The Covenants

Genesischapter 8

22 verses · ASV

This chapter sends 173 cross-references outward and receives 145 — heaviest partner: Genesis.

Chapter summary

The waters recede, and God remembers Noah. The ark rests on the mountains of Ararat; the raven goes forth, then the dove thrice — the third time returning not. Noah opens the ark and finds the earth dry. His first act on dry ground is to build an altar and offer clean animals; ‘the LORD smelled a sweet savour’. Judgment is answered by a covenantal resolve: ‘I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake’. Clarke emphasises Noah's priestly posture; JFB reads the altar as the pattern for all later worship — a saved man's first word is praise.

Drafted from Matthew Henry, Calvin, Gill, Clarke, JFB, and Barnes.

Context

Law · Moses — see the Genesis overview for the book's full setting.

20–22 The Covenants

1 And God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;

2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

3 and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.

4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

7 and he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;