Genesis 8:3, commentary and pictures

Genesis 8:3 belongs to the inspired, historically true Old Testament account of a real Flood and a literal Noah. After covering the earth, the floodwaters continually returned and receded from off the earth, gradually decreasing and growing lower until after the end of the hundred and fifty days they were abated. That receding after 150 days marks a distinct stage of the Flood as an example of God's judgment and destruction of the world because of human iniquity and sin.

As the waters fell, the ark came to rest on mountains that God had preserved through the storm, bringing relief to Noah and all aboard. Noah and his family remained in the ark and watched the waters decrease. They watched anxiously because Noah desired to go forth upon the earth again.

Men and beasts had gathered to the highest points of land, and as the waters withdrew and returned from off the earth their dead bodies were left on high mountains and upon hills as well as on high ground and plains. God would not leave these bodies to decompose on the surface and pollute the atmosphere, so He made the earth a vast burying ground. He caused a powerful wind to pass over the earth to dry the waters, moving them with great force to drive earth, rocks, ledges, stones, and trees over the bodies and bury them. In some places the tops of mountains were carried away like mighty avalanches, huge hills and high mountains were formed where none had been seen before, the land was reshaped, and collections of stones, ledges, trees, and earth driven upon and around the mountains made them larger and more irregular in shape.

The same waters that had broken forth with great power covered and sank beneath the surface the precious wood, metals, stones, silver, and gold that had enriched and adorned the world before the Flood and that the inhabitants had idolized, in many instances forming mountains above them to hide them from the sight and search of men. The buried and preserved remains of unusually large people, animals, and trees testify that the antediluvians perished in the Flood, and their age and the conditions in which they existed must be understood from the inspired record, not inferred from geology alone. The same sins that brought that judgment are increasing again. God used the massive boat, the ark, to save all who would hear the warning and turn from unrighteousness; all were tested by the truth Noah preached, those who believed were saved, and only eight persons were saved. The character of Noah's generation prefigures the present age before Christ appears.