And he sent out the raven, which went forth going to and fro, until the waters were dried from the earth.
Forty days after the mountaintops appeared, Noah opens the ark's window and sends out a raven. The bird never comes back — so why send this one first, and what does its restless going "to and fro" tell us?
The forty days are not a random figure. Scripture uses that number in a settled way.
Scripture shows plainly that "forty," whether of days or years, marks a time of trial. Both the Old and New Testaments give instances. So it seems to have been here. And temptation must be borne, not evaded. We have the assurance that God will not let us be tempted beyond what we are able. He will also, with the trial, make the way of escape, so that we may be able to endure it. So here, after waiting the proper time, Noah opened the window of the ark — not the light or roof. He sent out the raven, which kept going to and fro till the waters were dried up from the earth.
The window itself marks the limit of what Noah could know.
The ark had a window in it. The door was in the keeping of the Lord, but the window was for Noah's use. He who had shut him in alone could let him out — the times and the seasons were in His hand. The time of his journey, as a prisoner of hope, cannot be shortened. Yet God may richly nourish the hopes of such a prisoner, and exercise his spirit within him for blessing.
The bird's behaviour follows from its diet. Its name and its food explain why it could survive where a dove could not.
The word oreb comes from a root meaning "to be black." It appears to cover not only the common raven but other birds of the same family, such as the crow and the rook. We read of "every raven after its kind" as being unclean (Leviticus 11:15; Deuteronomy 14:14). When Noah sent the raven out from the ark, it could no doubt find food, because it can feed on carrion. The dove could not. Yet the raven went "to and fro" till the waters were dried up (Genesis 8:7).
A world of death suited this bird.
The raven never returns. The earth may still be unpurged, but the unclean nature can put up with it. The "present evil world" will do well enough for fallen, degraded man. Indeed, to the unclean raven the ark was more a prison than a shelter.
The raven's absence proved nothing. It could stay out whether or not the earth was fit to live on. So Noah sends a bird he can trust.
But Noah will not trust her. What beautiful spiritual discernment! The raven may stay outside, but that is no proof to Noah that the earth is clean, or fit for the sole of his foot. Noah will not trust her, but sends out a clean creature after her. And the news that clean bird brings is very different indeed. It is, in principle, the contest of Caleb and Joshua with the other spies.
(Caleb and Joshua were the spies who brought back a true report of the promised land. Their companions did not.)
Commentators read the two birds as a picture of two natures in the believer.
As a type, this shows how little these Genesis life-stories forget or hide about what we really are, however sure we may be of our place in Christ Jesus. Saved out of the world, and no longer of it, we still carry the raven with us and may let it out. We have that in us which can settle down in a scene of death where the waters of judgment have not yet dried. Like the unclean bird, it uses the ark only as a base for pursuing the work it enjoys with more energy.
The contrast is more than natural history. It ends in a promise of victory.
The raven soon found something to satisfy its taste and did not come back. The dove found nothing till dry land began to appear. The flesh in us is like the raven, and feeds on carrion. What is born of God is like the dove, feeding only on what is pure. The dove, we may remember, is in Scripture an emblem of the Spirit of God. Now just as the dove got the victory over the carrion, so whatever is born of God gets the victory over the world. It must do so; it is in its very nature to do so.
- Window, not door. God alone opened the ark; the window was Noah's, so his knowledge was partial and his waiting was real.
- Forty. The number marks a period of trial — borne, not dodged, with God providing the way to endure it.
- Raven. An unclean bird named from a root meaning "black"; carrion kept it alive outside, so it never needed the ark again.
- Report. Its staying away proved nothing about the earth, and Noah refused to trust it — he sent a clean bird after it.
- Two natures. The raven pictures what still lives in a saved man and settles into a world under judgment. The dove pictures what is born of God — and that nature wins.
And he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had become low on the ground.
The flood is going down, but Noah cannot see the ground. He is shut inside the ark with only a window above him. So he sends out a bird to bring back word of a world he cannot look at himself. Two questions follow: why a dove, and why does she come back empty?
Noah's problem was that the ark gave him almost no view of the outside. One writer traces his action to the ark's own design.
God remembered Noah and all that were alive with him in the ark. He stopped the waters and sent the wind, which started the process of drying up the waters. The window of the ark was in the roof and not in the side of it. So Noah must have had an imperfect knowledge of what was happening outside. That is why he acted as Genesis 8:6-12 records. A raven and a dove are birds of a different nature as to habits and food. The one feeding on carrion and other unclean things, the other a clean feeder. When first released there was plenty to attract the raven, but as yet nothing for the dove.
The raven had already gone out and stayed out. That silence proved nothing, and Noah knew it — so he chose a different messenger.
The raven never returns. The earth may still be unpurged, but the unclean nature can take up with it. The "present evil world" will do well enough for fallen, degraded man. In fact, the ark was more a place of captivity than of safety to the unclean raven. But Noah will not trust her. Beautiful spiritual insight! The raven may stay outside; but that is no proof to Noah that the earth is clean, or fit for the sole of his foot. Noah will not trust her, but sends out a clean creature after her.
Noah did not rush the process. The forty days before the window opened are read as a measured period, and the pattern is applied to the reader.
We may easily gather from Scripture that "forty" is used again and again, of days or years, for a period of trial. Both the Old and New Testaments give instances. So it seems to have been here... He also sent out the dove. In this case it is added, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground... The dove returned to Noah and to the ark, because water still covered the whole earth. This was conclusive. They must still wait.
The dove comes back with nothing, and that empty return is itself the report. Commentators read the ark as a picture of Christ. They read the dove as a picture of the Spirit of God.
The flood speaks of the judgment coming on all men for their sins. The ark speaks of Christ, the only shelter from that judgment. But His people, while they are still waiting in hope, can know nothing of what is theirs in Christ risen. So the Spirit — the dove — is given to make us know what is ours... On his first flight he finds nothing but a scene of desolation. Unlike the raven, who will feed on the refuse of what has been judged, he returns to the ark. The Spirit of God can find nothing in a world under judgment to rest upon, and returns, as it were, to Christ. It is as though He said to us, You will find nothing in all this world for your heart to rest upon; Christ is all.
The failed first flight has a counterpart in the Gospels, where a dove descends and stays.
Noah then sent out a dove. There was nothing to attract it. "The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot." This shows the condition of the world before Christ came. When He was here, the holy dove could remain on Him (John 1:32). But before that, there was no man on whom the Holy Spirit could rest. He came on certain men and gave them power for service. But there were none on whom He could rest.
One writer turns the picture into a question about where the reader stands.
If you have never had this rest, you are like Noah's dove. You are outside the ark, in a scene of judgment, without a spot for the sole of your foot to rest on. Safety, rest, peace and plenty were inside the ark; destruction, death, restlessness, and sorrow outside.
- Sent — Noah's window faced the sky, so he could not see the ground; the dove goes out as his eyes.
- Sifted — the raven stayed away, and that proved nothing; Noah trusted only a clean bird's report.
- Silent — the dove brings back no sign, and the empty return is the message: the earth is still under judgment.
- Sheltered — with nothing to perch on, she turns back to the ark, as the Spirit turns the heart back to Christ.
- Settled — the holy dove came down and rested on Jesus; outside that ark no one has a place to stand.
But the dove found no resting-place for the sole of her foot, and returned to him into the ark; for the waters were on the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ark.
Noah sends the dove out after the raven, and she comes straight back, because water still covers the ground. Writers read it on two levels: a man testing whether the flood was over, and a picture of what a clean nature can rest on in a ruined world.
Noah did not rush. One writer sees the number forty as a set period of testing, and notes that each bird acted true to its own nature.
Forty is regularly used in Scripture, of days or years, for a period of testing... And we must endure temptation, not dodge it. So here, after waiting the right length of time, Noah opened the window of the ark and sent out the raven... The raven and the dove were each true to their habits. The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and came back to Noah and to the ark... This settled it. They still had to wait.
The raven never came back; the dove could not stay away. One writer reads the two birds as two natures, and notes that Noah drew no conclusion at all from the raven staying out.
The raven never returns. The earth may not be cleansed yet, but the unclean nature can put up with it. The "present evil world" will do well enough for fallen, degraded man. In fact, to the unclean raven the ark was more a prison than a safe place; once she had escaped it, she never went back. But Noah will not trust her. What beautiful, holy discernment! The raven may stay outside; but that is no proof to Noah that the earth is clean, or fit for the sole of his foot. Noah will not trust her, but sends out a clean creature after her. And the news she brings is very different indeed. Noah knows he can trust her, and well he may: her only sympathy is with the signs of peace and of a new creation.
The verse gives the plain reason: water still covered the ground. (Older translations put the phrase as "no rest for the sole of her foot", which is how the writers quoted here word it.) One writer looks for the deeper reason. The dove came home because the ground was unclean, not because she was afraid or disappointed.
"Arise, depart; for this is not your rest," says the Spirit through the Prophet. And why? Why is it not to be our rest? "It is polluted," he adds. He does not say it is sorrowful, it is disappointing, it is unsatisfying, but it is polluted... The dove outside the ark was not afraid of a trapper's net. She found no rest for the sole of her foot on ground that was still unclean.
One writer takes the dove as a picture of the Spirit of God, sent out to bring news back to those still shut inside the ark.
The flood speaks of the judgment coming on all men for their sins; the ark, of Christ the only shelter from the judgment... His people, still shut in and waiting in hope, can know nothing of what is theirs in the risen Christ. So the Spirit is given — the dove — to make us know what is ours. The dove is sent out three times to make known the state of what was not visible. On his first flight he finds nothing but a scene of desolation. The raven will feed on the leftovers of what has been judged; the dove will not. He returns to the ark. The Spirit of God can find nothing in a world under judgment to rest on, and returns, as it were, to Christ. It is as though He said to us, You will find nothing in all this world for your heart to rest on; Christ is all.
One writer links the bird that had nowhere to land with the moment the Spirit came down on Jesus and stayed there.
In this scene the Holy Spirit is like the dove sent out from the ark. At last it has a spot where it can find a place to rest — to stay. The dove, you remember, went out more than once and came back each time, because she "found no rest for the sole of her foot". At last she found a resting-place and "returned not again any more" (Gen. 8:9, 12). The heavenly Dove, after 4,000 years of searching in vain for a sinless resting-place in man, has found One to rest on in the first chapter of John.
One writer puts the dove's plight to any reader who has never found that rest.
If you have never had it, you are, like Noah's dove, out of the ark, in a scene of judgment, without a spot for the sole of your foot to rest on. Safety, rest, peace and plenty were inside the ark; destruction, death, restlessness, and sorrow outside.
- No rest. The waters still covered everything, so the dove had nowhere to land.
- Polluted. The ground was not merely sad or disappointing. It was unclean, so no clean creature could settle there.
- Two natures. The raven stayed out among the leftovers of judgment; the dove came back. Noah trusted the clean bird's report, not the unclean one's silence.
- The hand that reached out. Noah drew her back in himself; the shelter she had left was still open to her.
- Rest at last. The heavenly Dove found no resting-place in man until He came down on Jesus and stayed. Rest is still inside the ark, never outside.
And he waited yet other seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark.
Noah has already tested the earth twice. A raven never came back. A dove found nowhere to land. Now, instead of acting, he counts out another full week. This verse is about waiting. Why would a man with the mountaintops in sight sit still for seven more days?
God used the whole delay — from the open window to the open door — to train Noah, not just to inform him.
Noah now took another step, after the tops of the mountains appeared. God had given the warning needed to save life, but He exercised Noah's dependence and patience to the full.
This waiting was not idle. Noah kept testing, again and again.
But it is beautiful to notice how Noah can wait. Many days had passed before he opened the window of the ark. Many more passed while he tested the state of the renewed earth by the messengers he sent out again and again — and not in vain.
The pull in the other direction was strong. The ark had done its work, and Noah wanted out. One writer reads the two birds as a rebuke to that impulse.
Noah had been a witness for God's mind, against the wilfulness of everyone around him. He worked for many years to prepare the ark. Now, as soon as it has given him salvation, he is impatient to leave it… The freed raven, going back and forth, is a fitting picture of the restlessness of our impatient spirits. The dove reads Noah a different lesson… The dove tells him first that he must have patience. How humbling to be rebuked by the weak, gentle tones of trusting love! The dove had a home in the ark — why should Noah not have one? The second time, the dove returns with the branch of peace. So not only must he submit; patience has done its perfect work, and he wants nothing.
The raven's absence proved nothing to Noah. An unclean bird can be content in a ruined world. So he put the question to a creature he could trust.
The raven never returns. The earth may still be uncleansed, but the unclean nature can put up with it… But Noah will not trust her. What beautiful discernment! The raven may stay outside; but that is no proof to Noah that the earth is clean, or fit for the sole of his foot. He sends out a clean creature after her… The dove returns by instinct. There was no rest for her in a place still under God's judgment and not yet cleansed. Noah knows he can trust her, and can leave the question to her to settle, so he sends her out a second and a third time.
The two birds behaved exactly as their natures required, and that is the point of the contrast — one settled among the ruins, the other could not.
There is surely nothing far-fetched in noticing how the unclean nature finds its satisfaction outside, where death reigns; while the clean returns to the shelter of the ark — first with no sign of life, then after seven days more with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak.
Commentators read the returning dove as a picture of the renewed mind. Such a heart cannot settle in a scene under judgment.
A sweet emblem of the renewed mind. In the middle of the surrounding desolation, it seeks and finds its rest and portion in Christ. And not only that: it also takes hold of the down payment of the inheritance, and gives the blessed proof that judgment has passed away and a renewed earth is coming fully into view. The carnal mind, by contrast, can rest in anything and everything except Christ.
Other writers see the dove as a picture of the Holy Spirit, who makes known what Noah could not yet see.
The dove is sent out three times to make known the state of what was not visible. On his first flight he finds nothing but a scene of desolation. The raven will feed on the refuse of what God has judged; the dove, in contrast, returns to the ark. The Spirit of God can find nothing in a world under judgment to rest on, and returns, as it were, to Christ.
On that reading, the seven-day pause is not empty time. It is the gap before the same messenger goes out again and comes back with something from the new world.
Next, the dove brings back something from the new earth — an olive leaf, a pledge of fruitfulness after the judgment. So the Spirit is for us the down payment of our inheritance — the foretaste and the pledge of what is to come. The olive leaf itself suggests the fruits of the Spirit — the olive produces oil — and these belong to the new creation.
- Wait. God had already saved Noah. The seven extra days exercised his dependence and patience. Waiting well is a beauty in him, not a delay.
- Test. The raven's silence proved nothing. So Noah sent out a clean creature whose report he could rely on.
- Return. The dove came back because a world under judgment offered her nothing. That is the mark of a renewed mind: it rests in Christ and nowhere else.
- Receive. The second time, she brings back an olive leaf — a pledge of fruitfulness after judgment, a first instalment of the world to come.
- Beware. The restless raven pictures our impatient spirits. The gentle dove rebukes them by coming home.
And the dove came to him at eventide; and behold, in her beak was an olive-leaf plucked off; and Noah knew that the waters had become low on the earth.
Noah has been shut in the ark for months, and the flood is his only horizon. Then the dove comes back with one small leaf — his first news from the world outside, and a picture, many writers say, of much more.
Noah could not see the ground. He had to learn its condition from a creature that could:
The dove was a clean bird. Noah sent it out the first time, and it came back, because it found no place to set its foot. But when he sent it out the second time, it returned with proof of dry land... There is much more to learn from this event. For now we will stop here and stress one point: the olive leaf was a sure witness to Noah that the flood had gone down.
The word "plucked" matters. The leaf was not floating wreckage. Something alive had grown it.
In the New Testament the dove becomes the picture of the Spirit of God... The second time, the dove came back with "a freshly plucked olive leaf." Here was the first evidence of life appearing above the waters of death. This leaf had not been drifting among the wreckage; it came from a living tree. Death entered by sin, and "so death spread to all men" (Rom. 5:12), as much after the flood as before it. The first evidence of real life rising up beyond the scene of death was when Christ rose from the dead.
Two birds went out from the ark. Each found a different resting place.
The unclean bird made its escape, and found, no doubt, a resting place on some floating carcass. It never went back to the ark. Not so the dove... "in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf." A sweet picture of the renewed mind. Surrounded by desolation, that mind seeks and finds its rest and its portion in Christ. More than that, it takes hold of the pledge of the inheritance. And it gives blessed proof that judgment has passed away and that a renewed earth is coming into full view. The mind ruled by the flesh, on the other hand, can rest in anything and everything except Christ.
Noah's own conduct is part of the lesson. He did not accept the raven's silence as an answer:
The raven may remain outside; but that is no proof to Noah that the earth is clean, or fit for the sole of his foot. Noah will not trust her, but sends out a clean creature after her. And the news she brings is different indeed... Her only sympathy is with the pledges of peace and of a new creation.
Of all the trees that might have supplied it, the message came from an olive — the tree that yields oil.
A leaf stands for profession or testimony ("So Noah knew," Gen. 8:11)... The leaves hold the mouths and lungs of the plant. They surround it like so many tongues, telling what tree it is and what fruit is (or should be) on it... Here the testimony given is of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit... The tree is a remarkable one, and its main feature is the oil (Judges 9:9). That is, what marks out the vessel of testimony is that it holds the Holy Spirit as the source of light... It is evergreen, and it will grow in the most barren and stony soil.
Everything depends on where that leaf came from.
One thing that had been under the waters of judgment had risen above them. One spot was clear of the judgment, and from that spot the dove brought an olive leaf to Noah. There is today one spot that has emerged from under the judgment of God: it is Christ... "So Noah knew." Through the testimony that the Holy Spirit gives to the risen Christ, we too may know that Christ has borne our judgment and put our sins away forever.
The leaf was small. It did not carry Noah out of the ark; it told him the day was coming.
Next, the dove brings back something from the new earth — an olive leaf, pledge of fruitfulness after the judgment. So the Spirit is for us the guarantee of our inheritance — the foretaste and the pledge of what is to come.
- Judgment. The first flight found nothing. The water still covered everything, and the dove had nowhere to set her foot.
- Life. The leaf came from a living tree — the first sign of life rising above the water of death.
- Witness. A leaf is testimony; an olive leaf, from the tree of oil, carries the message back to the man shut inside.
- Knowledge. "So Noah knew" — he learned the state of an unseen world from what the bird brought him.
- Pledge. One leaf is not the harvest. It is the sample that guarantees the whole new world is coming.
And he waited yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; but she returned no more to him.
Noah sends the dove out a third time, and this time she never comes back. Her silence told him the earth was ready — and writers have long seen in this small event a picture of the Spirit of God finding a home.
The first flight ended in return, the second in a plucked olive leaf, and the third in silence. Writers point out that this silence carried the clearest message of the three.
The result after another seven days is plainer still, if that is possible. This time the dove was sent out, and she could find rest for the sole of her foot on the renewed earth. She did not return to him again. The dove had strong wings to fly from anything out of keeping with her pure and gentle nature. Now she had a place that drew her, and Noah could only draw the right conclusion.
Noah waited a further week before he tested the earth again. That patience did not come easily to him.
Noah, no doubt, became impatient to leave the ark after it had done its work. Nothing exposes our impatience or self-will as much as this… It is harder to stay in the place of blessing than to reach it… The freed raven, going back and forth, is a fitting picture of our restless, impatient spirits. The dove reads Noah a different lesson… The dove tells him first that he must have patience. The dove had a home in the ark; why should not Noah?… And when the dove goes out again, she may stay away. The discipline is over, and he is called into a new scene.
One writer takes the dove as a picture of the Spirit of God and reads the three flights as three stages.
Noah sent out the dove, emblem of the Holy Spirit of God, three times. The first time it returned with nothing. There was nowhere to rest her foot, for the waters were everywhere. This shows the utter ruin of the first man and of the old creation bound up with him. Death covered them all. The second time she returned with the single olive leaf. At last the first piece of the renewed earth had appeared above the waters… The third time the dove found not just a leaf, but a resting place for her feet.
The dove would not settle on a scene still under water. That is why, one commentator argues, the Spirit's coming had to wait for a finished work.
On the first flight the dove has nowhere to rest, so she returns. The Holy Spirit can only rest where the work of judgment is complete… The dove returns to Noah, but afterwards goes out from him and returns no more. This, I think, is how we should understand John 7:39. In Old Testament times the Holy Spirit visited the earth many times. But He could not yet be given until the ascension of Christ bore witness that the work of atonement was perfect. He is then given as a witness that peace has been made with God.
The dove that never came back has an echo in the New Testament. Another writer sees it in the opening chapter of John's Gospel, where the Spirit at last has someone to rest on.
The dove, you remember, went out once and again, but returned, because she "found no place to set her foot." At last she found a resting place, and she "did not return to him anymore"… The heavenly Dove searched 4,000 years for a sinless resting place in man and found none. In the first chapter of John He has found One to rest on.
The final flight also looks forward. The bird stayed away because the earth below her was fit to live in again.
The third sending out of the dove carries our thoughts on to the world to come, the days of the glorious Kingdom still to dawn for this sin-spoiled earth. Judgment will have cleared that scene of everything offensive to God. It will then be a fitting home for the Holy Spirit. The renewed earth was a fitting home for the dove; she returned to the ark no more. And in coming days the Holy Spirit will not be given only to those who are "in Christ," but will be poured out upon all flesh.
- Silence — The dove's failure to come back was itself the report; Noah read the absence and knew the earth was ready.
- Patience — He waited seven more days before the final test. The restless raven pictures our hurry; the dove teaches waiting for God's time.
- Sequence — Three flights, three stages: no rest at all, then one olive leaf from a world still under water, then a home.
- Ground — The dove settles only where judgment is over. So the Spirit came only after Christ finished the work of atonement.
- Person — The bird that stayed away points to the Spirit resting on Christ, and on to a renewed earth where God will pour Him out on all flesh.