Timeline of Noah's Ark Exit After Rain
The biblical account of Noah's Ark details a precise timeline for the flood's progression and recession, culminating in Noah and the ark's inhabitants exiting onto dry land. The flood began in the 600th year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month [6, 9]. After seven days of preparation, the waters began to cover the earth [7]. The rain itself lasted for forty days and forty nights [7, 9].
Following the initial forty days of rain, the waters continued to rise for a total of 150 days [4, 7]. During this period, "the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped" [8]. God then caused a wind to pass over the earth, leading the waters to subside [8]. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat [4].
It was not until the first day of the tenth month that the tops of the mountains became visible [4]. Forty days after this, Noah opened a window he had made in the ark [2, 3]. His first action was to send out a raven to ascertain the drying of the waters [3]. The raven flew back and forth, finding resting places and food on the floating carcasses and mountain tops, but it was not taken back into the ark [3].
After the raven, Noah sent out a dove. The text implies a series of three dove releases, each separated by seven-day intervals [3]. The first dove returned to the ark because it found no place to rest its foot [3]. Seven days later, Noah sent the dove out again, and it returned in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak, signaling that the waters had receded significantly [3]. After another seven days, Noah sent the dove out a third time, and this time it did not return to him, indicating that the earth was sufficiently dry for it to remain outside the ark [3].
The entire duration of the flood, from its beginning to the point when Noah and his family exited the ark, is described as twelve lunar months and ten days, which equates to exactly one solar year [1]. The earth was completely dry by the first day of the first month of Noah's 601st year [4]. However, Noah and the ark's occupants did not immediately disembark. They remained in the ark until the twenty-seventh day of the second month of Noah's 601st year, at which point God commanded them to leave [4]. This means they remained in the ark for approximately two months and twenty-seven days after the earth was fully dry.
The Jewish philosopher Nachmanides (Ramban) interprets Genesis 8:2, "AND THE RAINS FROM THE HEAVENS WERE WITHHELD," to mean that no more rain fell until Noah and the creatures exited the ark. He suggests that the wind God sent caused the heavens to become like iron, preventing further rain or dew and allowing the air to lose its moisture, thus drying the waters [5]. This perspective emphasizes that the cessation of rain was a continuous state until the earth was ready for habitation.
The detailed chronology in Genesis highlights God's active involvement in both the judgment of the flood and the preservation and restoration of life. The sequence of events, from the initial downpour to the gradual recession of waters and Noah's careful observations with the birds, underscores a deliberate and measured process leading to the renewal of the earth.
Sources
- Easton's Bible Dictionary “Easton's Bible Dictionary: Deluge — The name given to Noah's flood, the history of which is recorded in Gen. 7 and 8. It began in the year 2516 B.C., and continued twelve lunar months and ten days, or exactly one solar year. The cause of this judgment was the corruption and violence that filled the earth in the ninth generation from Adam. God in righteous indignation determined to purge the earth of the ungodly race. Amid a world of crime and guilt there was one household that continued faithful and true to God, the household of Noah. "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations." At th”
- Genesis “Genesis 8:6 (BSB) — After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark”
- Genesis (Lutheran) “Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis 8:6: Forty days after the appearance of the mountain tops, Noah opened the window of the ark and let a raven fly out (lit., the raven, i.e., the particular raven known from that circumstance), for the purpose of ascertaining the drying up of the waters. The raven went out and returned until the earth was dry, but without being taken back into the ark, as the mountain tops and the carcases floating upon the water afforded both resting-places and food. After that, Noah let a dove fly out three times, at intervals of seven days. It is not distinctly stated that he sent”
- Genesis (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Genesis 8 (introduction): INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 8 This chapter gives an account of the going off of the waters from the earth, and of the entire deliverance of Noah, and those with him in the ark, from the flood, when all the rest were destroyed: after an one hundred and fifty days a wind is sent over the earth, the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven are stopped, the waters go off gradually, and the ark rests on Mount Ararat, Gen 8:1 two months and thirteen days after that the tops of the mountains were seen, Gen 8:5 and forty days after the appearance of them, No”
- Sefaria (Jewish (Kabbalistic/Philosophical)) “Ramban (Nachmanides) on Genesis 8:4: AND THE RAINS FROM THE HEAVENS WERE WITHHELD. 135 Verse 2. This means that no more rain came down until they [Noah and his family and all living creatures] went out of the ark for by this wind [which G-d made to pass over the earth] the heavens became as iron. 136 See Leviticus 26:19. Neither dew nor rain came down, the air lost its moisture, and the waters dried up for the rain of the flood completely stopped after the fortieth day.”
- Genesis (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Genesis 7:10: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life,.... Not complete, but current, for otherwise Noah would have lived after the flood three hundred and fifty one years, whereas he lived but three hundred and fifty; Gen 9:28. in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month: as the Jews had two ways of beginning their year, one at the spring, and the other at autumn; the one on ecclesiastical accounts, which began at Nisan, and which answers to March and April; and then the second month must be Ijar, which answers to part of April and part of May: and the other on civil”
- Genesis (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Genesis 7:9: And it came to pass after seven days,.... Were ended, or on the seventh day, after God had given the orders to Noah, to prepare for his going into the ark, with his family, and all the creatures: that the waters of the flood were upon the earth: that is, they began to be upon the earth; for it continued to rain from hence forty days and forty nights; and still the waters continued to increase, and it was an hundred and fifty days before they began to ebb.”
- Genesis (Lutheran) “Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis 8:1: With the words, "then God remembered Noah and all the animals...in the ark," the narrative turns to the description of the gradual decrease of the water until the ground was perfectly dry. The fall of the water is described in the same pictorial style as its rapid rise. God's "remembering" was a manifestation of Himself, an effective restraint of the force of the raging element. He caused a wind to blow over the earth, so that the waters sank, and shut up the fountains of the deep, and the sluices of heaven, so that the rain from heaven was restrained. "Then th”
- Genesis (Methodist/Wesleyan) “Adam Clarke on Genesis 7 (introduction): God informs Noah that within seven days he shall send a rain upon the earth, that shall continue for forty days and nights; and therefore commands him to take his family, with the different clean and unclean animals, and enter the ark, Gen 7:1-4. This command punctually obeyed, Gen 7:5-9. In the seventeenth day of the second month, in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, the waters, from the opened windows of heaven, and the broken up fountains of the great deep, were poured out upon the earth, Gen 7:10-12. The different quadrupeds, fowls, and reptile”