ויזכר, there is no “remembering” as far as G’d is concerned, seeing that He could not have “forgotten” something. When the Torah, nonetheless, uses such terms as “He remembered” as applying to G’d, this is a figure of speech enabling the reader to employ his imagination and to realise that such wording introduces an activity by G’d now which had been latent for a while previously. We have numerous examples of such a term being used when a period of apparent inactivity by G’d had come to an end. Compare Leviticus 24,45 וזכרתי את בריתי, where the subject is that after a period of retribution, events occur which make it appear as if G’d had remembered His covenant only at that time. There are numerous other examples of this type. Here, it describes the fact that G’d concerned himself with the great discomfort experienced by all the people and creatures in the ark after such a long period of being cooped up.

ויעבר אלוקים רוח על הארץ וישכו המים, G’d made this wind blow over the surface of the globe in order to prevent the waters from rising any further. We find the word שככה used in a similar sense, i.e. suppressing turbulence of matter or mind in Esther 7,10, and in Samuel II 11,20.the words תעלה חמת describe the exact opposite. The King’s reaction to Haman’s hanging calmed him down, whereas anger, turbulent emotions coming to the surface are described as “rising”, תעלה. The word שככה is therefore aptly translated as something abating.

ויסכרו, they were shut, i.e. prevented from adding further turbulence on the surface of the waters which had flooded the globe. As a result of the wind blowing, the earth gradually began to dry out, the moisture being blown away, gradually. However, these subterranean wells were not all of them shut off. This enabled some of the waters on the surface of the globe to flow back gradually into the bowels of the earth from which they had come forth. While it is true that at the time these waters had risen to the surface they had found many more apertures through which to rise, and their appearance on the surface had been rapid, now it seeped back at a much slower pace.

וארבות השמים, those “windows” of the heavens had already closed after the forty days of rainfall. Now no more water inundated the earth either from above or from below.

ויכלא הגשם, the Torah mentions this to tell us that not even normal rainfall still occurred during this period when the earth returned to normal.

ויסכרו, the word is spelled with the letter כ,.which in this instance is used instead of the customary letter ג, in the root סגר. The construction is not unique, as we also find it in Psalms 63,12 כי יסכר פי דובר שקר, “when the mouth of liars is stopped.”

וישבו המים..הלוך ושוב, this formulation described the gradual nature of the waters abating and the water level on the globe falling. The period this took corresponded to the 40+150 days described during which the waters rose, giving us a total of 340 days. When you add the 3 times 7 days which elapsed for the 3 missions of the raven and the pigeon respectively, you have a total of 361 days, very close to the 365 days described in the Torah as the period which elapsed from the onset of the rain until Noach left the ark. The beginning of the return to normal commenced on the second day of Sivan. As soon as the waters had peaked, they began to recede.

ותנח התבה בחדש השביעי, this is the month of Sivan being the seventh month counting from the end of the rain descending which occurred in Kislev. Even though, as we know, the rains had begun to fall in the month of Marcheshvan, the Torah speaks here of a count beginning in Kislev seeing that the end of the rains and the end of the ark floating around have something in common in terms of stages of the deluge ending. על הרי אררט, perhaps those were the tallest mountain range, or it happened that the ark was in that region on the day in question. At any event, the mountain range of Ararat is one of the highest mountain ranges that we know of. What is clear is that lower mountain ranges on earth did not become visible to people in the ark until the tenth month. The meaning of the line is that the process of the waters diminishing continued progressively until at the beginning of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. These “mountains” were actually only hills. The process continued unabated. The “tenth” month mentioned here was the month of Av, seeing it was the tenth month counting from the month during which the rains had started, Marcheshvan.

והמים היו הלוך וחסור, the waters kept receding. This construction is not unique, as we encounter it in Ezekiel 1,34 והחיות רצוא ושוב.

עד החודש העשירי, this does not mean that during this month the waters had already receded completely; what happened was that the waters receded progressively until relatively low mountain tops became visible. The process continued further. The “tenth” month described was the month of Av, seeing it was the tenth, counting from the month of Marcheshvan when the rains had started falling.

ויהי מקץ ארבעים יום, these words refer to the end of forty days after the waters had begun to recede; personally, I feel that the period described dates back to the day when the ark had come to rest on Mount Ararat. How else would Noach have been able to determine that the waters had begun to recede, seeing that all around him there was only water? Once the ark had come to rest on Mount Ararat Noach could measure how much more of the mountain was becoming visible beneath the ark. Noach knew that the ark had come to rest on something solid. He then waited another 40 days to give the waters a chance to recede still further, before he saw any point in sending out a bird (raven) to determine if that bird could locate a tree which was exposed above the water.

את חלון התבה, the window of the ark which he had made before departure. The window described here as חלון is identical with what had been described by G’d as צוהר in 6,16. He sent the raven out from this widow. We may legitimately ask that if Noach knew the day on which the rains had stopped as we stated earlier, why did he not open the window of the ark immediately, seeing that no more rain was falling? We may answer that Noach was still worried that the turbulent waves surrounding the ark would come crashing through such an open window. This is why he waited another 40 days until such waves were much below the lower decks of the ark and posed no threat.

וישלח, why did Noach send out the raven? He had said to himself that the raven is a flesh eating bird and will most likely find remains of dead animals to feed on. [our author understands the word עורב as referring to what is better known as the “black raven,” a type of vulture (corvus cornix) which feeds on carcasses. Ed.] If the bird would return with such remains in its beak, Noach would know that the waters had receded somewhat. The raven returned without anything in its beak, so that Noach did not learn anything new about the state of the waters. The raven returned to its nest, leaving from time to time to see if the situation outside the ark enabled it to survive on the outside. It carried on in this fashion until the surface of the earth had dried out. In Bereshit Rabbah 33,5 the sages view the fact that the raven was chosen as the experiment by Noach in a different light. The blackness of that bird is paraphrased in Psalms 105,28 where the psalmist writes שלח חשך ויחשיך, “he sent darkness and it became dark.” [a figure of speech, meaning that if one pins one’s hopes on something black, one is likely to receive darkness in return, i.e. not achieve one’s objective. Ed.] Seeing that this mission of the raven had proved totally unproductive, after waiting seven days, Noach sent out a pigeon. A pigeon is known to have a well developed sense of imagination and direction, finding its way back after having flown over a route only once or twice. It knows that it was dispatched for a purpose, i.e. to receive some information in return for having been dispatched [we know of carrier pigeons in our time, but if there had been such already in the days of Noach is highly speculative. Ed.] Moreover, it is in the character of pigeons to be attached to their home base, so that they can be depended on to return to their nest. When we have been told in Shabbat 49 that the wings of the pigeon protect it, the meaning is that seeing that the pigeons are being raised as carrier pigeons, transporting messages attached to its wings, the fact that their owners need them alive is their insurance against being slaughtered prematurely. Noach, in sending out the pigeon, was therefore convinced that the bird would return to the ark even if there were places on earth in the meantime where it could make its nest. ולא..ותשב אליו אל התבה, the Torah describes the return of the pigeon both as a return to Noach, i.e. אליו, and as a return to the ark, i.e. אל התבה. Why was the return of the pigeon described in such detail? It is first described as a return to Noach, seeing that the fact that it did not bring back any bit of vegetation indicated that it had been unable to find any, i.e. had not performed its mission and brought Noach information. Secondly, it did not re-enter the ark as the raven had done. It remained perched on the roof of the ark. It was unhappy at not having brought back some kind of message to Noach. This is why Noach stretched out his hand and brought it back into the ark. The amount of time that elapsed between the dispatch of the raven, and the dispatch of the pigeon, was seven days. How did we arrive at this information? ויחל עוד שבעת ימים אחרים, the addition of the word אחרים, “others,” proves that there had already been a waiting period of seven days

ויחל, the root of this word is חול, it is used in the transitive mode, הפעיל, similar to Judges 3,25 ויחולו עד בוש, “they waited a long time.”

ותבא...לעת ערב, it came (back) at evening time of the same day it had been dispatched.

טרף, both vowels in this word are kametz, indicating that the word is an adjective similar to having been spelled טרוף, as a participle. The word implies that the pigeon had torn this leaf off an olive tree with its beak in order to bring it back to Noach. This is the reason why the Torah used the word טרף, to show that Noach realised that it had torn it off the tree and broken it from the olive. [not just from a branch. Ed.] This was not a leaf which had been found floating on the surface of the water.

כי קלו המים, that they had decreased in quantity. When something is in short supply it is often referred to as being קל, whereas when something is in ample supply it is called כבד. Examples of this are found in Job 14,21 יכבדו בניו,”his sons become ‘heavyweights’ (important, of consequence) We have the expression מקנה כבד, a great deal of cattle (Exodus 12,38) or חיל כבד, an army of numerous soldiers (Kings II 18,17). Why did the pigeon choose a leaf from an olive tree? Perhaps it was the first tree it encountered after flying away from the ark. Or, seeing that the leaves of the olive tree stay on the tree all year round it was the most likely leaf available. According to Sanhedrin 108 the pigeon reasoned that even a bitter tasting leaf eaten in freedom was preferable to being cooped up in luxurious surroundings. In the final analysis, the pigeon preferred to entrust its future to G’d rather than to man.

וייחל עוד, the word is in a passive mode, the root being יחל. If it had been in a hitpael mode, the letter י should have the vowel patach underneath it, but the fact is that it has the vowel kametz.

ולא יספה שוב אליו עוד, this is when Noach realised that the surface of the earth had dried sufficiently and that the pigeon had found a resting place on earth as well as on many trees so that it did not bother to come back to him. This happened in the 601st year of Noach’s life, seeing that the Torah mentions that it was on the first of the first month of that year. (verse 13) Noach’s 600th year had been completed on the 30th of Ellul, and he had entered the 601st year of his life on the first of Tishrey, which is the first month of the year. On the 17th day of the second month he had completed a full year’s stay in the ark. Even though the surface of the earth was “dry” in the sense that it was no longer covered by water, it was still too muddy, and the surface was misleading, seeing that beneath the immediate surface it was soft, spongy. It was not yet ready for walking on without risking that one would break through a very thin veneer of dry earth. This is why G’d had not yet commanded him to leave the ark (until the 27th of that month) At that time, as testified by the word יבשה, the earth had dried sufficiently to make using it as one’s habitat a safe endeavour. Noach did not want to leave the ark until he had been commanded to do so by G’d. He knew that G’d would issue such a command, just as He had at the time commanded him to enter the ark.

[Began] to dry. It was still like mud, dry on the surface but soft underneath. Noach knew that Hashem would tell them when it was safe to go out.

ובחודש השני בשבעה ועשרים יום לחודש, this is the month of Marcheshvan Our sages (at the end of section 33 of Bereshit Rabbah say that these 10 days represent the 10 days which the solar year is longer than the lunar year.

וידבר ...צא מן התבה אתה ואשתך, in this verse, as opposed to the phraseology used when he was bidden to enter the ark, Noach and his wife were mentioned together, i.e. an indication that henceforth the mating of man and wife was once again permitted.

כל החיה, a general clause followed by a specific clause. The meaning of the expression כל החיה is “all the living creatures,” as in מכל בשר on a previous occasion, whereas the meaning of the words later on in 9,10 is the same. The verse speaks about the life-force {abstract, i.e. נפש החיה, often equated in the Torah with the life-blood, Ed.] hence the prefixes ב before the words עוף, בהמה כל הרמש.

הוצא, the letter ו in the middle instead of the letter י is not unusual in verbs whose first root letter is supplanted by the letter ו. Nonetheless the ו is read as if it were a י. We have a similar construction in Psalms 5,9 הישר לפני דרכך, which is spelled הושר, “make Your way straight before me.” Proverbs 4,25 יישירו נגדך is another such example. The meaning of the instruction is: “take them out just as you have brought them in!”

ושרצו בארץ, a duplication of the blessing/command after the living creatures had been created (Genesis 1,22. The reason why this time G’d uses the word שרץ previously applied to the multiple births by fish, (1,20) is because this time only a very few of each species left the ark so that they needed the encouragement by being told they would once more be very numerous. ושרצו ופרו ורבו, this is a most unusual sequence, beginning with the word שרצו, implying the very least individuality, switching to relative individuality by the use of the word פרו, implying single births, and ending with the word רבו implying single births at frequent intervals (compare our comments in chapter 1 20 and 28 on the meaning of these terms. In Bereshit Rabbah 34,8 the emphasis in this verse is on the word בארץ, meaning that whereas it had been forbidden to engage in reproduction while in the ark, now this could all be made up for.

ויצא נח, the fact that the Torah, in this verse, separates the females from the males, may hint that the females were afraid to leave the ark until after the males had left and assured themselves and them that it was possible again to live outside the ark.

כל החיה, as we explained on verse 17. הרמש וכל העוף, followed by כל הרומש על הארץ, including both the domesticated animals and the free-roaming beasts.

למשפחותיהם, according to their species, every species separately.

ויבן נח, at the very site where he had come out of the ark. It is possible that he left the ark on Mount Ararat, where the ark had been reported as coming to rest (7,2), or that the ark had moved away from there after having come to rest there temporarily. Or, Noach, after exiting from the ark walked a distance before he found a suitable site or cave to establish a temporary residence. As soon as he found a place to start farming, he built an altar to thank G’d for his and his family’s deliverance. According to Bereshit Rabbah 34,9 this was the great altar in Jerusalem where Adam had brought his offering, and this is what Psalms 69,32 refers to when David speaks of ותיטיב לה' משור פר מקרין מפריס, “which will please the Lord more than oxen, bulls with horns, and hooves.”

ויקח מכל הבהמה הטהורה, the free roaming beasts which chewed the cud and had split hooves were included in the expression מכל הבהמה הטהורה as an expression of gratitude for his survival. He did not take any of the ritually impure beasts as they were not fit for him to eat from except if there would not be any other meat available. (compare our comments on 7,2) If they were not fit for human consumption, how could one offer them for consumption by G’d on His altar?

ויעל עולות במזבח, there is a disagreement among our sages if Noach only offered burnt-offerings or if he also offered peace-offerings, i.e. offerings part of which may be eaten by the owners. (Zevachim 116)

'וירח ה, the Torah uses a figure of speech to facilitate our understanding of G’d’s reaction, seeing that G’d has no nose and therefore cannot smell in the accepted sense of the word. When in Psalms 50,13 the psalmist speaks of G’d asking if He would “eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of he goats,” this is also a figure of speech, of course. David most certainly did not suggest that such a thing were possible in the literal meaning of the words. The meaning of such phrases is that the offerings were pleasing to G’d as if, if we had been speaking of human beings, they smelled good and tasted good. The proof that G’d had accepted the offering and was well disposed toward all His creatures was the fire which descended from heaven and consumed the offerings. This is what David referred to in Psalms 104,31 when he described G’d as ישמח ה' במעשיו, “that the Lord took pleasure in His creatures,” as opposed to Genesis 6,7 when we were told ויתעצב ה' אל לבו, “that the Lord was saddened in His heart.”

את ריח הניחוח, a noun belonging to the same category as ניצוץ in Isaiah 1,31 meaning that Noach had succeeded in calming down G’d’s anger at the world, (His creatures).

ויאמר ה' אל לבו, He foresaw in His mind that He would not again have to wreak wholesale destruction on earth seeing that it would not happen again that the majority of the human species would be as depraved as those before the deluge. The report of what happened during the generation of the deluge was handed down from generation to generation and served as a warning against man again becoming as corrupt as at that time. G’d would not again punish the community at large on account of depraved individuals, but He would punish all the individuals who are wicked, as He demonstrated when He destroyed Sodom and its satellites.

בעבור האדם, on account of the wicked people among mankind; rather those will be killed so that the earth will be at the disposal of the good people. If small parts of the earth would indeed be destroyed as happened in the case of Sodom and that part of the Jordan valley, this cannot be considered as a destruction of the earth. Such destructions will be understood as the destruction of that particular population including the earth they had dwelled on.

כי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו, this urge is called יצר as it was formed at the same time as the fetus. The reason why the Torah writes מנעוריו, literally “from his youth,” is that the evil urge is with man from an earlier age than the יצר הטוב, the impulse to do good. The latter urge becomes active in man only with the advent of maturity, at age of 13, as we know from Job 11,12 ואיש נבוב ילבב ועיר פרא אדם יולד, “a hollow man will get understanding, when a wild ass is born a man.” The meaning of that line is that man is like wild ass from the time of birth, without restraining influences, following his instinct rather than being guided by his intelligence. As he grows older, becomes more mature, forces known as the יצר טוב begin to assert themselves Seeing that man had been formed without the benefit of the impulse to do what is good, useful, rather than what is designed to gratify his baser urges, as G’d decided in His wisdom to do, seeing that man was part of the overall scheme of nature, he will become guilty of sin again and again, with the exception of an infinitely small percentage of people. Therefore, G’d would not continue to punish mankind at large on account of most people acting out their natural inclinations. According to Sanhedrin 91 the Roman governor Antoninus asked Rabbi Yehudah hanassi, his frequent companion, at what point the “evil urge” entered the human being. He wanted to know if this occurred at the moment of birth or at the moment when the fetus assumed a certain shape, say 40 days after fertilisation of the ovum. Rabbi Yehudah answered that this occurred already at the earlier of these two points in time. Antoninus found it difficult to accept this, saying that if it were so the fetus would keep hitting out at his mother while in her womb, and as a result, she would give birth prematurely. Rabbi Yehudah quoted as his source Genesis 4,7 where G’d told Kayin that the evil urge was lying already at the entrance of the birth canal, מפתח חטאת רובץ. Antoninus countered that from our verse here it seems that the evil urge commences his activity only after the child can be called נער, a lad. Rabbi Yehudah drew Antoninus’ attention to the defective spelling in the word נעריו, which if Antoninus were correct, should have had the letter ו after the letter ע, i.e. making נעוריו, after he had attained the status of a human being. Seeing that this letter is missing, this is a clear hint that this רע within the human being predates his birth. Rabbi Yudan, enlarging on this unusual spelling, plus the fact that the words לא אסיף are repeated twice in this verse, stated that such repetition, when reported in G’d’s name, is always an equivalent to an oath by G’d, i.e. something that He will not change for any reason This is why the prophet Isaiah correctly quoted G’d in Isaiah 54,9 as saying “I have sworn to Myself not to bring on another deluge of water such as in the days of Noach.”

עוד כל ימי הארץ, Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra writes that the formulation of כל ימי הארץ here is proof that the duration of this earth is finite, in fact that G’d had already set a time limit to its existence.

זרע וקציר, the year is divided into basically 2 periods, the time to plant and the time to harvest. In the immediately following words the year is divided into 4 seasons. Still later the Torah speaks of the alternating periods of day and night. The meaning of all this is that during the four seasons the relative length of day and night constantly change, summer and winter being indicated by the relative longer periods of daylight and darkness, depending on the part of earth on which one lives, whereas even in higher latitudes when there is no true summer or in the equatorial zones when there is no true cold season, the relative length of days and nights are a guide to the season, i.e. whether it is time to sow, etc. Regardless of which season, the combined total of darkness and daylight always amounts to the same number of hours, minutes, etc, i.e. a day has 24 hours of 60 minutes each..

לא ישבתו, the fact that G’d promises that such regularity will not cease in the future, is proof that during the deluge the pattern of day and night and seasonal change had not been as it is now. Noach may not even have been able to tell if it was day or night while he was in the ark, or at least while the rain was still descending during the first 40 days. According to Bereshit Rabbah 34,11 in the view of Rabbi Yochanan, none of the celestial bodies performed their normal functions during the entire year that Noach was in the ark. Rabbi Yonathan said to Rabbi Yochanan that the celestial bodies did perform their functions, but that Noach was unable to derive any advantage from this, as he could not be guided by what he could not see. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehushua, disagreed on another aspect of the meaning of our verse, Rabbi Eliezer claiming that the word לא ישבתו have to be understood as being in the past tense, i.e. the functions of the celestial bodies had not been suspended at all, whereas Rabbi Yehoshua understood the words לא ישבתו as referring only to the future. Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar, specifying further, claimed that the second half of the month of Tishrey, the whole month of Marcheshvan, and the first half of the month of Kislev are devoted to sowing and planting, whereas the second half of Kislev, the whole month of Tevet and half the month of Shevat are considered winter. The second half of the month of Shevat, the whole month of Adar, and the first half of Nissan are called “cold.” [i.e. what the Torah described as קר. Ed.] This is followed by two months of spring, by two months of summer, and two months of “heat.” referred to in our verse as חם.