Genesis 8:13 Commentary and Bible Study

There is enough information provided by Moses for us to pour over the dates and figure out a chronology for the flood. Noah seems to have waited a further period of time, even after the dove did not return on the final occasion, before concluding that the waters were dried up from the earth. He then removed the covering of the ark. What was that? There are so many answers to this. This is the bare information we are given. The word is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to describe a flimsy kind of covering, possibly made of animal skins, something like that. Did it literally cover the ark? Not very likely, because it was already covered with pitch. Possibly the best suggestion is that the walls of the ark stopped a cubic short of the roof, the ceiling, to leave a kind of gap all the way round and a sort of open ventilation. Maybe this was a means of covering that opening, so that the rain could not get in – there could be transmission of air. The purpose of removing it is to be able to look down. The hatch was in the roof. You could let the birds out, but you could not see what the water was doing. But if you could remove this covering, supposing it was overhanging to protect the open bit, then you could see out of the side and down. So it suggests the covering was at the side, the top of the sides, rather than over the top. ‘And behold, the face of the ground was dry.’ That is to say, they could see that the water had gone. But not quite fully dry, because the narrative goes on to speak about it fully drying out in the next verse. It had been over a year (probably a 360-day year) since Noah had entered the ark.