Session 7 • Genesis 8:10-22

Land!
Restoration awaits those who trust God.

Change is hard. Moves are difficult in the best of circumstances. Because

my father was in the military, we moved a number of times growing up.
Every time we moved, we lost friends, schools, our church, favorite
places, and so forth. The move was work. Setting up a new life in a new
home and new place was not easy—but we had our family. There was
no debating the move—Dad’s job said move and we moved. My father
would go before us and prepare a place for us. We all packed everything
up. On moving day the movers showed up and placed everything into
the moving truck. We would do a final cleaning. We would load the car,
and my father would lock the door of our old house and drive us toward
our new home. The hardest part was fitting in, finding new friends in
our new home.
But this pales in comparison to real tragedies of weather, economic
collapse, war, or loss of family. These are the hardships that bring people
to leave all behind to find shelter and provision in a better, more stable,
and safer place. A good number of Old Testament believers went through
loss and restoration. Job lost his family, wealth, health, and friends
before God restored double of all. Joseph lost his family, country, and
freedom in one day. It was many years before God raised him out of slav-
ery to a powerful position and restored his family relationships. Naomi
lost her husband, sons, a daughter-in-law, her economic security, and her
home before God restored these to her through her faithful daughter-in-
law Ruth. These people all waited on and trusted in God—and He was
faithful to care for each of them.
Noah lost the entire world that he had known. He lost his neighbors,
relatives, and perhaps other sons and daughters born prior to Shem,
Japheth, and Ham. He lost his house, land, and perhaps also a farm.
He may have lost a vineyard—since he planted one after the flood
(Gen. 9:20). The climate and weather would have been seriously affected
by the flood. Had he ever seen rain before? The continents and mountains
were new to Noah. All the rivers Noah had known were gone or changed,
and the garden of Eden was no more. The entire preflood world was
gone, changed forever. However the same types of plants began to grow.

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The animals, birds, and crawling things left the ark and repopulated the
earth. So while the old was gone, God had reestablished and renewed
creation with a clean slate.

UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT

Genesis 8:1-22
Chapter 8 opens with God remembering Noah and all those on the ark in
the midst of God’s wrath being poured out on all flesh. As a result of God’s
remembrance of His creatures on the ark, God stopped up the fountains
of the deep and caused the rain to cease. He caused a wind to blow over
the earth. Thus the flood waters began to subside. It took 150 days for
the waters to abate. The ark was grounded on a mountaintop five months
after the flood began (Gen. 7:11; 8:4). In the eighth month of the flood
event, the waters had receded to the point that the mountaintops could
be seen. In the ninth month of the flood, Noah sent out a raven, but it did
not return. So Noah sent out a dove which returned without finding a
place to alight. A week later Noah sent out the dove again, which returned
with a fresh olive leaf. A week later Noah sent out the dove yet again, and
it did not return to the ark. In total, Noah and his family were on the ark
for about 360–375 days—depending on how the time is counted.
Genesis 8:1 is the center of the account of Noah’s flood (6:9–9:19),
where “God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the live-
stock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over
the earth, and the water began to subside.” What came before was the
destruction of all living creatures on the face of the earth. What follows
is a renewal of the earth and a repopulation of the world that starts with
Noah and his family.1 The animal kingdom is also repopulated from all
the creatures God had preserved on the ark.
Several ancient Near Eastern parallels are often cited when studying
the biblical flood account: The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Epic of Atra-
hasis among others. Many suggest that the Bible borrows from these
accounts or that we must refer to them to properly interpret the biblical
flood account. This is not the case. These accounts do not have the same
concerns, focus, or scope as the biblical account. In the Atrahasis epic,
the gods kill humans with the flood to reduce the noise of overpopulation;
in the Gilgamesh epic the gods make the Noah figure immortal/divine

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 because they had decreed all humanity must die in the flood. These are
flawed memories of the original, biblical account of the flood. These false
accounts were written to explain the flood from their authors’ own idol-
atrous worldview. Where similarities exist, these accounts are simply
remembering small details of the true account preserved in Scripture.
The biblical account is inspired by the Holy Spirit and was communi-
cated to Moses in proper order and with proper emphasis concerning the
divine motivation for the flood.

EXPLORE THE TEXT

Wait (Gen. 8:10-14)
Having already sent out a raven and then a dove, Noah waited another
seven days before sending the dove out again. This time, it returned with
an olive leaf. Noah waited another seven days before sending the dove
out a third time. When the dove did not return, Noah knew the land had
dried, so he removed the ark’s cover (roof) and waited.

VERSES 10-11

So Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove from the
ark again. When the dove came to him at evening, there was a
plucked olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water on the
earth’s surface had gone down.

God caused the rain to stop and the floodwaters subsided (Gen. 8:1-2).
As the water continued to recede the ark came to rest on the mountains
of Ararat (vv. 3-4). Noah was seeking information. After being in the ark
for about a year, he and his family would have been tired of being cooped
up in the ark while waiting for the waters to abate. God had not yet told
him that it was time to leave the ark. They could not leave until the earth
was dry enough to walk upon. Sending out the raven (vv. 6-7) and dove
(vv. 8-9) provided some good intel for Noah regarding the state of the
ground. It is unknown how long the raven could stay airborne. How-
ever some birds, like the Arctic Tern, commonly fly tens of thousands of
miles per year and the Common Swift can remain airborne for months
at a time. When the dove returned with an olive leaf, Noah would have
understood that the ground had dried out, seeds had germinated, trees

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and plants were growing—if not in sight of the ark, at least within a few
hours of the dove’s flight from the ark. It seems miraculous that within
a span of one week the dove at first had no place to rest because of the
water on the earth (vv. 8-9)—that is, among the mountains of Ararat
where the ark ran aground (v. 4)—and then seven days later the dove
returned with an olive leaf.

VERSE 12

After he had waited another seven days, he sent out the dove, but
it did not return to him again.

After waiting a week, Noah sent out the dove again. Noah and his family
were likely very anxious to get off the ark. After about a year on-board
the animal care had likely gotten tiresome. Without the wind, the waves,
and the fresh water, the ark would not have had the airflow it had during
the flood—so the smell of the ark would have been getting odorous.
But still, Noah and his family had to wait. This time the dove did not
return. It likely had found a resting place for its feet and vegetation
to eat (v. 9).

VERSES 13-14

In the six hundred first year, in the first month, on the first day
of the month, the water that had covered the earth was dried up.
Then Noah removed the ark’s cover and saw that the surface of
the ground was drying. By the twenty-seventh day of the second
month, the earth was dry.

The rains had begun during the previous year in the second month on the
seventeenth day of the month (7:11). On the first day of the first month of
the following year the water had dried up (about ten and a half months
after the deluge began). However this did not mean that the earth was
yet dry—just that the standing water was gone. Noah removed the ark’s
cover (roof) which would have given him a good vantage point to clearly
see out across the landscape. Before its removal there was only a very low
(18 inches) window or space below the roof along the sides. Now it would
have been like taking the top off of a convertible—open sky. Fifty-seven
days later (one month and twenty-seven days) on the twenty-seventh
day of the second month (approximately 375 days; one year and ten
days after the rains began), the earth was dry. The wrath of God was
over. Noah and his family—as well as all the animals, birds, and crawling
things—had through His mercy survived God’s wrath. God had delivered

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 them through His judgment and redeemed their lives from death. A new
start—or a restart—for creation was beginning.

Explore Further
Noah spent a hundred years waiting for the flood and about a year
on the ark during the flood. Why does God put us in situations
where we have to wait? How can believers learn to patiently wait
for and trust in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan?

Exit (Gen. 8:15-19)

God finally directed Noah to bring his family and all the creatures out
of the ark. Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives exited the ark fol-
lowed by the animals. God reiterated His command from Genesis 1—that
all living creatures should multiply and spread out over the earth. God
spoke the same message to Noah’s family—to be fruitful, multiply, and fill
the earth (Gen. 9:1). Now that the violence and bloodshed on the ground
was cleansed through the death of violent men, God was giving creation
a fresh start. However there would be some changes to God’s covenant
with creation (chap. 9; see session 8).

VERSES 15-17

Then God spoke to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you, your wife,
your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out all the living
creatures that are with you—birds, livestock, those that crawl on
the earth—and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and
multiply on the earth.”

Noah, his family, and all the animals remained on the ark until receiving
a command from the Lord. God spoke directly to Noah, but his words
were not meant for Noah alone. His words were also meant for Noah’s
family—“you, your wife, your sons, and your son’s wives with you.”
Finally! God’s command to leave the ark brought freedom from its con-
fines and the end of Noah’s family’s year-long task of feeding and caring
for all the animals on the ark. However, Noah and his family’s care for
creation had not ended. He and his family were still God’s representative

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stewards of creation. But once the animals were off the ark the creatures
would have been able to do such tasks as foraging for food on their own.
God was starting over with the living creatures who had been pre-
served through the flood on the ark. God’s command for them to spread
over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth echoed the
commands God initially made to the birds and sea creatures at the
creation (1:22).

VERSES 18-19

So Noah, along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, came
out. All the animals, all the creatures that crawl, and all the flying
creatures—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the
ark by their families.

Who and what went into the ark before the flood came out of the ark after
the flood. Noah’s family exited first, followed by the animals by their fam-
ilies. God originally created males and females of each kind of creature to
mate and have offspring and thereby fill the earth. Now the people and
animals who survived the flood would do the same.
All humanity would now descend from Noah and his family. Made in
the image of God and given dominion over God’s creation (1:26-28), the
family unit is the foundational institution of human society. The family
was and is God’s design for populating the earth, supporting and caring
for one another, as well as being the basic economic unit of society. In
ancient times, the family was based around a married couple, and could
include up to three or four generations of children, grandchildren, and
so forth, who lived on the same land.
The family was led by the elder father (the patriarch). Children were
welcome additions to every family. The members of the family worked
together to provide for the family, and they pulled together to care for
and protect the family members—especially the elderly, the infirmed, the
weak, and the young. Every member of the family had his or her role to
play for the overall good of the family. God’s design and expectation for
the family was that the parents were to raise up their children to know
God and His laws and statutes. The father was also to lead the family in
the worship of God. Moral purity was stressed within the family unit and
as the basis for moral purity in society overall. Polygamy (the practice of
having more than one wife) was an aberrant sexual behavior sometimes
practiced, but it was not and is not God’s plan for the family. It inevitably
causes serious stress and trouble within the family unit.2

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 Explore Further
Read the article “Family” on pages 555–557 in the Holman Illustrated
Bible Dictionary, Revised and Expanded. Why was it important for the
people and animals to spread out and multiply after the flood? How is
the value that Scripture places on family and children different from
how they are often viewed in the culture of our day?

Worship (Gen. 8:20-22)

Noah built an altar and offered some of every kind of clean animal and
clean bird as an offering to the Lord. God responded to the offering by
promising to never again either curse the ground or strike down every
living thing as He had done through the flood. His promise included His
assurance of continual seasons on the earth.

VERSE 20

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind
of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt
offerings on the altar.

The first thing Noah did after leaving the ark was to build an altar. This
altar was most likely constructed out of either field stones or earth
(Ex. 20:24-26). This is the first reference in the Old Testament to some-
one building an altar. Noah’s altar is described as being built to the Lord.
He continued in the tradition of the line of Seth to “call on the name of
Lord [Yahweh]” in worship (Gen. 4:26). Noah offered sacrificial burnt
offerings of every kind of clean animal and clean bird. The distinction
between clean and unclean animals first appears before the flood when
God commanded Noah to take seven pairs of every clean animal and
clean bird into the ark (7:2-3). Either Noah already knew which animals
God considered clean, or God let him know through the animals that
showed up to the ark in pairs of seven. Much later during the exodus
from Egypt, God gave more details as to which animals and birds were
clean and which were unclean (Lev. 11; 20:25-26; Deut. 14:3-20).
Burnt offerings were made primarily to atone for sin and restore
one’s relationship with God or as an act of thanksgiving. These offer-
ings required perfect sacrificial animals—usually a bull, ram, lamb, goat,

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turtledove, or pigeon. Burnt offerings were later defined and described
by God as detailed in the book of Leviticus (chaps. 1; 4–7) and Deuter-
onomy (chap. 12). Burnt offerings were entirely consumed by the fire of
the altar—with the exception of the skins which, after the law was given,
went to the priest (Lev. 7:8). God killing animals to clothe Adam and Eve
may correlate to a burnt offering sacrifice (Gen. 3:21). In the tabernacle
and later in the temple, the altar before the entrance was called “the
altar of burnt offering” (Ex. 40:6,10,29)—on which the burnt offering
was made in the morning and evening as well as on special days. The
burnt offering required sacrificial animals in perfect condition. By offer-
ing some of each kind of the clean animals, Noah demonstrated his great
gratitude and thankfulness toward God for delivering him and his family
from the flood.3

VERSE 21

When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, he said to himself,

“I will never again curse the ground because of human beings,
even though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth
onward. And I will never again strike down every living thing as
I have done.”

Noah’s worship and offerings were pleasing to God. God accepts the
worship of those who come to Him with a right heart and attitude. The
prophet Samuel stated, “Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offer-
ings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? Look: to obey is
better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams”
(1 Sam. 15:22). David noted, “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken
spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God” (Ps. 51:17).
Noah was already viewed by God as the lone righteous man of his gen-
eration (Gen. 6:9; 7:1). God had already showed Noah favor in delivering
him and his family through the flood. Even still, Noah and his family
needed atonement. Noah’s heart attitude was right before God—so God
would accept sacrifices which he offered. However, this did not mean
that Noah could bring just any sacrifice. Although we are not told how he
knew, Noah understood that the sacrifice should be of clean and perfect
animals, and he also knew the proper method of sacrifice—whole burnt
offerings on an altar which Noah had built.
Noah’s burnt offerings pleased God; they were a pleasing aroma to
the Lord. The description of God “smelling” the aroma of the sacrifice is
not meant to be taken literally. It is anthropomorphic language, mean-
ing human traits that are ascribed to God in order to explain a point.

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 Multiple times Scripture refers to burnt offerings sacrificed in the proper
manner using such language as “a pleasing aroma” (Ex. 29:18,25,41;
Lev. 1:9,13,17; as opposed to an unacceptable offering, Lev. 26:31). While
such sacrifices were pleasing to God, they did not truly atone for the sins
of those making the sacrifice. Such offerings looked forward to the once
and final atonement of Christ (Heb. 10:1-23). As the apostle Paul wrote,
we should imitate God and “walk in love, just as Christ also loved you
and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant
aroma” (Eph. 5:2, NASB). Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was the pleasing
aroma God desired. And in Christ, believers become the fragrance of
Christ and the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ among the saved
and among the lost of this world (2 Cor. 2:14-16; Eph. 2:1-10; Col. 1:13-14).
Before the flood, God stated that “every inclination” of humanity’s
thoughts was “evil all the time” (Gen. 6:5), but after the flood He only
stated that “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth
onward.” While God acknowledged that humanity was consistently
inclined toward evil, nevertheless, God promised He would “never
again strike down every living thing as I have done” (through the
flood) because of humanity. Despite the fact that humanity after the
flood would still be worthy of God’s condemnation and punishment, the
Lord would deal with them by offering them grace by not again wiping
humanity off the face of the earth.4

VERSE 22

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and
heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”

God expanded on His promises given to Noah in the previous verse. At

the end of this age there will be a final destruction of the earth, sun,
moon, planets, and stars, and God will create a new heaven and a new
earth (2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21–22). However, until that time God prom-
ises that He will sustain the cyclical working of the universe, and the
earth will endure in its yearly seasons. Day will follow night, and night
will follow day. Planting and harvesting seasons will continue in their
proper order. Spring will be followed by summer; summer will be fol-
lowed by fall; and fall will be followed by winter. Summers will be hot;
winters will be cold. Mathews notes, “Instead of destruction, the earth
will be blessed with the regularity of predictable environmental patterns
that are undergirded by the directive hand of God (v. 22). This promise
is dependent upon the goodness of God and not the righteousness of
humanity, for humanity will always languish in sin. The only condition

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is temporal, ‘as long as the earth endures’ (v. 22) . . . By this promise,
the Lord restored their confidence in a subdued world, subjected to the
divine promise, where they could once again thrive.” 5
Jeremiah mentioned that God has made a covenant with the day
(Jer. 31:35-36; 33:20-26) and no one can change or alter the day as a
result. So God will support creation until the world’s appointed end.
However, this does not mean that there will be no local or regional nat-
ural disasters (floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes,
meteors, etc.); or that there will be no man-made disasters (wars, oil
spills, toxic chemical spills, nuclear reactor meltdowns, etc.)—any of
which could cause massive loss of life. Tragedies like these will occur but
they will not stop the cycle of seasons, days, and agriculture—until God
stops them on the “Day of the Lord.”
Just as God delivered Noah and his family through the flood, God
desires to deliver humanity from the consequences of our sins. Through
His Messiah, Jesus Christ, God offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
However, our part is to repent of our sins and by faith accept Jesus as
both our Savior and Lord. When we confess Christ, we are born again
(John 3:1-18), and we have the hope of a future resurrection and can look
forward to spending eternity with God in heaven (Phil. 3:20-21).

Explore Further
Read the article “Salvation” on pages 1403–1404 in the Holman
Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Revised and Expanded. God delivered
Noah and his family from the judgment of the flood that wiped all
living creatures off the face of the earth. Through Jesus Christ, God
has delivered believers from the even greater judgment to come.
Spend time in prayer thanking God for delivering you in and through
Christ from God’s judgment and wrath for sin that will one day come
upon the entire world.

1. For more on the structure of the flood account, see Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, vol. 1, Word Biblical Commentary
(Dallas, TX: Word, 1987), 155–157.
2. Brent R. Kelly, E. Ray Clendenen, and Charissa Wilson, “Family,” in Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary [HIBD], gen. ed. Chad
Brand (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2015), 555–557.
3. Scott Langston and E. Ray Clendenen, “Sacrifice and Offering,” in HIBD, 1399; Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26,
vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1996), 392.
4. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, 395.
5. Ibid., 396.

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