8:1 But God remembered 1 Noah and all the wild animals and domestic animals that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to blow over 2 the earth and the waters receded. 8:2 The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were closed, 3 and the rain stopped falling from the sky. 8:3 The waters kept receding steadily 4 from the earth, so that they 5 had gone down 6 by the end of the 150 days. 8:4 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat. 7 8:5 The waters kept on receding 8 until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains became visible. 9
8:6 At the end of forty days, 10 Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 11 8:7 and sent out a raven; it kept flying 12 back and forth until the waters had dried up on the earth.
8:8 Then Noah 13 sent out a dove 14 to see if the waters had receded 15 from the surface of the ground. 8:9 The dove could not find a resting place for its feet because water still covered 16 the surface of the entire earth, and so it returned to Noah 17 in the ark. He stretched out his hand, took the dove, 18 and brought it back into the ark. 19 8:10 He waited seven more days and then sent out the dove again from the ark. 8:11 When 20 the dove returned to him in the evening, there was 21 a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak! Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. 8:12 He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, 22 but it did not return to him this time. 23
8:13 In Noah’s six hundred and first year, 24 in the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth, and Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that 25 the surface of the ground was dry. 8:14 And by the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth 26 was dry.
8:15 Then God spoke to Noah and said, 8:16 “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 8:17 Bring out with you all the living creatures that are with you. Bring out 27 every living thing, including the birds, animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Let them increase 28 and be fruitful and multiply on the earth!” 29
8:18 Noah went out along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. 8:19 Every living creature, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark in their groups.
8:20 Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 30 8:21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma 31 and said 32 to himself, 33 “I will never again curse 34 the ground because of humankind, even though 35 the inclination of their minds 36 is evil from childhood on. 37 I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.
8:22 “While the earth continues to exist, 38
planting time 39 and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
and day and night will not cease.”
2:5 Now 40 no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field 41 had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 42
18:1 The Lord spoke to Moses:
1:1 From Paul, 52 a slave 53 of Christ Jesus, 54 called to be an apostle, 55 set apart for the gospel of God. 56
1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people 57 who suppress the truth by their 58 unrighteousness, 59
1 tn The Hebrew word translated “remembered” often carries the sense of acting in accordance with what is remembered, i.e., fulfilling covenant promises (see B. S. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel [SBT], especially p. 34).
2 tn Heb “to pass over.”
3 tn Some (e.g., NIV) translate the preterite verb forms in this verse as past perfects (e.g., “had been closed”), for it seems likely that the sources of the water would have stopped before the waters receded.
4 tn The construction combines a Qal preterite from שׁוּב (shuv) with its infinitive absolute to indicate continuous action. The infinitive absolute from הָלָךְ (halakh) is included for emphasis: “the waters returned…going and returning.”
5 tn Heb “the waters.” The pronoun (“they”) has been employed in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn The vav (ו) consecutive with the preterite here describes the consequence of the preceding action.
7 tn Heb “on the mountains of Ararat.” Obviously a boat (even one as large as the ark) cannot rest on multiple mountains. Perhaps (1) the preposition should be translated “among,” or (2) the plural “mountains” should be understood in the sense of “mountain range” (see E. A. Speiser, Genesis [AB], 53). A more probable option (3) is that the plural indicates an indefinite singular, translated “one of the mountains” (see GKC 400 §124.o).
8 tn Heb “the waters were going and lessening.” The perfect verb form הָיָה (hayah) is used as an auxiliary verb with the infinitive absolute חָסוֹר (khasor, “lessening”), while the infinitive absolute הָלוֹךְ (halokh) indicates continuous action.
9 tn Or “could be seen.”
10 tn The introductory verbal form וַיְהִי (vayÿhi), traditionally rendered “and it came to pass,” serves as a temporal indicator and has not been translated here.
11 tn Heb “opened the window in the ark which he had made.” The perfect tense (“had made”) refers to action preceding the opening of the window, and is therefore rendered as a past perfect. Since in English “had made” could refer to either the ark or the window, the order of the phrases was reversed in the translation to clarify that the window is the referent.
12 tn Heb “and it went out, going out and returning.” The Hebrew verb יָצָא (yatsa’), translated here “flying,” is modified by two infinitives absolute indicating that the raven went back and forth.
13 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Noah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
14 tn The Hebrew text adds “from him.” This has not been translated for stylistic reasons, because it is redundant in English.
15 tn The Hebrew verb קָלָל (qalal) normally means “to be light, to be slight”; it refers here to the waters receding.
16 tn The words “still covered” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
17 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Noah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn Heb “it”; the referent (the dove) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
19 tn Heb “and he brought it to himself to the ark.”
20 tn The clause introduced by vav (ו) consecutive is translated as a temporal clause subordinated to the following clause.
21 tn The deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) draws attention to the olive leaf. It invites readers to enter into the story, as it were, and look at the olive leaf with their own eyes.
22 tn The word “again” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
23 tn Heb “it did not again return to him still.” For a study of this section of the flood narrative, see W. O. E. Oesterley, “The Dove with the Olive Leaf (Gen VIII 8–11),” ExpTim 18 (1906/07): 377-78.
24 tn Heb In the six hundred and first year.” Since this refers to the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life, the word “Noah’s” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
25 tn Heb “and saw and look.” As in v. 11, the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) invites readers to enter into the story, as it were, and look at the dry ground with their own eyes.
26 tn In v. 13 the ground (הָאֲדָמָה, ha’adamah) is dry; now the earth (הָאָרֶץ, ha’arets) is dry.
27 tn The words “bring out” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
28 tn Following the Hiphil imperative, “bring out,” the three perfect verb forms with vav (ו) consecutive carry an imperatival nuance. For a discussion of the Hebrew construction here and the difficulty of translating it into English, see S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 124-25.
29 tn Heb “and let them swarm in the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
30 sn Offered burnt offerings on the altar. F. D. Maurice includes a chapter on the sacrifice of Noah in The Doctrine of Sacrifice. The whole burnt offering, according to Leviticus 1, represented the worshiper’s complete surrender and dedication to the
31 tn The
32 tn Heb “and the
33 tn Heb “in his heart.”
34 tn Here the Hebrew word translated “curse” is קָלָל (qalal), used in the Piel verbal stem.
35 tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can be used in a concessive sense (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי), which makes good sense in this context. Its normal causal sense (“for”) does not fit the context here very well.
36 tn Heb “the inclination of the heart of humankind.”
37 tn Heb “from his youth.”
38 tn Heb “yet all the days of the earth.” The idea is “[while there are] yet all the days of the earth,” meaning, “as long as the earth exists.”
39 tn Heb “seed,” which stands here by metonymy for the time when seed is planted.
40 tn Heb “Now every sprig of the field before it was.” The verb forms, although appearing to be imperfects, are technically preterites coming after the adverb טֶּרֶם (terem). The word order (conjunction + subject + predicate) indicates a disjunctive clause, which provides background information for the following narrative (as in 1:2). Two negative clauses are given (“before any sprig…”, and “before any cultivated grain” existed), followed by two causal clauses explaining them, and then a positive circumstantial clause is given – again dealing with water as in 1:2 (water would well up).
41 tn The first term, שִׂיחַ (siakh), probably refers to the wild, uncultivated plants (see Gen 21:15; Job 30:4,7); whereas the second, עֵשֶׂב (’esev), refers to cultivated grains. It is a way of saying: “back before anything was growing.”
42 tn The two causal clauses explain the first two disjunctive clauses: There was no uncultivated, general growth because there was no rain, and there were no grains because there was no man to cultivate the soil.
43 tn Heb “to not do from the statutes of the detestable acts.”
44 tn Heb “and you will not.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.
45 tn Heb “And you shall keep, you.” The latter emphatic personal pronoun “you” is left out of a few medieval Hebrew
46 tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”
47 tn Heb “for all these abominations the men of the land who were before you have done.”
48 tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”
49 tc The MT reads the singular “nation” and is followed by ASV, NASB, NRSV; the LXX, Syriac, and Targum have the plural “nations” (cf. v. 24).
50 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
51 tn Grk “heart.”
52 tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.
53 tn Traditionally, “servant.” Though δοῦλος (doulos) is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.
54 tc Many important
55 tn Grk “a called apostle.”
56 tn The genitive in the phrase εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ (euangelion qeou, “the gospel of God”) could be translated as (1) a subjective genitive (“the gospel which God brings”) or (2) an objective genitive (“the gospel about God”). Either is grammatically possible. This is possibly an instance of a plenary genitive (see ExSyn 119-21; M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek, §§36-39). If so, an interplay between the two concepts is intended: The gospel which God brings is in fact the gospel about himself. However, in view of God’s action in v. 2 concerning this gospel, a subjective genitive notion (“the gospel which God brings”) is slightly preferred.
57 tn The genitive ἀνθρώπων could be taken as an attributed genitive, in which case the phase should be translated “against all ungodly and unrighteous people” (cf. “the truth of God” in v. 25 which is also probably an attributed genitive). C. E. B. Cranfield takes the section 1:18-32 to refer to all people (not just Gentiles), while 2:1-3:20 points out that the Jew is no exception (Romans [ICC], 1:104-6; 1:137-38).
58 tn “Their” is implied in the Greek, but is supplied because of English style.
59 tn Or “by means of unrighteousness.” Grk “in (by) unrighteousness.”