Genesis 8

Genesis 8: The conclusion of the flood story.

Synopsis

This chapter concludes the flood story. The waters recede from the Earth, and eventually Noah, his family, and the animals, come out of the ark.

An interesting detail included is how Noah tested to see if the water was gone yet. As the waters receded, the ark eventually came to rest on Mount Ararat, and then stayed there, while the water continued to go down. Noah opened a window in the ark, and sent out a raven which “kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth” (verse 7). He later sent out a dove, but the dove had nowhere to land, so it came back. Seven days later, he sent out the dove again, and it returned to him in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf. Finally, seven days after that, he sent out the dove again, but it didn’t return.

The chapter ends with the LORD saying:

“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”

(verses 21–22)

Thoughts

This is actually a pretty straightforward chapter, so I don’t have a whole lot to say.

It’s a further testimony to the patience and long-suffering of God that He will not destroy the Earth again, even though “every inclination of [man’s] heart is evil from childhood”. (verse 21) Instead of destroying the Earth, He sent His Son to die for our sins, and take our sin upon Himself.

But we’ll get to that in another thousand chapters or so, give or take…