Genesis 8: Remembering and Renewing

Key Verse
1 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.
 
Meditation
When God remembers, He moves into action. When God remembers no more, it is because His saving action is complete.
 
God’s remembering is not recovery of forgotten information, but His covenant faithfulness expressed in decisive action. God heard Israel groan in slavery, remembered His covenant with Abraham, and acted to redeem His people (Exodus 2:24). Likewise, after God has acted definitely through the person and work of Jesus, the New Covenant promises guarantee the Lord will “remember our sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12).
 
In today’s reading, God remembered Noah and all who were with him on the ark, and He acted by sending His wind to subside the waters of judgement (v. 1). The returning dove became a sign of renewal and hope (vv. 11-12), signaling that judgement had given way to new creation. Noah and his family step into a new world, and Noah responds with worship. His sacrifice ascends as a pleasing aroma to the Lord (vv. 20-21), replacing the stench of death with the fragrance of obedience. God recommissions humanity toto “be fruitful and multiply,” restoring His creational design in a place previously dominated by pervasive wickedness (6:5).
 
God’s promise to never flood the earth again does not solve humanity’s deeper bondage to sin. A greater deliverance came through the person and work of Jesus. In Him, God’s just judgement gives way to new creation for all who believe (2 Corinthians 5:17). Through His finished work, Christians live in hope of a new world by responding with lives of worship, viewing His mercy with the fragrance of obedience to God and His word (Romans 12:1-2).
 
Today’s Reading
But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
 
6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she 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 her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.
 
13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring 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—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

God’s Covenant with Noah

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
 
Richly Dwelling
-What stands out to you from today’s reading, especially God remembering and acting?
 
-Where do you connect with the longing for a new beginning, to walk out into a new world where there is no more wickedness?
 
-How does the promise that in Christ you are a new creation, and through His work God “remembers your sins no more” fuel you to live free from sin today with hope of a new world tomorrow?
 
Key Verse
1 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.