Genesis 8:1-12 - God remembered Noah

8:1-5

“But God remembered Noah...” This does not mean that God ever forgot Noah, it is just expressing things in human terms (anthropomorphic language, if you want a technical term). He also remembered all the animals. We can often think that God has forgotten us or is ignoring our plight, this is never the case. Nor has God forgotten creation. It is not a case of God starting things up and then just leaving the universe to its own devices. God is continually actively involved in His creation. So God sent a wind and the waters started to recede. Now this does not mean that the physics of climate do not apply. They do, though it is well worth remembering that our understanding of climate and climate change is very limited. So the rains stopped and the ark eventually came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. It is worth noting that it does not say it was on Mount Ararat itself (though it might have been). The waters continued to recede.

8:6-12

After 40 days Noah opened a window, and over a period of time let out various birds to see what they would do. It took several periods before Noah received evidence that the waters had actually receded.

It is perhaps worth mentioning at this stage that many civilisations have a flood story. They had them in the middle east, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Africa is the only continent that is fairly devoid of flood stories. This could be taken as evidence that the flood was global, but we also have to remember that floods are fairly common worldwide. There are also many who say the flood in Genesis (and the creation story for that matter) are borrowed from other flood “myths”. If one reads the Genesis account and the accounts from other civilisations one sees that the accounts bare very little resemblance. The Biblical account is much “cleaner”, much simpler and focuses on God’s part in the event.