Christian Stories - Bible Study Online
After the waters had flooded the earth for one hundred and fifty days, we are told that God had remembered Noah and his family, along with the animals and livestock that still resided with him in the Ark at that time. Next we are told, the rain would stop falling after God closed the floodgates of the heavens. God would then send forth a wind over the earth causing the waters to recede steadily from it's surface. At this point in the account, we are told that the Ark rested on top of Mt. Ararat.
Now the tenth month had arrived after they had came to a resting point and the tops of the mountains had became visible. Noah would wait forty days before he would open the Ark's window. He would then send out a raven to fly across and scout the nearby lands. After the raven had scouted the area it would return back to the Ark. We are assuming that the raven did not fly directly back to Noah, but perhaps it flew and rested on top of the Ark instead of entering back into ship. We are told that this particular bird would continue to do this until the waters had totally receded and the ground had completely dried up. So Noah would use a dove instead to do his scouting for him. Being that the dove is more sociable towards humans and flies lower and longer than the raven, then perhaps -- it would do a better job scouting than the raven did? Noah would send out this dove to see if there were any ground for it to set its feet. But the bird would later return back to Noah, being that the flood waters still had the surface of the earth completely covered. Noah would wait seven days before he would send the dove out again. This time when the dove had returned, it had a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. This was good news for Noah for now he knew that the waters were receding from the earth and that perhaps the top of the trees are now visible. Noah would wait another seven days before he would send out the dove again for a third time, but the dove would not return. So on the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year (601), Noah would remove the covering of the Ark. Upon doing so he saw that the surface of the earth was mostly dry. When the second month of that same year came, and on its seventeenth day we are told that the earth was completely dry. This is when God, after one year and seventeen days gave Noah, his family, the animals and the livestock permission to leave the Ark. "Come out of the Ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you - the birds, the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground - so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it," God would tell Noah. They all headed out of the great ship and Noah at this time built an altar unto the Lord. He took some of the clean animals and clean birds and brunt them on the altar, offering them up to the Lord. When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma he pronounced: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. "And never again will I destroy the living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." 04) <-CURRENT PAGE-> 06) Noah's Curse Against His Sons 08) Nimrod the Great  CrossDaily.com Web Search where you can VOTE FOR THIS SITE & other great ones. Christian search engine, directory & voting index. You'll find Bible, chat, churches, jobs, music, reviews, software, theology, & more. See the best sites!
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