Genesis 8

We had recently read that 40 days (and an equal number of nights) go by with constant rain. However, in the initial few passages it seems that the waters took an additional 110 to recede.

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; ²the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, ³and the waters gradually receded from the earth. At the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters had abated; ⁴and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵The waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.

Eventually, we saw, the tops of the mountains appeared. Our author then takes us back forty days before the waters receded (I think) in verse 6.

6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made ⁷and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth.

Whatever happened to the raven? Nevermore.

⁸Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; ⁹but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. ¹⁰He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; ¹¹and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. ¹²Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him any more.

Can you imagine a scenario where you are stuck on a mountain and you can't tell if the waters have receded from the earth, such that you need to release a dove to tell you? Remember, you are in a boat, immobilized, it seems, on top of a mountain. You'd think that if you open the boat's window and, remember you are on top of a mountain, you see water all around you, on top of a mountain, then you can be pretty sure that if you drop in elevation you are going to find more water. I guess that it's possible that you might be in a high altitude lake... One so large that you can't see land in any direction (no such lake exists on earth currently, but after a worldwide flood a temporary one may have existed). I guess my point here is that I don't understand how it's logically possible that Noah's bird could have grabbed an olive branch somewhere on earth while at the same time Noah's Ark was stuck on mt ararat. It would be possible for the dove to have gotten hold of an olive branch IF the ark was floating freely somewhere far away from any elevated place. But this simply does not fit with the events as they are chronologically described.

13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and saw that the face of the ground was drying. ¹⁴In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. ¹⁵Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶‘Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.’ ¹⁸So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹And every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark by families.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar.

So we've got Noah sacrificing all the clean animals here (at least I think that's what's happening, since I'm not sure what "took of every clean animal" means). It doesn't specify whether he sacrifices all of the additional 6 pairs, or just a single animal, such that the pairs of clean animals are still grater than any individual unclean animal pair type.

²¹And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.

God smells burning scents (either the animal's flesh or some kind of pleasant smelling herb) and decides then not to do any more mass killings, regardless of whether the human race becomes wicked again.

²²As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall not cease.’

At least this sounds like good news. But I wonder about God's intentions here. Does he simply know that we'll never be as evil again, or is he sorry he had to kill everything the first time and vows never to do it again regardless of what happens?

Despite our inability to ever truly know what God's intentions were and are, I think it's strange that we can allow ourselves to believe the stories of Noah and not question everyone's motives. If there is anything to be learned from this story, I think it's that God has the power to end everything in the an incredibly horrible way, but he promises not to do it... again.