Genesis 8:3

And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
waters	הַמַּ֛יִם ha.Ma.yim	H4325	water · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
returned	וַיָּשֻׁ֧בוּ vai.ya.Shu.vu	H7725	to turn back (hence · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
earth	הָאָ֖רֶץ ha.'A.retz	H776	the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
continually	הָל֣וֹךְ ha.Lokh	H1980	to walk (in a great variety of applications · verb, qal infinitive absolute
end	מִקְצֵ֕ה mik.Tzeh	H7097	an extremity · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
hundred	וּמְאַ֖ת u.me.'At	H3967	a hundred · conjunction + cardinal number, feminine singular construct
fifty	חֲמִשִּׁ֥ים cha.mi.Shim	H2572	fifty · cardinal number, masculine plural absolute
days	יֽוֹם Yom	H3117	a day (as the warm hours) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
waters	הַמַּ֔יִם ha.Ma.yim	H4325	water · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
abated	וַיַּחְסְר֣וּ vai.yach.se.Ru	H2637	to lack · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Genesis 7:24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 8:1-3

Here is, I. An act of God's grace: God remembered Noah and every living thing. This is an expression after the manner of men; for not any of his creatures (Luk 12:6), much less any of his people, are forgotten of God, Isa 49:15, Isa 49:16. but, 1. The whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family, was now extinguished, and driven into the land of forgetfulness, to be remembered no more; so that God's remembering Noah was the return of his mercy to mankind, of whom he would not make a full end. It is a strange expression, Eze 5:13, When I have accomplished my fury in them, I will be comforted. The demands of divine justice had been answered by the ruin of those sinners; he had eased him o…

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Adam Clarke on Genesis 8:1

And God made a wind to pass over the earth - Such a wind as produced a strong and sudden evaporation. The effects of these winds, which are frequent in the east, are truly astonishing. A friend of mine, who had been bathing in the Tigris, not far from the ancient city of Ctesiphon, and within five days' journey of Bagdad, having on a pair of Turkish drawers, one of these hot winds, called by the natives samiel, passing rapidly across the river just as he had got out of the water, so effectually dried him in a moment, that not one particle of moisture was left either on his body or in his bathing dress! With such an electrified wind as this, how soon could God dry the whole of the earth's sur…

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John Gill on Genesis 8:3

And the waters returned from off the earth continually,.... Or "going and returning" (s); they went off from the earth, and returned to their proper places appointed for them; some were dried up by the wind, and exhaled by the sun into the air: and others returned to their channels and cavities in the earth, or soaked into it: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days, the waters were abated; or began to abate, as Jarchi and the Vulgate Latin version; which days are to be reckoned from the beginning of the flood, including the forty days' rain; though Jarchi reckons them from the time of the ceasing of it; so that there were from the beginning of the flood one hundred and ninety days;…

The Church Fathers

The springs of the abyss and the floodgates of heaven were open forty days and forty nights and "the ark was afloat for one hundred fifty days." But after one hundred fifty days the waters began to subside and the ark came to rest on Mt. Qardu. In the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen. 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. In the second month, that is, Iyor, "on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry." Therefore Noah and those with him had been in the ark three hundred sixty-five days, for from the seventeenth of the second month, that is, Iyor, until the twenty-seventh of the same month the following year, according to the lunar reckoning, there were three hundred sixty-five days. Notice then that even the generation of the house of Noah employed this reckoning of three hundred sixty-five days in a year. Why then should you say that it was the Chaldeans and Egyptians who invented and developed it?
— Ephrem the Syrian, COMMENTARY ON GENESIS 6.11.2-6.12.1

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

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…
Dove — In their wild state doves generally build their nests in the clefts of rocks, but when domesticated “dove-cots” are prepared for them (Cant. 2:14; Jer. 48:28; Isa. 60:8). The dove was placed on the…
Noah — Rest, (Heb. Noah) the grandson of Methuselah (Gen. 5:25-29), who was for two hundred and fifty years contemporary with Adam, and the son of Lamech, who was about fifty years old at the time of Adam’s…
Deluge, The · Decrease of gradual — Decrease of gradual
Time · Computed by: Days — Computed by: Days
Years · Length of, during the patriarchal age — Length of, during the patriarchal age

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Genesis 8:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 8:1-3

Adam Clarke on Genesis 8:1

John Gill on Genesis 8:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Genesis 8:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 8:1-3

Adam Clarke on Genesis 8:1

John Gill on Genesis 8:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on Genesis 8:3-5

Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis 8:1-5

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Genesis 8:2

Rashi on Genesis 8:3