Scripture Daily

Context No. 223 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 8:6-12: in context

6At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made, 7and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground, 9but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned into the ship to him, for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship. 10He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship. 11The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. 12He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more.

The flood is going down. The ark has run aground, but Noah is still shut inside a wooden box with no clear view of the earth, and he has no way to know whether the world outside can hold life again. These verses are how he finds out, and the method is patience.

He opens a window and sends out a raven, a scavenger that can survive almost anywhere, and it flies back and forth without settling the question. So he sends a dove, a bird that needs dry, clean ground. The first time she finds nowhere to rest her foot and comes back to the ark, and there is a small human moment in it: Noah puts out his hand and takes her and brings her in to himself. He waits seven days and sends her again. This time she returns at evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak, which means something green is already growing down there. He waits another seven days, sends her a third time, and she does not come back. She has found a home.

Noah reads the recovery of the whole world through one small bird over three weeks, a returning, a leaf, a silence. There is no announcement, only signs he has to be patient enough to notice. What small sign that the ground is drying am I too impatient, or too shut in, to watch for?

Sources