Although the deluge went on for 40 days, the waters continued to surge for 150 days. In verse 1, " God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside".
In verse 4, The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat". In Genesis 7:11, we learn that the deluge started on the seventeenth day of the second month. So it took 5 months for the ark to finally come back to land. Although the ark had landed, it was on the mountains. They remained in the ark while the waters continued to recede. Verse 5 says "in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible".
But before this, Noah waited 40 days, because God told him that the deluge would last for 40 days. He then opened the window of the ark and sent out a raven, to see if the waters from the deluge had dried up. It flew back and forth until all of the flood waters had dried up. Then Noah sent out a dove, but the waters hadn't gone down yet, so the dove returned and he brought her into the ark. Noah waited patiently, and after seven days, he sent the dove out once again. This time, the dove returned with a plucked olive leaf in her beak. In verse 11 "So Noah knew that the water on the earth's surface had gone down". But, being ever so patient, Noah waits another seven days, then sends the dove out one last time. Then, the first day of the first month of the year after the deluge began, the water that covered the earth dried up. Verse 14, "By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry".
Noah and everyone and everything on the ark spent a really long time on the ark, a little over a year. But, Noah was patient because he had faith in the Lord, Noah knew that the Lord had not forgotten them.
No comments:
Post a Comment