Genesis · chapter 8 of 50
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Genesis 8 tells how God remembers Noah and sends a wind over the earth so that the waters recede. The ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat, and Noah sends out a raven and then a dove three times, which brings back an olive leaf. Noah leaves the ark, builds an altar and offers burnt offerings, and the Lord promises never again to curse the ground because of man.
Genesis 8 is the turning point of the flood story, from judgment to a new beginning. God, who sent the waters, now makes them go down. The chapter shows Noah's patience in waiting and God's grace, which answers a sacrifice of gratitude with a lasting promise for all creation.
God remembers Noah and all the animals with him in the ark, and he sends a wind over the earth. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens are closed, and the rain stops. The waters gradually recede, and after 150 days the ark comes to rest, in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, on the mountains of Ararat. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains are seen.
After forty days Noah opens the window and sends out a raven, which goes to and fro until the waters dry up. Then he sends out a dove, which finds no place to land and returns. Seven days later he sends it out again, and it comes back with an olive leaf in its beak, and Noah knows the waters have gone down. After seven more days he sends it out again, and it does not return. In Noah's six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters are dried up; on the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth is dry.
God tells Noah to leave the ark with his wife, his sons and their wives, and with all the animals so that they may multiply. Noah builds an altar to the Lord and offers burnt offerings of clean animals and birds. The Lord smells the pleasing aroma and says in his heart that he will never again curse the ground because of man, nor destroy every living creature. As long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
God remembers Noah and all the animals with him in the ark, and he sends a wind over the earth. That God remembers does not mean he had forgotten: it means he acts on behalf of his own.
The dove returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak, and Noah knows the waters have gone down. The olive leaf has become a symbol of peace and of a new beginning.
On leaving the ark, Noah builds an altar to the Lord and offers burnt offerings of clean animals. His first act in the new earth is worship, a response of gratitude for having been saved.
God promises that as long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease. The steady order of nature is a gift of God's faithfulness.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: He sent a wind over the earth, closed the fountains of the deep and stopped the rain. — Genesis 8:1-2
Answer: On the mountains of Ararat, in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month. — Genesis 8:4
Answer: A freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. — Genesis 8:11
Answer: It did not return to him anymore. — Genesis 8:12
Answer: He built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings of clean animals and birds. — Genesis 8:20
Answer: Never again to curse the ground because of man or destroy every living creature, and that the cycle of seasons would not cease. — Genesis 8:21-22
Genesis 8 teaches us to wait on God. Noah spent months in the ark after the rain stopped and did not leave until God told him to. In a group you can talk about the waiting seasons of life and how to trust that God remembers us even when we do not yet see the result.
It also teaches us to worship first. The first thing Noah does is give thanks with an altar. Ask how you respond to God's deliverances: with concrete gratitude or by moving quickly on to the next thing. The promise of verse 22 invites us to see each season, each harvest and each sunrise as a sign of his faithfulness.
Genesis 8 ends with God's promise to uphold the order of creation. In Genesis 9 God blesses Noah and his sons, gives new instructions and establishes the covenant of the rainbow.
The text speaks of the mountains of Ararat, not a single mountain, and refers to a mountainous region in northern Mesopotamia, ancient Urartu, in what is now eastern Turkey. The Bible does not give the exact place where the ark rested.
It is ancient language for saying that God accepted Noah's sacrifice with favor. God does not need food: what pleases him is the attitude of gratitude and obedience, and that is why he answers with a promise.
In Genesis 8:21 God acknowledges that the human heart is still inclined to evil, and yet he promises never again to destroy the earth with a flood. The promise does not depend on people getting better but on God's grace, which will later show how to solve the problem of sin.