Chapter 8: Genesis 8:1-22, a new beginning
After forty days and forty nights, God stopped the flood but Noah stayed in the ark very much longer until the waters totally subsided. When Noah came out of the ark, he offered burnt offerings to the Lord. Humanity was given a new start with Noah. The human race started all over again with just twelve people. Humanity was given a new lease of life, a second chance to do it right one more time.
Verses 1-5, 1 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.
God remembered Noah and all the living creatures inside it. He sent the wind to blow over the earth and stopped the rain from falling from the sky and waters from gushing out from below the sea. After 150 days, the floodwaters gradually subsided, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat on the seventeen-day of the seventh month. The tops of the mountains became visible on the first day of the tenth month.
Verses 6-12, 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.
At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark and sent out a raven. It went back and forth and returned to the ark. After this, Noah sent out a dove but it returned back to the ark. Seven days later, Noah sent out the dove again. The dove returned with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Seven days later, Noah sent out the dove again, and this time, the dove did not return to the ark. So, Noah knew that the water had finally subsided and the ground was dry.
Verses 13-17, 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.”
On the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and one years, the waters totally subsided. On the twenty-seven days of the second month, the surface of the earth was dry. God commanded Noah to bring his wife, his sons, his daughters-in-law, animals, creeping things, and birds out of the ark. God commanded Noah to be fruitful and multiply to replenish the earth’s population.
Verses 18-22, 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.”
Finally, Noah, his family, animals, livestock, creeping things, and birds came out from the ark. Noah built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings of clean animals and birds to the LORD. The LORD accepted Noah’s offering and promised that He would never curse the ground to strike every living thing in the same way. God promised Noah, times, seasons, days, nights, weeks, months, and years. This was the first time that burnt offering was mentioned in the Bible. Another first for Genesis. Noah and his team were in the ark for more than 1 year.
Application:
God remembered Noah. God remembered you. God never forgets. Even though a mother may forget her breastfeeding baby, God will never forget you, Isaiah 49:15.
Isaiah 49:15, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not
forget you!
Noah offered burnt offerings to the Lord. Today, we do not burn an animal sacrifice to God because Christ had offered Himself as the perfect sin offering to pay the penalty of our sins for us. We offer our praise, worship, and body as living sacrifices to serve Him.
Only God can stop the flood at His own timing. Similarly, only God can stop the covid 19 pandemic at His own timing.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us a new beginning, a new start, a new life, a new spiritual rebirth. Thank you that when we are in Christ, we are born again, born from above, regenerated, and became a new creation. Thank You that the old self of the flesh has gone and the new life in the Spirit has come. Thank You for giving us a second chance, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
