Genesis 8:1-22--God Remembered Those Inside the Ark

Genesis 8
World English Bible

8 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 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 Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh 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.”

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Good looks on the people and animals that He has placed on the Ark to save them and remembers them and acts to save them.  We'll see this pattern over and over again in Scripture--God sees or hears the plight of His people, remembers His ultimate plan for them, and acts on their behalf to save them, not because of how good they are, but because of How good He is and His plan to ultimately save them is.

God caused the rains to stop and the waves to calm down.  It would have been very obvious to all those inside the Ark.  He also stopped the waters of the deep and sealed them up again.  We are told that the water receded and the Ark rested on one of the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.  The waters continued to recede until the first day of the tenth month when the tops of the other mountains started to become visible, but there is still much time to pass before those inside the Ark can be let out.

Noah waited forty days after this to conduct a little experiment.  He opened the window of the Ark and let out a raven (a bird that lives up in the trees and nests in the trees).  He did this until the raven did not return to him, which would mean that the raven found both enough food and enough shelter to survive.  Then Noah turned his attention towards the dove, which nests on the ground.  Noah released the dove when the raven did not come back, but the dove came back to him finding no place to rest.  He waited a week and tried again and the dove came back to him with an olive branch in its mouth (we've used this a symbol of each all around the world--both doves and olive branches, and this is why, for it was a symbol of this judgment of God being over).  This was a good sign that there was green vegetation growing, but the ground was still not dry enough for the dove to find a place to make its home, so Noah waited a little another week before sending the dove out again.  This time, the dove did not return because it found a place to make its home.

Noah knew it was time to be able to leave the Ark, but Noah did not seal the door to the Ark, and Noah was not the one who could unseal the door.  The LORD saw that Noah was ready to leave the Ark and told Noah to exit the Ark and take a look around.  The earth was not completely ready to receive Noah and the animals yet.  Just because the surface of the ground was dry in some places doesn't mean that the ground was ready to receive them, for it was still probably a swampy mess with all the excess water that was still in the ground.  It took almost another two months for the ground to dry up completely.  After all was ready, God gave the command to Noah and all the people and animals that were with him to depart the Ark, and that is exactly what they did.

The first thing Noah did when he came off the Ark was to build an altar and to sacrifice clean animals on the altar to make atonement for himself, his family and the earth.  God was pleased with the sacrifice and He promised to never again destroy the earth by water (this is the beginning of a covenant that we will examine more fully in tomorrow's passage).  Individual men will suffer for their own sins and there will be local judgments, but there will not be another worldwide judgment the last days when it is time to put an end to all wickedness on the earth and, eventually, for this heaven and earth to pass away.  He promises that as long as earth remains, summer, winter, springtime, and harvest (the four seasons) will never cease to come and go.  (This is a key promise that we will not be allowed to destroy the earth either, though we are to be good stewards of what God has given us, we should not fear ecological disasters or be given into the fear mongering of the climate activists who continually give doomsday prophecies that never come true that the oceans will rise and the whole world is going to be flooded--this text promises that is certainly not going to happen).  It is also promised that day and night will not cease (that's for all those that claim that the sun is going to run out of energy or will go supernova and destroy us all).  Must of what people live in fear of would not be something they would give place to if they read and believed the book of Genesis.  Because God has made this unconditional covenant with all mankind, men everywhere from all peoples and all tribes and all nations should love and worship and serve Him.  This is the call of the gospel that we proclaim to all people today and every day!  Turn to God and obey Him before the final Day of Judgment comes, for there will be no escape for it if you are outside the Ark of Christ just like there was no escape from the Global Flood for those outside the Ark here in Genesis 6-8.