Genesis 8

KJV · Chapter 8/50

¹And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

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

³And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 pluckt 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.

¹³And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, 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.

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

¹⁵And God spake unto Noah, saying,

¹⁶Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.

¹⁷Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

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 creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

²⁰And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

²¹And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

²²While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

The floodwaters begin to recede; Noah sends out a raven and then a dove to check whether the earth is dry, and finally the whole family leaves the ark and Noah offers sacrifices to God.

Explanation

This chapter shows the careful, gradual process of restoration after judgment: God 'remembers' Noah (not because he had forgotten him, but because he now acts on his behalf), and the water recedes little by little, month after month. The use of the dove, which returns with an olive leaf, has become one of the best-known symbols of peace and hope in Western culture. As soon as he steps onto dry ground, Noah's first act is to build an altar and worship — even before tending to his own practical needs, he prioritizes gratitude to God. In response, God promises never again to destroy the earth in this way and guarantees the continuity of the seasons. The central message is that after trial comes restoration, and the first response to salvation should be gratitude.

Fun facts

The place where the ark came to rest, 'the mountains of Ararat' (v. 4), refers to a mountainous region in what is now eastern Turkey, not a single specific peak — the biblical text is broader than the popular tradition that points to the modern Mount Ararat.
The dove with the olive leaf (v. 11) became, millennia later, a universal symbol of peace, used to this day on flags, logos, and in art — a direct influence of this biblical text on world culture.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Genesis 8:1After so much destruction, the text marks the turning point: God ‘remembered’ Noah and the animals in the ark, and sent a wind that begins to bring the waters down — the first sign that the worst had passed.
Genesis 8:2The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven, which had opened at the start of the flood, now close, and the rain stops — the reverse of the process that caused the flooding.
Genesis 8:3The water begins to recede little by little, gradually, over 150 days — the same length of time the waters had stayed at their peak, mentioned at the end of the previous chapter.
Genesis 8:4‘Ararat’ was the name of an ancient mountainous region, in an area that today lies between Turkey, Armenia, and Iran — the text doesn’t point to one specific peak, only the mountain range as a whole. That’s why, to this day, expeditions search for remains of the ark on different mountains within that region, since the Bible doesn’t name an exact spot.
Genesis 8:5It’s only ten months after the flood began that the mountaintops become visible again — a slow drying process that will still take much longer before the earth is truly livable.
Genesis 8:6After forty more days of waiting, Noah finally opens a window of the ark to start checking conditions outside.
Genesis 8:7Noah first releases a raven, which flies back and forth without returning to the ark — unlike the dove he releases afterward, which comes back because it can’t find anywhere to land. The difference makes sense: ravens eat almost anything, including carrion, so it could sustain itself flying over the still-flooded earth without needing dry ground to land on.
Genesis 8:8Noah releases a dove to test whether the water had gone down enough for dry land to exist somewhere.
Genesis 8:9The dove finds nowhere to land, because the water still covered everything, and returns to the ark — Noah takes it back in, showing care for the bird he sent out.
Genesis 8:10Noah waits seven more days before trying again, giving the water time to go down a little more.
Genesis 8:11This time the dove comes back with an olive leaf in its beak — the first concrete proof that vegetation was reappearing somewhere nearby.
Genesis 8:12After seven more days of waiting, Noah releases the dove a third time, and it doesn’t come back — a sign that it had already found somewhere to live on dry land.
Genesis 8:13Nearly a year after the flood began, Noah removes the covering of the ark and sees with his own eyes that the surface of the earth was already dry.
Genesis 8:14It’s only almost two months later that the earth becomes completely dry — the drying process, start to finish, took far longer than the forty days of rain.
Genesis 8:15Even with the earth dry, Noah waits for God’s command before leaving the ark — he doesn’t decide on his own, he waits for the same authority that told him to enter.
Genesis 8:16God finally commands Noah to leave the ark with his whole family, ending the time of confinement that began back in chapter 7.
Genesis 8:17God also commands that all the animals be released, repeating the same command to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ given at creation, in chapter 1 — a fresh start for life on earth.
Genesis 8:18Noah leaves the ark with his entire family, carrying out the command given in the previous verse.
Genesis 8:19All the animals leave as well, grouped by kind — the same standard used to organize them when boarding the ark back in chapter 7.
Genesis 8:20The first thing Noah does after leaving is build an altar and offer sacrifices from the clean animals — a gesture of gratitude right after survival, before even taking up any other activity.
Genesis 8:21Saying God smelled a ‘sweet savour’ is a very old way of speaking, common among many peoples of the time, to describe that an offering was accepted and pleasing — not a literal description of a nose enjoying the smell of a cookout. It’s the language ancient texts used to express that Noah’s sacrifice was well received.
Genesis 8:22God promises that, as long as the earth lasts, the cycle of the seasons and of day and night will continue without interruption — a guarantee of stability after the total destruction of the flood.