Genesis Chapter Eight: Noah and His Ark, Concluded

¹And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;

¹And God, who had a lot less to do with 99.999% of all terrestrial life on Earth having been destroyed, remembered that he had left the last people and animals on earth floating in an Ark. So he turned off the waterworks.

²The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

²He caused all the water that he had caused to come up from the depths of the earth to recede back into the ground and he turned off all the rain as well.

³And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

³And the waters receded, and after a hundred and fifty days had passed, the waters went back down to their normal levels. All the corpses had been eaten and all the fish were fat and happy.

⁴And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

⁴And on July 17^th, the Ark came to rest on the on mountains of Ararat, which set the first boat altitude record. Ararat, for the record, is located in ancient Mesopotamia, currently Turkey .

⁵And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

⁵And the waters continued to go down, and some three months later you could actually see the tops of the mountains. Which is a long time to be stuck on the top of a mountain, but I guess since the ark wasn't really going anywhere anyway it didn't make of a difference to the inhabitants whether they were floating around or stuck on a submerged mountain top. Though I do imagine it put an end to the sea-sickness everyone was suffering from.

⁶And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

⁶Now Noah had opened up that one window he had built into the ark, which was an architectural decision he was coming to regret. Having to dispose of the waste of a few thousand animals through one window, particularly in a ship with three stories, is kind of a chore. Not to mention it was the only source of ventilation in boat filled with all those thousands of animals. I imagine Noah and his family spent about as much time at the window as they could.

⁷And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

⁷And Noah, who was rather depressed what with the being locked up with thousands of animals and the world being destroyed, was eager for an end to his tribulations. So he let loose a raven from the ark. Noah supposed that the bird wouldn't come back if it could find anyplace better than arguably the worst place in the world, that being the Ark and its cargo of animals and hideous stink.

⁸Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;

⁸Just to be on the safe side, Noah also sent out a dove on the same type of mission. From this point on, the story revolves around this dove and we never hear about the raven again. No idea why. They never even say whether the Raven came back or not. So don't get too attached to the Raven character, you're not going to see him again.

⁹But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

⁹But the dove didn't find anywhere she liked in the whole world , or those bits it could reach, and so it came back to the ark. And Noah heard the bird fluttering around on the roof and let it in.

¹⁰And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;

¹⁰And Noah gave it seven days and tried the dove trick again.

¹¹And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

¹¹And this time when the dove returned it had an olive leaf in its beak. This is kind of odd since doves don't normally carry around leaves unless some sort of nest building is involved and one guesses it wouldn't be thinking about making a nest in the ark. I mean, who would?

At any rate, Noah took this to mean that there was actual plant life thriving out there some where, and since olive trees generally grow out of the ground that meant there was some fertile earth risen above the waters somewhere.

¹²And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

¹²And Noah gave it another week and dispatched the dove again and it didn't come back, which clearly indicated to Noah that it had found some place better to hang out. It must have been a pretty good place since the only other dove on earth was back on the ark.

¹³And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

¹³And so it came to be in the 601^st year since God started keeping track of years, on January 1^st that the waters dried off the surface of the earth And Noah took the top of the Ark, thus giving everyone some much needed ventilation, and looked out to see that the earth was dry.

¹⁴And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

¹⁴And on February 27^th the earth dried. This is a little odd as the previous verse says the earth dried on the first of January, but maybe the earth was just visible on the 1^st of January and it took until 27^th of February for it to dry out to the point where it wasn't all boggy. Or perhaps after seeing all the watery devastation of the previous hundred and fifty days Noah and his family were a little nervous about getting out of the ark and it took them a while to actually let loose of the life preserver.

¹⁵And God spake unto Noah, saying,

¹⁵And God said to Noah, "Noah! Get over here! I've got something to tell you!"

¹⁶Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.

¹⁶"Good news Noah! You get to leave the current smell capital of the world to enjoy a fulfilling new life as one of the only eight human beings on the planet. So take yourself, your wife, your three kids and all their wives and get out of this Ark !"

¹⁷Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

¹⁷"And get all of the animals out of that Ark. All the birds, the cattle, and those creepy things your family never got around to naming. I want those animals breeding! They've got a planet to resupply!"

¹⁸And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him:

¹⁸And Noah, along with his family, left the ark. After spending over a hundred days spent in the close proximity of animals and all their interesting smells, most of them of a poopy nature, they were ever so glad to go.

¹⁹Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

¹⁹And every animal, all the creepy things, the birds, presumably the cattle, and all the rest got the heck out of that ark. It took some work by Noah and his kids to keep a number of them from eating each other right then and there, but with some work and strong fencing, all the surviving animals were dispersed into the world.

²⁰And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

²⁰And Noah built an altar for the LORD, and took the seventh clean animal of each set of seven, killed them, and threw their bodies on the fire because he knew God liked barbecue better than anything. And Noah was a firm believer in keeping the LORD in a good mood.

²¹And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

²¹And the LORD smelled the animals cooking on the fire and it was mouth-wateringly good. And the LORD thought to himself, "You know, I really shouldn't blame human beings for being so incredibly foul and degraded, because that's the way I made them. Maybe instead of just killing and cursing human beings whenever the tick me off, I should actually instruct them in the ways they can better please me. In fact, I think I'm going to take global genocide right off the table as an inducement to better behavior. Sure it works for awhile, but the mess is incredible!"

²²While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

²²"So I herby officially resolve that there shall be no more screwing around with the earth. From now on, the seasons are going to roll out normally and the day and night shall always be, except for eclipses because I do so love a little variety."