CHAPTER 8

(2348 B.C.)

THE WATERS RECEDE

¹And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the Ark (the idea of God remembering, as given here, does not mean that God had forgotten, or that He could forget; it simply means that He will now give His attention to whatever it is that is being addressed, whether of judgment or of blessing); and God made a wind to pass over the Earth, and the waters assuaged (concerning this, Mackintosh says, Now, it is thought that Enoch is a figure of the Church, which shall be taken away before human evil reaches its climax, and before the Divine Judgment falls thereon; Noah, on the other hand, is a figure of the remnant of Israel, who shall be brought through the deep waters of affliction, and through the fire of judgment, and led into the full enjoyment of Millennial bliss, in virtue of Gods everlasting Covenant);

²The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained (the two words in this Verse, fountains and windows, proclaim to us the terrible ferocity of the flood; in fact, it was probably of such ferocity that it literally reshaped much of this world);

³And the waters returned from off the Earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated (while it took the Lord only one day to handle the water which covered the Earth during the time of creation [Gen. 1:6-8], it took much longer as it regards the flood of Noahs time; while both of these floods were caused by sin, the first by the rebellion of Angels, and the second by the rebellion of men, we find that the rebellion caused by men requires a far greater extent of attention by the Lord; the reason? God gave far greater dominion to Adam, i.e., mankind, than He did the Angelic creation).

⁴And the Ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat (notice the following remarkable facts: On the seventeenth day of Abib (April) the Ark rested on Mount Ararat; on the seventeenth day of Abib the Israelites passed over the Red Sea; on the seventeenth day of Abib, Christ, our Lord, rose again from the dead).

⁵And 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 (from the time that the Ark found a resting place on Ararat until many mountains could be seen were three months).

⁶And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the Ark which he had made (Noah and God had dwelt together in the Ark for a full solar year, that is, from the seventeenth day of the second month until the twenty-seventh of the corresponding month in the following year three hundred and sixty-five days):

⁷And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the Earth (the raven flew away, and did not return).

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

⁹But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the Ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole Earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the Ark (while the tops of some mountains were visible, still, these were a place of death instead of life; the dove could find no resting place in such an area, seeking that which was clean, so she comes back to the Ark).

¹⁰And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the Ark;

¹¹And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the Earth.

¹²And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more (the dove didnt return, because this time it no doubt found a suitable resting place, meaning that the waters were abating).

¹³And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year (Noahs age), in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the Earth: and Noah removed the covering of the Ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry (this refers to its surface only. There would be about 57 or 58 more days, according to the next Verse, making a complete solar year of 365 days, from the time the flood began until it was sufficiently dry).

¹⁴And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the Earth dried.

LEAVING THE ARK

¹⁵And God spoke unto Noah, saying (we find from this short Scripture that Noah waited on the Lord; he did nothing presumptuously),

¹⁶Go forth of the Ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons wives with you (the Lord, being in the Ark with Noah, would tell him Go forth of the Ark).

¹⁷Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the Earth; that they may breed abundantly in the Earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the Earth (this proclaims the fact that the flood was universal).

¹⁸And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons wives with him:

¹⁹Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creeps upon the Earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the Ark (the idea is, the animals did not leave the Ark in confusion, or at random, but in orderly fashion, each one sorting to its own kind).

NOAHS SACRIFICE

²⁰And Noah built an Altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered Burnt Offerings on the Altar (Civilization, as it sprang from the sons of Noah, has its foundation in the Cross of Christ, i.e., the Altar).

²¹And the LORD smelled a sweet savor (the burning of the Sacrifice was sweet unto the Lord, because it spoke of the Coming Redeemer, Who would lift man out of this morass of evil); and the LORD said in His Heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for mans sake (the curse of which God speaks here refers to the fact that He will not again visit the Earth with a flood); for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done (it means that God will take into consideration the results of the Fall, over which man at the time has no control; however, there is a remedy, which is the Altar, i.e., the Cross).

²²While the Earth remained, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease (the Promise is given here that the seasons of the year will continue forever, because the Earth will remain forever).