Genesis Chapter 8
1 God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.
2 The deep's fountains and the sky's windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
3 The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters receded.
4 The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat's mountains.
5 The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
6 At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,
7 and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.
8 He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground,
9 but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned into the ship to him, for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship.
10 He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship.
11 The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth.
12 He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn't return to him any more.
13 In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15 God spoke to Noah, saying,
16 "Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you.
17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth."
18 Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives with him.
19 Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.
20 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 The LORD smelled the pleasant aroma. The LORD said in his heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.
22 While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease."
Footnotes
Version: World English Bible
- About World English Bible (WEB)
- WEB Glossary
- WEB Web Site (source documents)
- Bible on one web page
- Download WEB (for MS Word)
Audio
To Listen to this Chapter
The mp3 Audio File should start to play in a new Tab. Then return to this Tab to follow the text whilst listening.
Genesis Chapter 8 Guide
Upborne on the billows of judgment, the Ark rode securely, holding within it the nucleus of a new departure in human history. When the work of judgment was fully accomplished, the waters decreased, and the voice that had commanded Noah to build the Ark and to enter therein called him forth.
What a stupendous moment it was in the history of the race and in the experience of this man when he emerged from what had been practically a prison, and yet the vantage ground of God for the continuity of His plan and purpose for humanity.
He who by faith had renounced everything in obedience to God, in spite of all appearances, now stepped forth, the sole possessor of the earth. A new day was dawning for humanity, a day of new opportunity in which men would live with history's testimony to the fact of the divine government and judgment, forever speaking to them of the issues of sin and of the impossibility of escape from the government of God.
The first act of Noah as he found himself delivered from judgment and established in possession was a reaction of response and in itself was most significant. His first look was God-ward, and his first act the erection of an altar and the offering of sacrifices.
This attitude and action were answered by a declaration of God which was full of grace. His knowledge of the fact of sin still remaining is declared, but henceforth it was not to be the gauge of His dealing with man. In spite of sin the promise was made that the natural order should continue, seasons come and go, and the day and night should not cease. In other words the declaration was that the earth was not to be involved in the chaos which followed the primal cataclysm (Genesis 1:2), but continue to be the sphere for carrying out His purposes in humanity.
From "An Exposition of the Whole Bible" by G. Campbell Morgan.
Genesis Chapter 8 Commentary
Chapter Outline
- God remembers Noah, and dries up the waters. -- (1-3)
- The ark rests on Ararat, Noah sends forth a raven and a dove. -- (4-12)
- Noah being commanded, goes out of the ark. -- (13-19)
- Noah offers sacrifice, God promises to curse the earth no more. -- (20-22)
Verses 1-3
The whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family, were now dead, so that God's remembering Noah, was the return of his mercy to mankind, of whom he would not make a full end. The demands of Divine justice had been answered by the ruin of sinners. God sent his wind to dry the earth, and seal up his waters. The same hand that brings the desolation, must bring the deliverance; to that hand, therefore, we must ever look. When afflictions have done the work for which they are sent, whether killing work or curing work, they will be taken away. As the earth was not drowned in a day, so it was not dried in a day. God usually works deliverance for his people gradually, that the day of small things may not be despised, nor the day of great things despaired of.
Verses 4-12
The ark rested upon a mountain, whither it was directed by the wise and gracious providence of God, that might rest the sooner. God has times and places of rest for his people after their tossing; and many times he provides for their seasonable and comfortable settlement, without their own contrivance, and quite beyond their own foresight. God had told Noah when the flood would come, yet he did not give him an account by revelation, at what times and by what steps it should go away. The knowledge of the former was necessary to his preparing the ark; but the knowledge of the latter would serve only to gratify curiosity; and concealing it from him would exercise his faith and patience. Noah sent forth a raven from the ark, which went flying about, and feeding on the carcasses that floated. Noah then sent forth a dove, which returned the first time without good news; but the second time, she brought an olive leaf in her bill, plucked off, plainly showing that trees, fruit trees, began to appear above water. Noah sent forth the dove the second time, seven days after the first, and the third time was after seven days also; probably on the sabbath day. Having kept the sabbath with his little church, he expected especial blessings from Heaven, and inquired concerning them. The dove is an emblem of a gracious soul, that, finding no solid peace of satisfaction in this deluged, defiling world, returns to Christ as to its ark, as to its Noah, its rest. The defiling world, returns to Christ as to its ark, as to its Noah, its rest. The carnal heart, like the raven, takes up with the world, and feeds on the carrion it finds there; but return thou to my rest, O my soul; to thy Noah, so the word is, Ps 116:7. And as Noah put forth his hand, and took the dove, and pulled her to him, into the ark, so Christ will save, and help, and welcome those that flee to him for rest. (Ge 8:13-19)
Verses 13-19
God consults our benefit, rather than our desires; he knows what is good for us better than we do for ourselves, and how long it is fit our restraints should continue, and desired mercies should be delayed. We would go out of the ark before the ground is dried; and perhaps, if the door, is shut, are ready to thrust off the covering, and to climb up some other way; but God's time of showing mercy is the best time. As Noah had a command to go into the ark, so, how tedious soever his confinement there was, he would wait for a command to go out of it again. We must in all our ways acknowledge God, and set him before us in all our removals. Those only go under God's protection, who follow God's direction, and submit to him.
Verses 20-22
Noah was now gone out into a desolate world, where, one might have thought, his first care would have been to build a house for himself, but he begins with an alter for God. He begins well, that begins with God. Though Noah's stock of cattle was small, and that saved at great care and pains, yet he did not grudge to serve God out of it. Serving God with our little is the way to make it more; we must never think that is wasted with which God is honoured. The first thing done in the new world was an act of worship. We are now to express our thankfulness, not by burnt-offerings, but by praise, and pious devotions and conversation. God was well pleased with what was done. But the burning flesh could no more please God, than the blood of bulls and goats, except as typical of the sacrifice of Christ, and expressing Noah's humble faith and devotedness to God. The flood washed away the race of wicked men, but it did not remove sin from man's nature, who being conceived and born in sin, thinks, devises, and loves wickedness, even from his youth, and that as much since the flood as before. But God graciously declared he never would drown the world again. While the earth remains, and man upon it, there shall be summer and winter. It is plain that this earth is not to remain always. It, and all the works in it, must shortly be burned up; and we look for new heavens and a new earth, when all these things shall be dissolved. But as long as it does remain, God's providence will cause the course of times and seasons to go on, and makes each to know its place. And on this word we depend, that thus it shall be. We see God's promises to the creatures made good, and may infer that his promises to all believers shall be so.
From the "Concise Commentary on the Bible" by Matthew Henry.