Genesis 8
New English Translation
8 But God remembered[a] Noah and all the wild animals and domestic animals that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to blow over[b] the earth and the waters receded. 2 The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were closed,[c] and the rain stopped falling from the sky. 3 The waters kept receding steadily[d] from the earth, so that they[e] had gone down[f] by the end of the 150 days. 4 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat.[g] 5 The waters kept on receding[h] until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains became visible.[i]
6 At the end of forty days,[j] Noah opened the window he had made in the ark[k] 7 and sent out a raven; it kept flying back and forth[l] until the waters had dried up on the earth.
8 Then Noah[m] sent out a dove[n] to see if the waters had receded[o] from the surface of the ground. 9 The dove could not find a resting place for its feet because water still covered[p] the surface of the entire earth, and so it returned to Noah[q] in the ark. He stretched out his hand, took the dove,[r] and brought it back into the ark.[s] 10 He waited seven more days and then sent out the dove again from the ark. 11 When[t] the dove returned to him in the evening, there was[u] a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak! Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. 12 He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again,[v] but it did not return to him this time.[w]
13 In Noah’s six hundred and first year,[x] in the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth, and Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that[y] the surface of the ground was dry. 14 And by the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth[z] was dry.
15 Then God spoke to Noah and said, 16 “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you all the living creatures that are with you. Bring out[aa] every living thing, including the birds, animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Let them increase[ab] and be fruitful and multiply on the earth!”[ac]
18 Noah went out along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. 19 Every living creature, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark in their groups.
20 Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.[ad] 21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma[ae] and said[af] to himself,[ag] “I will never again curse[ah] the ground because of humankind, even though[ai] the inclination of their minds[aj] is evil from childhood on.[ak] I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.
22 “While the earth continues to exist,[al]
planting time[am] and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
and day and night will not cease.”
Footnotes
- Genesis 8:1 tn The Hebrew word translated “remembered” often carries the sense of acting in accordance with what is remembered, i.e., fulfilling covenant promises (see B. S. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel [SBT], especially p. 34).
- Genesis 8:1 tn Heb “to pass over.”
- Genesis 8:2 tn Some (e.g., NIV) translate the preterite verb forms in this verse as past perfects (e.g., “had been closed”), for it seems likely that the sources of the water would have stopped before the waters receded.
- Genesis 8:3 tn The construction combines a Qal preterite from שׁוּב (shuv) with its infinitive absolute to indicate continuous action. The infinitive absolute from הָלָךְ (halakh) is included for emphasis: “the waters returned…going and returning.”
- Genesis 8:3 tn Heb “the waters.” The pronoun (“they”) has been employed in the translation for stylistic reasons.
- Genesis 8:3 tn The vav (ו) consecutive with the preterite here describes the consequence of the preceding action.
- Genesis 8:4 tn Heb “on the mountains of Ararat.” Obviously a boat (even one as large as the ark) cannot rest on multiple mountains. Perhaps (1) the preposition should be translated “among,” or (2) the plural “mountains” should be understood in the sense of “mountain range” (see E. A. Speiser, Genesis [AB], 53). A more probable option (3) is that the plural indicates an indefinite singular, translated “one of the mountains” (see GKC 400 §124.o).sn Ararat is the Hebrew name for Urartu, the name of a mountainous region located north of Mesopotamia in modern day eastern Turkey. See E. M. Yamauchi, Foes from the Northern Frontier (SBA), 29-32; G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:184-85; C. Westermann, Genesis, 1:443-44.
- Genesis 8:5 tn Heb “the waters were going and lessening.” The perfect verb form הָיָה (hayah) is used as an auxiliary verb with the infinitive absolute חָסוֹר (khasor, “lessening”), while the infinitive absolute הָלוֹךְ (halokh) indicates continuous action.
- Genesis 8:5 tn Or “could be seen.”
- Genesis 8:6 tn The introductory verbal form וַיְהִי (vayehi), traditionally rendered “and it came to pass,” serves as a temporal indicator and has not been translated here.
- Genesis 8:6 tn Heb “opened the window in the ark which he had made.” The perfect tense (“had made”) refers to action preceding the opening of the window, and is therefore rendered as a past perfect. Since in English “had made” could refer to either the ark or the window, the order of the phrases was reversed in the translation to clarify that the window is the referent.
- Genesis 8:7 tn Heb “and it went out, going out and returning.” The Hebrew verb יָצָא (yatsaʾ), translated here “flying,” is modified by two infinitives absolute indicating that the raven went back and forth.
- Genesis 8:8 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Noah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Genesis 8:8 tn The Hebrew text adds “from him.” This has not been translated for stylistic reasons, because it is redundant in English.
- Genesis 8:8 tn The Hebrew verb קָלָל (qalal) normally means “to be light, to be slight”; it refers here to the waters receding.
- Genesis 8:9 tn The words “still covered” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
- Genesis 8:9 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Noah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Genesis 8:9 tn Heb “it”; the referent (the dove) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Genesis 8:9 tn Heb “and he brought it to himself to the ark.”
- Genesis 8:11 tn The clause introduced by vav (ו) consecutive is translated as a temporal clause subordinated to the following clause.
- Genesis 8:11 tn The deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) draws attention to the olive leaf. It invites readers to enter into the story, as it were, and look at the olive leaf with their own eyes.
- Genesis 8:12 tn The word “again” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
- Genesis 8:12 tn Heb “it did not again return to him still.” For a study of this section of the flood narrative, see W. O. E. Oesterley, “The Dove with the Olive Leaf (Gen VIII 8-11),” ExpTim 18 (1906/07): 377-78.
- Genesis 8:13 tn Heb In the six hundred and first year.” Since this refers to the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life, the word “Noah’s” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
- Genesis 8:13 tn Heb “and saw and look.” As in v. 11, the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) invites readers to enter into the story, as it were, and look at the dry ground with their own eyes.
- Genesis 8:14 tn In v. 13 the ground (הָאֲדָמָה, haʾadamah) is dry; now the earth (הָאָרֶץ, haʾarets) is dry.
- Genesis 8:17 tn The words “bring out” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
- Genesis 8:17 tn Following the Hiphil imperative, “bring out,” the three perfect verb forms with vav (ו) consecutive carry an imperatival nuance. For a discussion of the Hebrew construction here and the difficulty of translating it into English, see S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 124-25.
- Genesis 8:17 tn Heb “and let them swarm in the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
- Genesis 8:20 sn Offered burnt offerings on the altar. F. D. Maurice includes a chapter on the sacrifice of Noah in The Doctrine of Sacrifice. The whole burnt offering, according to Leviticus 1, represented the worshiper’s complete surrender and dedication to the Lord. After the flood Noah could see that God was not only a God of wrath, but a God of redemption and restoration. The one who escaped the catastrophe could best express his gratitude and submission through sacrificial worship, acknowledging God as the sovereign of the universe.
- Genesis 8:21 tn The Lord “smelled” (וַיָּרַח, vayyarakh) a “soothing smell” (רֵיחַ הַנִּיחֹחַ, reakh hannikhoakh). The object forms a cognate accusative with the verb. The language is anthropomorphic. The offering had a sweet aroma that pleased or soothed. The expression in Lev 1 signifies that God accepts the offering with pleasure, and in accepting the offering he accepts the worshiper.
- Genesis 8:21 tn Heb “and the Lord said.”
- Genesis 8:21 tn Heb “in his heart.”
- Genesis 8:21 tn Here the Hebrew word translated “curse” is קָלָל (qalal), used in the Piel verbal stem.
- Genesis 8:21 tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can be used in a concessive sense (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי), which makes good sense in this context. Its normal causal sense (“for”) does not fit the context here very well.
- Genesis 8:21 tn Heb “the inclination of the heart of humankind.”
- Genesis 8:21 tn Heb “from his youth.”
- Genesis 8:22 tn Heb “yet all the days of the earth.” The idea is “[while there are] yet all the days of the earth,” meaning, “as long as the earth exists.”
- Genesis 8:22 tn Heb “seed,” which stands here by metonymy for the time when seed is planted.
Genesis 8
New Century Version
The Flood Ends
8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild and tame animals with him in the boat. He made a wind blow over the earth, and the water went down. 2 The underground springs stopped flowing, and the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain. 3-4 The water that covered the earth began to go down. After one hundred fifty days it had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat[a] on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. 5 The water continued to go down so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.
6 Forty days later Noah opened the window he had made in the boat, and 7 he sent out a raven. It flew here and there until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had dried up from the ground. 9 The dove could not find a place to land because water still covered the earth, so it came back to the boat. Noah reached out his hand and took the bird and brought it back into the boat.
10 After seven days Noah again sent out the dove from the boat, 11 and that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the ground was almost dry. 12 Seven days later he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not come back.
13 When Noah was six hundred and one years old, in the first day of the first month of that year, the water was dried up from the land. Noah removed the covering of the boat and saw that the land was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was completely dry.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “You and your wife, your sons, and their wives should go out of the boat. 17 Bring every animal out of the boat with you—the birds, animals, and everything that crawls on the earth. Let them have many young ones so that they might grow in number.”
18 So Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. 19 Every animal, everything that crawls on the earth, and every bird went out of the boat by families.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of all the clean birds and animals, and he burned them on the altar as offerings to God. 21 The Lord was pleased with these sacrifices and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings. Their thoughts are evil even when they are young, but I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.
22 “As long as the earth continues,
planting and harvest,
cold and hot,
summer and winter,
day and night
will not stop.”
Footnotes
- 8:3–4 Ararat The ancient land of Urartu, an area in Eastern Turkey.
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