Genesis 8

God Remembered Noah

God remembers Noah, and the waters go down. The dove comes back with an olive leaf, Noah leaves the ark and builds an altar, and the LORD promises that seedtime and harvest, day and night, will not cease.

Genesis chaptersChapter 8 of 50

From Noah’s six hundredth year to the second month of his six hundred and first (7:11; 8:13–14). The Church’s Bible chronology lists the Flood among the events of the early patriarchs and gives it no date. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Genesis 8 is the second half of the Flood story. Chapter 7 carried the waters to their height; this chapter brings them down, opens the ark, and ends with Noah at an altar.

Genesis 8 is the second half of the Flood story. Chapter 7 carried the waters to their height; this chapter brings them down, opens the ark, and ends with Noah at an altar. The covenant that answers his offering, with the rainbow as its token, follows in Gen. 9:8–17.

The Book of Moses follows Genesis only as far as Gen. 6:13 (Moses 8:30), but Joseph Smith's revision of the Bible went on through this chapter. The Church's edition prints his version of its last three verses as JST Genesis 9:4–6, in which, after the Flood, “Noah asks the Lord not to curse the earth again.” That change answers a question the King James text raises (see the notes on verse 21).

Later scripture remembers the chapter for its promise. Through Isaiah the Lord compares His mercy to Israel with it: “as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee” (Isa. 54:9). Jeremiah makes the promise of day and night a pledge for the Lord's covenant with David (Jer. 33:20–21).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 8 is the Creation told over again. Chapter 7 ran it backward, as the waters above and below broke their bounds; this chapter runs it forward.

Genesis 8 is the Creation told over again. Chapter 7 ran it backward, as the waters above and below broke their bounds; this chapter runs it forward. God makes a wind pass over the waters (verse 1), and the word is ruach, the word for “the Spirit of God” that moved upon the waters in Gen. 1:2; the wind here recalls that “creative wind.” The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven are shut (verse 2), and the ground is dry again (verses 13–14). Then God repeats the blessing He gave the living creatures at the Creation, “that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply” (verse 17). “Breed abundantly” is the word of Gen. 1:20, and the repeated command “marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the world.” It is commonly accepted in biblical studies that the Flood is told as “a re-creation of life, paralleling the context and language of the creation stories.”

The turn comes in the first words, “God remembered Noah,” the center of the whole Flood story (see the note on verse 1). A second thread runs beside the first: rest, the meaning heard in Noah's name (Gen. 5:29). The wordplay runs from the ark's coming to rest (verse 4) to the “rest-giving” aroma of Noah's offering (verse 21; see the note on verse 9), and the chapter ends with the promise that the ground will not be cursed again.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–5

The waters go down

In plain words

God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock that were with him in the ark. God sent a wind over the earth, and the waters began to go down. The springs of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was held back. Steadily the waters receded from the earth, and at the end of the hundred and fifty days they had gone down. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters kept going down until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;

Language #

God remembered Noah

God's remembering is an act, not a recollection; it does not mean that He had forgotten.

God's remembering is an act, not a recollection; it does not mean that He had forgotten. When God is the subject, the Hebrew zakar means to remember people “with kindness, granting requests, protecting, delivering,” and this verse is one of the examples. So is Gen. 19:29, where “God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow,” and Gen. 30:22: “God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.” In each case remembering is the moment God acts to save.

The same verb is used when God remembers “his own covenant,” and that is where this story is heading: “I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you” (Gen. 9:15). Joseph Smith's revision names the covenant: “I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant, which I made unto thy father Enoch” (JST Gen. 9:21). On that oath to Enoch, see the notes on Gen. 6:18 and Gen. 9:16.

These words stand at the center of the whole Flood story. Read as a chiasm (see the note on Gen. 7:13), everything before them climbs toward them and everything after retraces the same steps in reverse, so that the story “neatly divides the narrative in half, at its exact center point, when God remembers Noah.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 9, Gospel Library. Scripture Central, “Why Is the Story of Noah and the Ark So Repetitive?”, KnoWhy #629, Feb. 17, 2023.

2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

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

4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

Context #

The mountains of Ararat

Ararat is a land, not a single peak. The Hebrew says “the mountains of Ararat,” and Ararat is “not a mountain, but a district,” the country that “appears in the Assyrian…

Ararat is a land, not a single peak. The Hebrew says “the mountains of Ararat,” and Ararat is “not a mountain, but a district,” the country that “appears in the Assyrian inscriptions as ‘Urartu,’” a district in eastern Armenia “between the river Araxes & lakes Van & Oroomiah.” Elsewhere in the Old Testament it is a kingdom. Sennacherib's sons fled “into the land of Armenia” (2 Kgs. 19:37), in Hebrew “the land of Ararat,” probably the same district, and Jeremiah summons “the kingdoms of Ararat” against Babylon (Jer. 51:27). The highest of its mountains is the one “called in the present day Mount Ararat,” but Genesis names no single mountain, and “no location for Mount Ararat is given in the scriptures.”

Latter-day Saints have a further question, because Restoration scripture places Adam's last gathering of his family in “the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman” (D&C 107:53), which the Lord identified with Spring Hill in Missouri (D&C 116:1). Latter-day Saint teachers have reasoned that “it is likely that Noah and his family lived somewhere in the general area,” and so, in Elder Joseph Fielding Smith's words, that “a considerable distance separated the point where the Ark commenced the journey and where it landed.” That is an inference; scripture does not say where the ark set out.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).

5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

Verses 6–12

The raven and the dove

In plain words

After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see whether the waters had gone down from the ground. But the dove found no place to rest her feet, because water still covered the whole earth, and she came back to him in the ark. He reached out his hand, took her, and brought her back inside.

He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again. In the evening she came back to him, and in her beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the waters had gone down from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent her out once more, and this time she did not come back.

6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

Context #

The raven

The raven is sent first, and it does not come back into the ark. The Hebrew says it went out “going out and returning” (yatso vashov), which the King James renders “to and fro.”

The raven is sent first, and it does not come back into the ark. The Hebrew says it went out “going out and returning” (yatso vashov), which the King James renders “to and fro.” The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, reads that “it went forth and returned not until the water was dried from off the earth.” Either way the raven stayed outside. In one reading it could, because “the raven in seeking its food settles upon every carcase that it sees, whereas the dove will only settle upon what is dry and clean”: the mountain tops and the carcases floating on the water gave it “both resting-places and food.” The dove, which needed dry ground, was the better test.

The Babylonian flood story has the same episode in a different order. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the hero sends out a dove and then a swallow, and each comes back “because she had no place to alight on”; last he sends a raven, which “ate, she pecked in the ground, she croaked, she came not back.” On how Genesis and the Babylonian stories are related, see the note on Gen. 7:1.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. British Museum, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish, with an Account of the Royal Libraries of Nineveh, London: British Museum, 1920; the Eleventh Tablet, lines 146–162; read on archive.org.

8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;

9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

Language #

No rest for the dove

The dove's “rest” is the Hebrew manoach, a “resting-place,” here a resting-place “for the sole of her foot.”

The dove's “rest” is the Hebrew manoach, a “resting-place,” here a resting-place “for the sole of her foot.” The same words describe Israel scattered among the nations: “neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest” (Deut. 28:65).

The word plays on Noah's name, as the story has done since his birth (Gen. 5:29). Noach sounds like nuach, “rest,” and toward the end of the Flood the wordplay gathers around that root. The ark comes to “rest” (vattanach, verse 4); the dove finds no “rest” (manoach); and Noah's sacrifice gives off a “sweet savour,” reach hannichoach, “literally ‘rest-giving’ aroma” (verse 21). The ark has come to rest, but the dove cannot find any rest yet, and Noah reaches out his hand and brings her back in.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Matthew L. Bowen, ““This Son Shall Comfort Us”: An Onomastic Tale of Two Noahs”, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 23 (2017): 263–298. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 8: Noah and the Flood”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 363–80.

10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;

11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

Imagery #

The olive leaf

The leaf was fresh. The Hebrew taraph means “fresh-plucked,” so the dove had torn it from a living tree, and Noah could read two things from it: “that the waters had sunk to a…

The leaf was fresh. The Hebrew taraph means “fresh-plucked,” so the dove had torn it from a living tree, and Noah could read two things from it: “that the waters had sunk to a level at which the olive would grow, and… that life had revived upon the earth.” The scene “has universally been accepted as symbolical of reconciliation and peace,” and “it finds no counterpart in the Babylonian story.”

Joseph Smith called the revelation now in D&C 88 the “‘olive leaf’ … plucked from the Tree of Paradise, the Lord's message of peace to us.” He may have chosen the name with this verse in mind, as a sign to the Saints in Missouri “that spiritual safety was to be found in living the gospel, just as Noah learned that it was safe to walk again on the earth after the dove he sent out returned with an olive leaf in its beak.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 33: Doctrine and Covenants 88:1–69, Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual (2017).

12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

Verses 13–19

Out of the ark

In plain words

On the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the waters had dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked out, and the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives. Bring out every living thing that is with you, the birds, the animals, and everything that creeps on the ground, so that they can spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on it.” So Noah came out with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, and every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, came out of the ark, family by family.

13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

15 And God spake unto Noah, saying,

16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.

17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him:

19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

Verses 20–22

The altar and the promise

In plain words

Noah built an altar to the LORD, took some of every clean animal and every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The LORD smelled the soothing aroma and said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done. As long as the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease.”

20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Witness of Christ #

Noah’s first act

Noah's first act on the renewed earth is worship. A burnt offering (‘olah, “that which goes up”) “is entirely consumed and goes up i[n] the flame of the altar to God,” nothing of…

Noah's first act on the renewed earth is worship. A burnt offering (‘olah, “that which goes up”) “is entirely consumed and goes up i[n] the flame of the altar to God,” nothing of it kept back. The offerings came “of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl,” the extra animals Noah had been told to take (Gen. 7:2; see the note there). Joseph Smith's revision adds what Noah felt: he “gave thanks unto the Lord, and rejoiced in his heart.”

The angel taught Adam what such an offering meant: “This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth” (Moses 5:7). President John Taylor, quoting these verses from the revised text, read Noah's altar the same way and concluded that “the first act after the destruction of the world by a flood was a recognition of the great expiatory principle of the atonement, which was to be made by the Only Begotten Son of God, as revealed by the angel to Adam.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 9, Gospel Library. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John Taylor, An Examination into and an Elucidation of the Great Principle of the Mediation and Atonement of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1882, 78–83; read on archive.org (Library of Congress copy).

21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Language #

A soothing aroma

“Sweet savour” is the Hebrew reach hannichoach, a “soothing, tranquillizing odour of sacrifices acceptable to” the LORD.

“Sweet savour” is the Hebrew reach hannichoach, a “soothing, tranquillizing odour of sacrifices acceptable to” the LORD. It is the standing phrase of the law of sacrifice. The priest burns the offering “to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord” (Lev. 1:9), and the words return again and again in the law of sacrifice. They are “a technical expression in the language of Levitical sacrifice,” used “to express that the offering is acceptable to God.” To say that the LORD smelled it is bold, “a very strong anthropomorphism which only occurs here.” Nichoach comes from the root of “rest” (see the note on verse 9): the offering brings rest.

Joseph Smith's revision tells the scene differently; see the next note.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 8: Noah and the Flood”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 363–80.

Related Scriptures #

Noah’s prayer

In Genesis the LORD speaks to Himself after the offering, and a reader may wonder how anyone heard it, and why an offering would change God's course.

In Genesis the LORD speaks to Himself after the offering, and a reader may wonder how anyone heard it, and why an offering would change God's course. Joseph Smith's revision has the LORD speak to Noah and bless him, and then: “And Noah smelled a sweet savor, and he said in his heart; I will call on the name of the Lord, that he will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake.” In his first manuscript Noah's prayer goes on to ask “that seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night may not cease with man.” The promise of verses 21–22 becomes the answer to a prayer. The revision made the same kind of change at Gen. 6:6, where it is Noah, not the Lord, whom “it repented” (Moses 8:25; see the note there).

Noah was not the first to ask. Enoch, shown the Flood in vision, had prayed “that the earth might never more be covered by the floods,” and the Lord “sware unto him with an oath, that he would stay the floods” (Moses 7:50–51; see the notes on Gen. 6:18 and Gen. 9:9). By that faith, President John Taylor wrote, Enoch “obtained a covenant from the Lord that after Noah's day He would never again cover the earth by a flood.” The covenant is made with Noah in the next chapter (Gen. 9:8–17).

Sources: Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 9, Gospel Library. Old Testament Revision 1, The Joseph Smith Papers. Genesis 6–11; Moses 8, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John Taylor, An Examination into and an Elucidation of the Great Principle of the Mediation and Atonement of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1882, 78–83; read on archive.org (Library of Congress copy).

Language #

The same reason, now for mercy

The reason the LORD gives for sparing the earth is the reason He gave for flooding it: “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5; on…

The reason the LORD gives for sparing the earth is the reason He gave for flooding it: “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5; on yetser, “imagination,” see the note there). On its face that “hardly seems an appropriate reason,” and translators divide over the small Hebrew word ki that joins the clauses. The King James, like the NRSVUE, reads it as a reason: “for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.” The NIV reads it as a concession: “even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.” Either way the sense is close. Man “must not be expected to be otherwise,” so the earth's future cannot rest on his goodness. In one reading, man “needs the forbearance of God,” and “from his youth” means “from the very time when he begins to act with consciousness.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

Related Scriptures #

As long as the earth lasts

“While the earth remaineth” is literally “all the days of the earth.” The promise has a limit, as long as the earth lasts, and within it “the regular alternation of day and night…

“While the earth remaineth” is literally “all the days of the earth.” The promise has a limit, as long as the earth lasts, and within it “the regular alternation of day and night and of the seasons of the year, so indispensable to the continuance of the human race, would never be interrupted again.”

Jeremiah turns the promise into a pledge: “If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant” (Jer. 33:20–21). The order of nature is called a covenant “because God, after the flood, gave a pledge that they should uninterruptedly continue,” and “as this covenant of nature cannot be broken by men, so also the covenant of grace of the Lord with David and the Levites cannot be broken.” See the note on Jer. 33:20.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 8

The chapter's last scene is an altar, and what brings the promise is an offering of “sweet savour.” The Greek Old Testament renders the phrase osmē euōdias, and Paul uses the same words of the Savior: Christ “hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Eph. 5:2). On the altar itself as a similitude of the Atonement, see the note on verse 20. In Joseph Smith's revision the promise comes as the answer to prayer, and Enoch had offered his prayer for Noah's seed “in the name of thine Only Begotten, even Jesus Christ” (Moses 7:50).

The rest the chapter keeps reaching for comes through Noah's line. Enoch was promised that “the day shall come that the earth shall rest” (Moses 7:61), and “Noah and his posterity — specifically his descendant Jesus Christ — will eventually bring ‘comfort’ and ‘rest’ to the earth.”

Coming out of the ark is itself a picture of salvation: Noah stands on a mountain “following the waters of destruction and re-creation (an image of coming forth from death and communing with God, as symbolized in the covenant and ordinance of baptism).” Peter draws the same figure from the ark (1 Pet. 3:20–21; see chapter 7).

Worth exploring next

Enoch's prayer for Noah. Moses 7:42–53, read beside verses 20–22.
The covenant that follows. Gen. 9:8–17.
The promise in the prophets. Isa. 54:7–10; Jer. 33:19–26.
The olive leaf. D&C 88, the revelation Joseph Smith called the “olive leaf.”
Further reading. “Moses 8: Noah and the Flood,” in The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (BYU Religious Studies Center), follows the wordplay on Noah's name through the Flood story and Joseph Smith's revision.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition, Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010; read in the interlinear on Bible Hub.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.
“Chronology”, Bible Dictionary.
Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 9, Gospel Library.
Old Testament Revision 1, The Joseph Smith Papers.
Genesis 6–11; Moses 8, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Chapter 33: Doctrine and Covenants 88:1–69, Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual (2017).
Scripture Central, “Why Is the Story of Noah and the Ark So Repetitive?”, KnoWhy #629, Feb. 17, 2023.
Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 8: Noah and the Flood”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 363–80.
Aaron P. Schade, “The Rainbow as a Token in Genesis: Covenants and Promises in the Flood Story”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 115–62.
Matthew L. Bowen, ““This Son Shall Comfort Us”: An Onomastic Tale of Two Noahs”, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 23 (2017): 263–298.
John Taylor, An Examination into and an Elucidation of the Great Principle of the Mediation and Atonement of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1882, 78–83; read on archive.org (Library of Congress copy).
British Museum, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish, with an Account of the Royal Libraries of Nineveh, London: British Museum, 1920; the Eleventh Tablet, lines 146–162; read on archive.org.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

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