The Emerging World
Genesis 8:1-5
And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark…


To realize this, let us suppose ourselves standing on a hill on a September morning, surrounded by a sea of mist. Nothing for awhile is visible but wild, rolling waves of dripping darkness, till at last the sun looks out, a wind begins to blow, and then there loom forth, peak after peak, the hundred hills around, starting up, as if newly created, from the gulf below, their bases still bathed in mist, but their tops crowned with light, and resembling the islands of some "melancholy main." It is one of the sublimest of spectacles, reminding you of the worlds rising out of chaos, of God's "calling the things that were not, and they appeared," and compelling you, the spectator, to uncover, as the mountains have doge, in the presence of the God of day, although you see in him, what they do not, only the vicegerent of his heavenly King. And similar, but still more striking, must have been to Noah's eye, as he stood on the sides of the resting ark, the sight of the ancient landmarks of nature reappearing, the ridges of Taurus heaving up like islands through the waters, their shows for the time melted, and perhaps over them all, in the remote distance, the "Finger Mount" arising, relieved against, and pointing significantly to the calm blue sky! Sight reminding us of the rising of great buried truths, as at the Reformation, out of the darkness of ages; struggling, too, to free themselves from the incrustations of error, as the lion from the impediments of the Daedal earth, Sight reminding us of the resurrection of great reputations buried under loads of calumny, or whelmed in deluges of oblivion, into the light of general appreciation, and the consecration of long-denied reverence and love. Sight reminding us of the resurrection of the dead from their sepulchres — specially, shall we say, of the resurrection of aged and venerable patriarchs, having left their hoary hairs in the dust, arising to the vigour and freshness of immortal youth.

(G. Gilfillan.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: 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 asswaged;

WEB: God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.




The Ark Resting
Top of Page
Top of Page