Read with Me
Genesis 8:1-5 (HCSB)
God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside. The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky stopped. The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the waters had decreased significantly. The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
Listen with Me
God allowed the water to remain static for several months as he completed the process of purging and reshaping the earth. But Moses makes a point of stating that, even though the ark was infinitesimally small compared to the water-covered globe on which it floated, God’s attention never wavered from them, and His preserving and protecting hand was never taken away.
The floodgates of the great deep from which prodigious amounts of water had flowed were now closed, and the rains slowed and stopped. And a great calm came over the area where the ark was floating. At the same time, God was shaping land masses under the expanse of the waters. Vast tectonic forces were still opening volcanic vents in the floor of the ocean and mountains were growing prodigiously. These would become islands when the waters had fully receded. And God was slowly raising up land masses through both volcanic and tectonic means that would be new continents.
As the land masses rose up, the water decreased in depth. The land of the new continent of Eurasia was rising up beneath the ark itself, and Noah sensed the shrinking depth as the water’s receded. As the land masses rose up, the sea floors collapsed downward, creating a reservoir for the oceans that would now be much deeper than they had been in the antediluvian world.
As the land rose up and the waters receded, the ark ran aground on what would be known in Moses day as the mountains of the region of Urartu, or what is to day Ararat, a mountainous region in eastern Turkey. And there it stayed.
Noah and his family did not try to leave the ark. Not only was the door still sealed, but all that was visible all around was water. It was only about two and a half months later that the tops of a few nearby mountains could be seen, looking like pointed islands in the midst of the still all-encompassing water.
Pray with Me
Father, it was a full five months from the day the flood began to the day the ark ran aground (Genesis 7:11, 8:4), but it would be seven months more before those on the ark were allowed to go outside (Genesis 9:13-14). But during all that time, Your attention was fully on those You had saved from the cataclysm. As You pointed out, even with all that water, even with all the earth shaping that was going on under the surface, the comparatively minuscule boat in its occupants still experienced Your grace and Your presence. This tells my heart that, even in a world full of a vast sea of people, nearly 8 billion of us, You will never lose me in the shuffle, but will always love me, guide me, and help me. Thank You, Lord, for this assurance. Amen.