Key Verse Spotlight
Genesis 8:4 - Meaning and Application
Understand how this verse speaks to what you're facing and how to apply it today
Translation: World English Bible — Catholic Edition
" The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains. "
Genesis 8:4
Verse in Context
Understanding the surrounding verses prevents misinterpretation:
2 The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
3 The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded.
4 The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains.
5 The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
6 At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,
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Here we see the signs that the waters were going down.
1. The ark came to rest. This was a relief to Noah, because the home he was living in was now on solid ground and no longer drifting. It rested on a mountain that God had chosen, not because Noah had guided it there, for he did not steer it, but because God’s wise and kind care brought it to rest sooner. God has times and places of rest for his people after their troubles. Many times, he arranges their safe and timely settling in ways they never planned and could not have foreseen. The ark of the church, though sometimes tossed by storms and left without comfort (Isaiah 54:11), also has seasons of rest (Acts 9:31).
2. The tops of the mountains appeared, like small islands rising above the water. We should understand that Noah and his sons saw them, since no one else was there. They likely kept looking out through the ark’s window each day, like weary sailors after a long voyage, hoping to find land, or like the prophet’s servant (1 Kings 18:43, 1 Kings 18:44). At last they saw the land, and they would have marked that day in their record. According to Dr. Lightfoot’s calculation, they felt the ground beneath them more than forty days before they could see it. From that, he concludes that if the waters fell at the same rate, the ark was drawing eleven cubits of water.
From This Chapter
Genesis 8:1
"God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided."
Genesis 8:2
"The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained."
Genesis 8:3
"The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded."
Genesis 8:5
"The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible."
Genesis 8:6
"At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,"
Genesis 8:7
"and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth."
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