Site Search Engine

THE EBB

Chapter 8

“Then God remembered Noah, every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark” does not mean that He had forgotten them. He is always aware of all His creatures (Luke 12:6) and especially of His people (Isaiah 49:15-16). At this point in time all mankind, except Noah and his family, was now extinguished from the face of the earth but God's then “remembering Noah” marks the return of his mercy to the remnant of mankind, of which He intended to build a new population.

The Ark and its precious cargo were under the protection of God and, at the right time, God promptly provided the beginning of the ebb of that huge flood, using a mighty wind: the wind would not only increase the speed of evaporation, but also contain or dissipate the clouds that were forming, so disrupting the rains.

The fountains of the abyss we closed, which may mean the gradual modification of the crust of the earth under water, separating the continents, deepening the oceans and raising the mountain ridges, a process that still continues very slowly today. So God changed the earth to avoid another general flood, but to ensure the rains came regularly, and that there were seasons during the year, from which we understand that the axis of the planet relative to the plane of its orbit around the sun was also tilted as it is today (v.22).

The period of one hundred and fifty days mentioned here must be the same as found in the previous chapter (v.24), so God made all these arrangements at the end of the forty days of deluge.

The bottom of the ark would have been a few metres below the surface, which explains the interval of two months and 13 days between its settling on the top of the mountains, and the appearance of mountain ridges on the surface.

The timing of this report starts from the year of birth of Noah:

1. Noah was 500 years old when the report begins (5:32, 6:9-10) and he started building the ark.

2. The ark was completed in 100 years (7:6).

3. The flood lasted for 1 year until Noah removed the covering of the ark (9:28, 29).

After removing the cover of the ark, when the land had dried up, Noah with his family and all animals waited twenty seven days before they left (8:13,14): the door was still locked from outside, and only God could open it.  It was another test to the patience and loyalty of Noah.

It is curious that each family of animals was represented: scientists still classify animals by families.

Noah's first act was to build an altar to the Lord in order to sacrifice clean animals and birds (of which had taken seven pairs of each kind). God was pleased and promised that:

• He would never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.

• He would not again destroy every living thing as He had done.

• As long as the earth remained (which opens the possibility of ending), times, seasons, and days and nights would continue.

 

R David Jones

1 Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.
2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
3 And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
4 Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
6 So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.
7 Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.
8 He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground.
9 But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself.
10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark.
11 Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
12 So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.
13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.
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 cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and 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 animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
22 "While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease."

Genesis chapter 8