Genesis 8:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we see an act of God’s grace: God remembered Noah and every living thing. This is a human way of speaking, because none of his creatures are ever forgotten by him, much less any of his people (Luke 12:6; Isaiah 49:15-16). Yet the whole human race, except Noah and his family, had been cut off and sent into the land of forgetfulness. So when God remembered Noah, it was the return of his mercy to mankind, showing that he would not make a full end of them.

This language is striking, as in Ezekiel 5:13: “When I have finished my anger against them, I will be comforted.” Divine justice had now been satisfied by the destruction of those sinners. He had removed his enemies from him (Isaiah 1:24), and his spirit was at rest (Zechariah 6:8). Then he remembered Noah and every living thing. He remembered mercy in wrath (Habakkuk 3:2), remembered the days long ago (Isaiah 63:11), remembered the holy seed, and then remembered Noah.

Noah himself, though he had found grace in the Lord’s eyes, may still have felt forgotten in the ark. God had not told him how long he would be confined or when he would be released. Even good people can sometimes fear that God has forgotten them, especially when their troubles are heavy and long. Noah may have wondered whether the God who shut him in would keep him there forever. But in time God returned to him in mercy, and that is called remembering him.

Those who remember God will surely be remembered by him, no matter how empty and lonely their condition may seem. He will appoint them a set time and remember them (Job 14:13). With Noah, God also remembered every living thing, because though God especially delights in human beings, he also cares for all he has made. He takes special care not only of his people themselves, but of all that belongs to them. He even considered the cattle of Nineveh (Jonah 4:11).

We also see God’s power over wind and water, both of which obey him even though people cannot control them. He commanded the wind, and it went where he sent it, to drive away the flood: God made a wind pass over the earth. This shows what it means that God remembered Noah, he acted for Noah’s relief. It also shows God’s complete rule over the winds. He holds them in his hand (Proverbs 30:4) and brings them out from his storehouses (Psalm 135:7). He sends them when he wants, where he wants, and for whatever purpose he wants. Even stormy winds do what he says (Psalm 148:8).

It seems that while the waters were still rising, there was no wind, because that would have shaken the ark more. But now God sent a wind when it would be helpful, not harmful. It may have been a north wind, since that often drives rain away. In any case, it was a drying wind, like the one God used to part the Red Sea before Israel (Exodus 14:21).

God also held back the waters and said to them, “Come,” and they came back. He first removed the cause. He shut up the fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven. As God has a key to open, he also has a key to shut again, and to stop judgments by stopping the causes that produce them. The same hand that brings disaster must bring deliverance, so our eyes must always be on him. He who wounds is the only one able to heal (Job 12:14-15).

When troubles have finished the work God sent them to do, whether that work is to destroy or to correct, they will be taken away. God’s word will not return to him empty, but will accomplish what he sent it to do (Isaiah 55:10-11). The result did not happen all at once, but gradually. The waters went down continually, little by little. The sun’s heat caused much of the water to rise as vapor, and perhaps the underground waters also sank back into their places.

So the earth was not flooded in a single day, and it was not dried in a single day either. In creation, it took only one day, or even half a day, to clear the earth of water and make dry land appear (Genesis 1:9-10). But after creation was finished, this work of providence was carried out through secondary causes, though still under the almighty power of God. God usually brings deliverance for his people step by step, so that the day of small things will not be despised, and the day of great things will not lead to despair (Zechariah 4:10). The path of the righteous is like the first light of dawn, which grows brighter and brighter (Proverbs 4:18).