Genesis Chapter 8 part 2: The Raven, Dove, and the Olive Branch

What does a raven, a dove, and a freshly picked olive leaf have to do with your life right now?

More than you think.

In this lesson from Genesis 8 we look at one of the most overlooked passages in the flood narrative and discover that it is not just a story about birds.

The raven that went out and never returned is a picture that Ambrose and Augustine both identified as a portrait of a specific spiritual condition. Someone present in the faith community but still feeding on the things of the old, dead world.

The dove that came back exhausted with nowhere to land is a picture that Chrysostom connected to the God who reaches out His hand to receive the weary and draw them back in.

And the olive branch the dove returned with in her beak is the origin of one of the most universal symbols in human culture. The United Nations uses it. The United States Great Seal carries it. Every diplomat who has ever extended an olive branch is quoting Genesis 8 without knowing it.

But the deepest part of this lesson is what Noah does after the dove stops returning.

He can see the dry ground. He removed the covering of the ark and looked with his own eyes. He could have stepped out the door.

He waited. Two more months. For the word of God before he moved.

That kind of faith - the kind that trusts God’s word over what your own eyes tell you is safe - is exactly what the last few years have been teaching many of us we need.

We go deep into the Hebrew, into the ancient Near Eastern background, into the Church Fathers, and all the way to the resurrection morning when another voice said come out and a dead man walked out of a tomb.

This is verse by verse Genesis study the way it was meant to be taught. Things most Christians have never heard. Connections that will change how you read your Bible.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

And welcome back. In our last study, we stood at the opening of Genesis chapter 8, and we heard what I believe to be the most beautiful words in the Bible when we read what God remembered. And we watched the wind of God move over the waters just as it moved over the waters in Genesis chapter 1. We watched the fountains close and the rain cease, and we watched the ark come to rest in the mountains of Ararod. And we we trace the ancient historical testimonies of people like Josephus and Verosius and Marco Polo that all place the Ark's landing in the Armenian highlands. Now today we're going to jump into a section of Genesis chapter 8 in verses 6 through 19, where we see the windows open, the raven goes out, the dove goes out three times, and Noah does something that most people just completely miss. He waits for the word before he steps outside. The ground is dry, he can see it, he could open the door and walk out, but he waits for God to speak. And when God speaks, he uses the same word that he used back in Genesis chapter 7, verse 1, when he says, Come out. Not go out, but come out. And that so the God who is uh in the ark is calling Noah to where he was, is now outside of the ark, calling Noah to where he is going. So let's read this together. Let's start in verse 6 of chapter 8. Then it came about at the end of the forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made, and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove from him to see if the water was abated from the face of the land. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark. For the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he put out his hand and took her and brought her back into himself into the ark. So he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark. The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again. Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God spoke to Noah, saying, Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife, and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out by their families from the ark. Now, in these fourteen verses, we see a raven, three doves, an olive branch, and a man who waited for God's word before taking a single step outside. So let's start in verse six at the end of 40 days. Now, this passage opens with what's called a chronological marker. Then it came about at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 40 days after what? That's a huge question. The most natural reading connects this to the appearance of the mountaintops back in verse 5. After the tops of the mountains became visible, Noah waited another 40 days before opening the window. Now, why is that important? Because of the number 40. We saw it in the 40 days, uh 40 days and 40 nights of rain. We saw it, uh we'll see it later with Moses on the mountain, Elijah in the wilderness, Jesus in the desert. And so 40 is always the number of testing, waiting, uh, and the threshold between one event and the next. And so Noah waited the full 40 days, even though he could see the mountaintops, even though the evidence suggested that the waters were receding. He waited the full measure of the appointed time before taking the initiative. And this is one of the most consistent themes in Noah's character throughout Genesis chapter 6, all the way to Genesis chapter 9. Noah doesn't rush, he doesn't act ahead of God's timing. He waits, he obeys, he doesn't substitute his own judgment or his own thoughts, his own will in place of God's word. Then the text specifies that the window of the ark which he had made. Now, this small detail is worth noting. Noah built this window. It was part of the original construction, part of the design that God had given him. And it was made exactly for this moment. God's design always includes what will be needed for you and I. And what we needed sometimes now and sometimes later. The window here is not an afterthought. It was the provision for the day of looking out, built into the structure from the very beginning. And this is worth applying. What God builds into the design of your life, the capacities, the relationships, the experiences, is provision for a moment that you perhaps cannot see yet from where you are standing. Now, let's move on to verse 7. And let's talk about the raven that was sent out. We read this. Noah's first move is to send out a raven. He said, and when he sent out a raven and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. The raven flies back and forth. It doesn't return to the ark. It doesn't bring back a report, it just flies back and forth, going nowhere and returning nowhere. Why does Noah send out the raven first? It's a very interesting question. Ravens are scavengers. Ravens feed on dead things. A raven sent out over the post-flood world would have had no shortage of food. I know that sounds disgusting, but it's true. The debris of a destroyed civilization floating in the water would sustain a raven indefinitely. And so the raven neither returns with news of dry land or starves. It simply survives in the wreckage of what the flood left behind. And the raven tells Noah nothing useful at all, because the raven is suited to a world of death. And that world still had food for the raven. Now the ancient church fathers noticed the contrast between the raven and the dove immediately. It was Ambrose of Milan in the fourth century who wrote that the raven represents the person whose appetites are satisfied by the things of the world: the corrupt, the passing, the decaying. The raven does not long for the solid ground because it is content with what floats on the surface of the judgment waters. The raven is at home in a world of death. Of course, this is comparing the saved and the lost. Augustine drew a similar contrast and connected to the person who is nominally in the ark in the visible community of faith, in the church, but whose heart is still oriented toward the old world. He is inside the ark, the church, but flying over the floodwaters and finding what he needs there. So the raven is one of those biblical details that it's really easy just to dismiss. But Ambrose and Augustine saw it as a portrait of a very spiritual specific condition present in the covenant community, but not transformed by the covenant. The next thing we see is that Noah sends out a dove, says then he sent out a dove from him to see if the water was abated from the face of the land. The contrast with the raven is immediate and total. The raven stays out, the dove comes back. Why? Because the dove is not a scavenger, the dove doesn't feed on dead things. The dove needs solid ground, a place where living things grow to find its rest. And the world isn't ready yet. The water is still on the surface of all the earth. And so the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot. And so the dove returned. And here is a detail that stops me every time I read it. Then he puts out his hand and took her and brought her back into himself, into the ark. Notice the words. The Hebrew carries the sense of drawing in, taking to oneself the kind of gesture you make when you receive something that is very precious to you. And so Noah reaches out his hand and he brought the dove back to himself. This is a tender moment. A man inside of a wooden vessel floating on the waters of a dead, decaying world, reaching out his hand to receive a small, exhausted bird that had no place to land, no refuge. And many have written that this was a picture of God receiving the weary sinner to himself. Notice the the words here. There's a hand reached out, there's a weary one that's drawn in. And then there's a place of safety when the world has nothing to offer. Then notice that between the first and the second sending, Noah does something extraordinary there. Noah waited seven days. Between the second and the third sending, another seven days. Seven, again, the number of completeness, the number of a divine rhythm, seven days of creation, the seventh day of rest. Noah measures his waiting in sevens, which is the cadence of God's own creative order. This is a man whose entire sense of time and rhythm has been calibrated to God. He doesn't send the dove again the very next morning out of impatience, like most of us would, like I probably would. He doesn't send it out again based on his own estimate of when the land may be ready. He waits seven more days and then seven more days. He's measured, patient, and trusting God. The second sending of the dove produces the most famous image of the entire flood narrative. The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. Now, three things about this are very significant. First, the word freshly picked. The leaf was fresh. It wasn't dried, it wasn't dead, it's not decomposed. It's a living leaf from a living tree, which was proof that vegetation was growing again. Now, the olive tree is one of the most resilient trees in the ancient Near East. Olive trees can survive, this has been tested, being submerged for extended periods of time. They have an extraordinary deep root system. And the olive tree coming back first is entirely consistent with what we know about olive tree biology. Second, notice toward evening, the dove returned in the evening, the end of the day, and there was the evening and there was the morning. This is the pattern of Genesis chapter 1. Even in this small detail, we see the rhythms of creation are reasserting themselves as we talked about in our last lesson. The third thing is when we read the words, so Noah knew. Notice how God communicates through creation to Noah: a small bird, a single leaf, a man who had the wisdom to read what God was saying through this. And so the image of the olive branch as a symbol of peace is very interesting because it all dates back to Noah. It all goes back to these scriptures, the olive branch and a new beginning. It's actually embedded itself so deeply in human culture that most people today have no idea where the wording of an olive branch comes from. The United Nations uses an olive branch wreath as its central symbol. The United States Great Seal carries it, has an eagle holding an olive branch. The Olympic Games traditionally feature olive wreaths as a victor's crown. Diplomatic language still uses the phrase extending an olive branch. And every single one of those traces back to this moment. A dove, a freshly picked olive leaf, returned to a man floating in the waters after the judgment of God. And the secular world uses a symbol consistently without knowing that they're actually quoting Genesis chapter 8. Now, what does the symbol mean in its original context? That's really important. It's not just peace between people or peace between nations. The symbol is actually a new life after judgment, the return of growth and abundance after the waters of God's wrath have done their work. It's the first sign that restoration is coming. Now compare that to a couple of things. In the epic of Gilgamesh, the flood hero also sends out birds to check for dry land. He sends out a dove, a swallow, and a raven in that order. The dove and the swallow return because they find no landing place. The raven does not. And so there's a parallel to Genesis that is very obvious, but the differences are very significant. In Gilgamesh, the raven not returning signals that the land is available for the hero so he can come and disembark. In Genesis, the raven's behavior tells Noah nothing. It is the dove that carries the message. And the message in Genesis is not just practical information, it's that there's visible, dry land. This is a theological communication. God is restoring what the judgment covered. Life is returning, the new creation is emerging. The Gilgamesh hero reads nature pragmatically. Noah reads it theologically. So let's move on to the third sending because this is really important. It says we read that he waited another seven days to send out the dove, but she did not return to him again. The dove doesn't return because she's found what she was looking for. She found solid ground, living things, a world where a dove belongs. She didn't need the ark anymore. And so Noah knows that the world outside is ready, that the waters have receded enough for life to begin. But notice what Noah does next. He knows that the waters have receded, he knows that the earth is ready, but he doesn't open the door and walk out. He waits. And this is what I think is perhaps the most disciplined act of faith in the entire flood narrative. And it's really amazing. Verse 13 tells us what happened next. This is what it says. It says, Now it came about in the 600 first year in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering from the ark and looked and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. So Noah removes the covering off the ark, he looks, he sees the dry ground, and he stays inside. And I want to make sure that we feel the full weight of this. The dove had not returned. Noah removed the covering of the ark. He can see with his own eyes that the ground is dry, and he could walk out of the door right now with his family and all the animals. But he doesn't. He waits for almost two months. He waits because God has not told him to come out yet. And this is one of the most extraordinary acts of faith, maybe not just in Genesis, maybe in the entire Bible. The man who built an ark for 120 years without seeing rain will not step out of the ark before receiving the word from God, even when he can see with his own eyes that it's safe to do. Now, this matters for how we understand Noah's obedience. It wasn't just the grand acts, the building of an enormous ark, the gathering of animals. It was the quiet act, staying inside when you could leave, because God has not yet said, Come out. Think about Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. And so Noah trusted in the Lord with all his heart, even when his own eyes told him that the path was clear. And then the date Moses gives here is extraordinarily significant. In the 600 and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the first day of the first month of a new year. And so this is New Year's Day for them. In Noah's 601st year, the ground is dry, the world is renewed, a new year has begun on a new earth. And the symbolism is unmistakable. The old world has ended. It's over. The judgment has run its full course, and on the first day of the new year, the new creation is visible and dry. This is creation theology in chronology. That's a lot of ologies. The flood did not just preserve eight people and a collection of animals, it reset the world. And the reset is marked by a new year, a new beginning, a new first day. Let's flip in, and I want you to read a passage with me. This is one of my favorite passages. This is in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17. Verse 15 is actually my life verse. But verse 17 of 2 Corinthians chapter 5 says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away. Behold, the new things have come. Old things have passed away. New things have come on the first day of the year in the ark. And in the New Testament, new things have come in Christ. Can you see all the tie-ins that are happening here? And then God speaks to Noah and catch this. Almost two months after Noah removed the covering and saw the dry ground, God speaks. He says, Then God spoke to Noah, saying, Go out of the ark. Now, in our translation, it says go out, but I want to look at this very carefully. In Genesis chapter 7, verse 1, God said to Noah, Come into the ark. And the word come was indicating that God was already inside of the ark, calling Noah to where he was. Now, in Genesis chapter 8, verse 16, most Hebrew scholars and translators note that the verb here carries the same sense of going forth together, moving out as God moves out. God going before, and then Noah following. Now, whether you read it as come out or go out, the pattern is the same. God speaks first, and then Noah moves second. Notice God does not say, hey, the ground is dry, you can leave whenever you're ready. He gives a very specific word at a very specific time or a very specific purpose. And Noah, who has been waiting inside a dry ark, looking at a dry world, waited for exactly that word from God before he moved. And then God tells Noah what to do. God instructs Noah that it's not just time to leave the ark. He gives him a full commission. Listen to what he says. He says, Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, that they may breed abundantly on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. Be fruitful and multiply. That's Genesis chapter 1, verse 28. The exact same commission, word for word. God is reissuing the creation mandate that he gave to Adam and man now with Noah. This is one of the clearest signals in the entire flood narrative that we are witnessing. It's not just the end of a flood, but the beginning of a new creation. Adam and Eve received this commission in a perfect, unfallen world. Noah and his family received it, and it's a washed, renewed, reset world. The same God, the same commission, but a new starting point. And just as Genesis chapter 1, verse 28 was given before the fall and sin was introduced into the world, Genesis chapter 9 will show us that the new world Noah steps into. Is not yet free of sin. The commission is renewed, but the human heart, as God Himself acknowledged in Genesis chapter 8, verse 21, has not changed, which is exactly why the world needs more than a reset, more than a flood. The world needs a redeemer. And then in verse 19, this is what we see. In Genesis chapter 8, verse 19, we see that they came out. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by their families from the ark. By their families. It's not a random scattering, but by their families in order, organized as God had organized them in the beginning. The same God who brought order out of chaos in Genesis chapter 1 brings order out of the ark in Genesis chapter 8. The animals did not rush out in panic. They didn't stampede out. They went out by their families to fill the earth again. The same mandate, the same order, the same God who organized the first creation is now organizing the reset. Now, there's something we need to talk about when it comes to the field of modern apologetics and what the raven and the dove actually revealed. Because we see the dove as a theological messenger. And from an apologetic standpoint, the raven and the dove they offer a lot of stuff that's worth noting. Again, I mentioned earlier the Gilgamesh epic, where they send birds in a similar sequence. And skeptics have used this parallel to argue that Genesis simply borrowed its bird sending narrative from Babylon. But look at what the bird sending means in each text. In Gilgamesh, the birds are purely practical navigational tools. They tell the hero when he can safely leave the boat. There is no deeper meaning. And it's an ancient maritime practice that sailors use birds to find land. But in Genesis, the birds carry theological weight. The raven that needs, uh, that feeds on death, the dove that needs living ground, the olive branch that signals restoration, the third dove that finds its home in a new world and does not return. These are not navigational details. They are theologically structured sequences that communicate the movement from judgment to restoration of new life. If Genesis simply borrowed from Gilgamesh, it would simply replicate the practical bird sending. Instead, Genesis transforms the entire sequence into a theological narrative with layers of meaning that the Gilgamesh version just doesn't contain. And this is the consistent pattern throughout Genesis. The same basic cultural elements appear in both texts, but Genesis fills them with a depth of meaning that no human author, barring from another tradition, would have ever been able to invent or would have invented. Now, the the dove and the Holy Spirit connection is clear. It's called a typological connection. The dove has become one of the most recognizable symbols in all of Christian iconography. It is associated with the Holy Spirit and goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 8. You remember at the baptism of Jesus, Matthew chapter 3, verse 16, after being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were open. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove on him. The Spirit of God descending as a dove. This is at Jesus' baptism. Waters were involved, the spirit descends as a dove, the new creation has its origin. The parallel to Genesis chapter 8 is not accidental. Noah's flood, waters of judgment and renewal, Jesus' baptism, waters of death and resurrection, a dove over the waters of Genesis chapter 8, the spirit of a dove over the waters in the Jordan, and the new creation emerging from the flood, and then the new creation announced at the baptism of the Son of God. And the early church fathers saw this connection and they wrote about it extensively. It was Tertullian in the late second century who wrote that the dove returning with an olive branch to Noah and the Ark was a direct foreshadowing of the Holy Spirit descending on Christ at his baptism. Origen in the third century connected the three sendings of the dove to the progressive work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. The first returning without finding rest in an old world, and then the second time, the returning with the first fruits of the new creation, and then finally going out to inhabit the new world fully and not returning to the old. The believer being changed, the old being taken away, and the new happening, the new being created with inside of you. Now, along with ancient historians, there's a lot of New Testament fulfillment that happens here. The words we see come out, that voice that always goes before. That's God's command to Noah, come out of the ark. It's the pattern of every divine call to a new life in the scripture. We see always that God speaks first. The people of God always move in response to God's word, not ahead of it. Abraham, uh, to Abraham, God said, Go from your country, and Abraham went. With Moses, God said, Uh, come now, and I will send you. And Moses went. With the disciples, Jesus said, Follow me, and they followed. With Lazarus, Jesus said, Come out, and the dead man walked out of the tomb. Now, this last one is worth stopping on just a little bit. In John chapter 11, verse 43, uh, when speaking of Jesus, when he said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. Now that's the same structure as Genesis chapter 8, verse 16. A man in an enclosed space, uh, one in the ark and one in a tomb, surrounded by the waters of judgment, the the flood of the flood, and then with Lazarus, the darkness of death, and a divine voice cries out to them, Come out. Noah came out of the ark into a new world, and then Lazarus came out of the tomb into a new life. And the day is coming when the tomb will hear, when every tomb will hear the same voice. In John chapter 5, verse 28 and 29, we said we read, Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which all who are in their tombs will hear his voice and will come forth. All who are in their tombs will hear his voice and they will come out. Because the same God who said, Come into the ark and come out of the ark, will say, Come out of the grave. Now, let's go back to the olive branch and just for a second and look at what's called the promise of shalom. Uh, the the freshly picked olive branch is brought by the dove, and this is one of the Bible's earliest pictures of what the New Testament calls shalom, peace, wholeness, or restoration. The olive branch said, the waters are abating, growing things are returning, the judgment is giving way to restoration. And the New Testament has its own olive branch. It's in Romans chapter 5, verse 1. We read, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace. There's the word, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God, the olive branch, carried across the waters of judgment by the one who bore the judgment to himself. The dove brought the olive branch to Noah after the waters of wrath had done their work. The Spirit brings peace with God after the cross, where the wrath of God was satisfied in the bodily crucifixion of Jesus. The same symbol, the same structure, the same God, separated by thousands of years and all pointing to the same reality, uh restoration after judgment through the grace of the one who carries the branch to us. Now let me wrap this up. In these 14 verses, we've seen a lot of stuff that is really, really great. Uh everything that you can imagine tying in with apologetics, with ancient and Near Eastern cultures, with Hebrew words, everything that we could go through. But here's a word that I want to leave you with in this lesson today. Noah had dry ground under his feet before God told him to come out. He could see it, and he could have walked on it, and he could have waited, and he chose to wait. And the waiting was not weakness. It was not Noah being passive. It was the deepest expression of trust in the entire flood narrative. Because the man who walked with God had learned something over his 600-year lifespan. And over one year of that spent at sea during the time of judgment. And this is something that most of us spend a lifetime trying to learn. God's word is better than your own eyes. His timing is better than your urgency. And the voice that says, come out, is always worth waiting for. Just keep that with you as you go through the rest of your week. Now, tomorrow will be our final lesson in Genesis chapter 8, where we see Noah step off the ark, and the very first thing he does is not survey the landscape. It's not this point where he just tried to survive. He's not trying to plan a new civilization. What we see with Noah is that the first thing he does when he steps out of the ark is he builds an altar, and the smell of the sacrifice will rise to God. And God responds with one of the most important promises in all of Scripture. We'll see all of that in our next lesson. I hope that you've enjoyed today's lesson. Until next time, I hope that you have a blessed day.