Genesis 8:13-14

2006.Oct.20 16:14

The Earth Is Dry

Read Genesis 8:13-14 | Full Chapter

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.
(Genesis 8:13-14, NASB)

Funny, usually the earth being dry is a bad thing. But, a year or so after the flood-rains started, the earth being dry is a very good thing. This isn’t the dry of mid-August, hasn’t rained in a month and the grass is dying. No, this is the dry after you’ve been working hard and become smelly and dirty and you’ve taken your shower and now you’ve just finishing drying yourself and have put the towel up and you’re clean.

That kind of dry.

Recall the reason for this flood is to clean the earth of the sin of humanity of that day, vis-a-vis the nearly complete drowning of said humanity. Okay, that bit is not real uplifting, either that it happened or that the species to which I belong sinned so much as to precipitate the event. However, the cleansing is now complete and God’s remnant is ready to reinhabit the earth, hopefully with a somewhat increased righteousness.

The rest of the Old Testament covers just how well that didn’t work out. Maybe part of Jehovah’s reason for the flood is to make it very clear to each human that we can’t blame Adam and Eve for our sin. Because onto this cleansed earth will the family of Noah depart, and they too will choose sin.