“Genesis 8:1-5”

Friday, November 01, 2019

“But 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. Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased. In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. 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.”

---End of Scripture verses---

“But God remembered Noah…” (verse 1) It is not that God could have forgotten about the people and animals that were sheltered safely within the ark. But as long as they had been cooped up in the great vessel, it may have seemed to them as if the Lord had lost track of them. Sometimes when a leg of our journey upon this earth seems particularly long, dark, lonely and cold, we may feel as if the Lord has forgotten us. But He is working things out for our favor in remote realms of inapproachable light beyond our ability to see. “The whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family, was now extinguished, and gone into the land of forgetfulness, so that God’s remembering Noah was the return of his mercy to mankind, of whom he would not make a full end. Noah himself, though one that had found grace in the eyes of the Lord, yet seemed to be forgotten in the ark; but at length God returned in mercy to him, and that is expressed by his remembering him.” (Benson Commentary)

“God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.” (verse 1) Just as in the beginning when “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2), so now “a wind” passed over the waters in the days of the flood. The same word for “spirit” and “wind” is the Hebrew word “ruwach”. As the “Spirit” moved over the surface of the deep in the beginning to bring order from chaos, so God sent a “wind” to pass over the top of the floodwaters to restore order from chaos. “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.” (Matthew Henry)

“Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained” (verse 2) Here we see a definite distinction made between “the floodgates of the sky” and “the rain from the sky,” strongly suggesting that the “floodgates” were the “cosmic ocean” described in Genesis 1:7 as “the waters which were above the expanse.” The Lord “opened” the sky and “unleashed” the rain to initiate the immense inundation, and after forty days it was His hand that “closed” and “restrained” them to abate the floodwaters. “And the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.” (verse 3) The Holman Christian Standard Bible renders this verse: “The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the waters had decreased significantly.” The water level dropped steadily more and more until after the timespan of 150 days (likely including the 40 days and nights of rain), the water was considerably, conspicuously, noticeably lower. When God allows an appreciable improvement to be seen during a prolonged period of stressfulness, that is always good for lifting human minds and spirits.

“In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” (verse 4) “Not on Mount Ararat but on the highest peak in Ararat, which is a lofty tableland mentioned in 2 Kings 19:37, Isaiah 37:38, and Jeremiah 51:27. It is known as Urartu in Assyrian inscriptions. That kingdom occupied a large portion of present-day Armenia between the River Araxes and Lake Van. The sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers lie in this region. Today there is a mountain called Ararat near the conjunction of the Turkish, Armenian, and Iranian borders. Rising nearly 17,000 feet (5,185 m.) above sea level, its peak is perpetually covered with snow.” (Nahum Sarna) This indicates that the ark bottomed out on one of the mountains of Ararat, but the mountains themselves had not yet become exposed. “In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.” (verse 5) “Reckoning 30 days for a month, we thus have an interval of 73 days between the grounding of the ark upon the mountains of Ararat and the visibility of the other mountains.” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)

Please read Genesis 8:6-12 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

- Louie Taylor

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