending out the dove out a third time before he removed the covering of the Ark since Genesis 8:3 records that the water receded steadily for one hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 8:13, “Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up.”
Genesis 8:14, “In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.”
A comparison of Genesis 8:13 and 14-16 indicates that Noah waited another fifty-seven days after removing the covering of the Ark before he and his family finally exited the Ark.
Noah, his family and the animals were in the Ark a total of one year and seventeen days.
A year according to the Jewish calendar is three hundred and sixty days and a month is thirty days.
