Genesis 8. The Flood Subsides

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.

• “God remembered (זָכַר, zakar)” is covenant language.
  • Genesis 19:29  “God remembered Abraham…”  God rescues Lot
  • Genesis 30:22 “God remembered Rachel…”  Rachel conceives Joseph
  • Exodus 2:24  “God remembered His covenant…”  God beings Israel’s deliverance 
  • 1 Samuel 1:19 “The LORD remembered her (Hannah).”  Hannah conceives Samuel.

And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 

• “…God made a wind blow” I wonder what that would look like if the whole earth was flooded. Where would the wind blow the water to? The Hebrew here is ruach (רוּחַ) which is same word for Holy Spirit (רוּחַ קָדְשְׁךָ). Just as God’s ruach hovered over the waters in Genesis 1:2, His ruach now moves over the Flood waters to begin a new creation. (Creation to chaos to creation again)

² The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, ³ and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, ⁴ and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

• We see the ark came to rest on the 17th day of the seventh month. And if we use Israel’s new calendar in Exodus 12, this date would correspond to the 17th of the month of Nisan…which is the same day and month some say Jesus rose from the dead (depending on how you count the 3 days, it might be the 16th)
  • See https://jesusplusnothing.com/series/post/genesis8 for more possible dates that correspond (Feast of Firstfruits, Red Sea, manna, Esther approaching the king)
• Mountains of Ararat are most likely in modern day Turkey
• Also Mt. Ararat proper is 16,946 feet (5169 meters) above sea level. It probably didn’t come to rest on the mountain peak itself (mountainS of Ararat) but I wonder if people got altitude sickness.

⁶ At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made ⁷ and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. ⁹ But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 

• Ravens are scavengers and feast on carcasses. Doves prefer dry land and vegetation. Why didn’t Noah start with the dove?

¹⁰ He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. ¹¹ And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. ¹² Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.

¹³ In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth.

• Almost a full year later
• Notice how Noah does not leave the ark even though it was dry out! He waits until God tells him to leave.

And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. ¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm 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 beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

God’s Covenant with Noah

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹ And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. ²² While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

• I would like to study more on the symbolism of sacrifice and the pleasing of the aroma to God, I know it points to the Ultimate Sacrifice and shows repentance and obedience so I am not totally sure what my question is.
• Interesting wordplay again! : The Hebrew phrase “pleasing aroma” uses the word נִיחוֹחַ (nichoach) coming from the root נוּחַ(nuach), meaning “rest”….or Noah! 
• Why doesn’t Genesis show us God telling humans how to properly sacrifice? I guess we have to wait until Leviticus.