# 38 2022 Dev. Genesis 8:1.God Remembers! Read chapter eight first. We invite you into God’s space, to read His Word, to think on and interact with. This is God’s story. How will it affect yours? All passages are taken from the NIV.
Genesis 8:1 “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark…”
Gen. 8 After 150 days of the earth being covered with water, God remembers, and sends a wind upon the waters. It sounds much like the very beginning in chapter one. “The earth is empty and void and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Wind is often translated as Spirit depending on the context. There is movement in the statement “But God remembered…” I can imagine that Noah was wondering about that,
Vs.1-5. Chapter 7 ends with the end of all living except for those in the ark and the world was covered with water for 150 days, this is the end of judgment and condemnation. “But God remembered Noah…” in chapter 8, it is a pivotal statement, the beginning of redemption. From here on begins the fulfillment of the promise of Ge. 3:15, culminating at Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection. These verses are very precise as to the day and month of the ark coming to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Scripture is not an historical or an scientific document, although some of that is included, but Scripture is mainly about relationships; God’s relationship with his people, God’s dealings with humankind and the world, and humans dealing with other humans.
Vs.6-12 After the ark grounded, Noah proceeded to determine if the earth had dried up by sending out a raven and a dove. After 365 days the earth had dried up.
Vs.13-14 “By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth, but not completely, not till the 27th day of the 2nd month the earth was completely dry.
Vs.15-17 “So God said to Noah, ‘come out of the ark,” God wanted the animals to repopulate the earth.
Vs.18-19 So Noah, his family and all the animals came out of the ark. A reversal of Ch.7, instead of death, now there was life again on the earth. Instead of condemnation, there is redemption for man and animals alike.
Vs.20-22 Noah’s first priority was to worship, he built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed some of the clean animals to God. God was pleased, not so much for the aroma but with the heart of Noah. He was so pleased that He promised to Himself, “never again will I curse the ground because of humans,” even though they are evil from childhood, and “I will not destroy all creatures as I have done.” God makes a promise to us: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” But only as long as the earth endures. There is an end of things, there is an end to our lives, there is an end to evil, there is an end to this earth and creation as we know it, but the New Heaven and the New Earth is coming, Christ is on the way, making our salvation complete! Thanks be to God.
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Heavenhigh 