8.1-22

Genesis

The chronology of the flood is complete by Genesis 8:14. Noah was 600 years (7:11) when God provided a pre-flood seven-day warning to enter the arc (7:4) +7. Then the rain came upon the earth, and the water multiplied for 40 days (7:12,17) +47. The water prevailed on the earth for 150 days, and then the waters began to recede (7:24;8:3) +157. The Arc rested in the mountains of Ararat (8:4) +204. The water decreased until the tops of two mountains appeared (8:5) +277. Noah sent a raven out from the arc 40 days after two mountains appeared (8:6-7) +317. Having failed to discern knowledge of the land, Noah sent out a dove seven days later (8:8) +314. Then again seven days later (8:9) +321. And yet again, seven days later, but finally, the dove returned with an olive leaf (8:10) +328. So, in the 601st year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth (8:13) +367. And by the 2nd month, on the 27th day of the month, the Earth was dry (8:14) +424. The number 40 is repeated in this chronology, as is the number seven. There are exactly 360 days from the cessation of the rains to the Earth being dry. That is twelve 30-day months. On the day the earth was dry, God spoke to Noah, telling him to go out and bring with him every living thing to be fruitful and multiply on the earth (8:14-17). Having completed the undoing of what He did in Genesis 2:7, God now restores the blessing He first commanded in Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth..." But in the next chapter, we will see that this time, dominion will be different... (Gen.1:28-29/Gen.9:2-3).

CHAPTER 8

The Water Dries Up

1 Then God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.
2 Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained;
3 and the water receded from the earth, going forth and returning, and at the end of 150 days the water decreased.
4 In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.
5 Now the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.
6 Then it happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;
7 and he sent out a raven, and it went out flying back and forth until the water was dried up from the earth.
8 Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land;
9 but the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot, so it returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he stretched out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark to himself.
10 Then he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark.
11 And the dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in its beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth.
12 Then he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove; but it did not return to him again.
13 Now it happened 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.
14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying,
16 “Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.
17 “Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth, and that they may be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.
19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by their families from the ark.

Yahweh’s Covenant with Noah

20 Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 And Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma; and Yahweh said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.
22 “While all the days of the earth remain,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”