Genesis8:1–5

The direct-object marker ’eṯ (H853) carries no meaning of its own; BSB's But is supplied to mark the turn in the narrative, not translated from this word.

’ĕ·lō·hîm (H430) — the universal divine name, God in relation to all His creatures, not the covenant name YHWH. Ellicott notes the older source-critics expected Jehovah here; the choice of Elohim suits a scene of cosmic, creation-wide mercy reaching beyond Israel to every breathing thing.

way·yiz·kōr (H2142, Qal consecutive imperfect) — the theological pivot of the unit. Hebrew zāḵar joins memory to action: when God "remembers" He intervenes. The same construction frames His remembering of Abraham and Lot (Genesis 19:29) and of Rachel (Genesis 30:22), and of Hannah (1 Samuel 1:19) — each time, a deliverance follows immediately. The waters had risen for 150 days; this verb is where they turn.

nō·aḥ (H5146) — Noah, named first as the object of the remembrance, the one righteous man on whose account the beasts are spared. His name (from the root for rest, H5117) anticipates verse 4, where the ark rests (wat·tā·naḥ).

ha·ḥay·yāh (H2416) — the wild living creatures. That God remembers every beast, not only Noah, is, in the words of the Geneva annotators, an assurance to His children: if He minds the brute creation, how much more His people.

bat·tê·ḇāh (H8392, tēḇāh, "a box/chest") — the same rare word used for the basket of bulrushes in which the infant Moses is drawn from the water (Exodus 2:3). Hebrew has two distinct flood-vessels in mind across Scripture, and this is not the usual word for "ship."

rū·aḥ (H7307) — wind/breath/Spirit. The Pulpit Commentary records the dispute: Theodoret, Ambrose, and the LXX read pneuma (the Spirit, as in Genesis 1:2); others read a mere current of air. The synthesis prefers the deliberate echo of creation: the new world begins as the old did, with God's wind moving over the deep.

way·yā·šōk·kū (H7918) — a rare verb (five OT occurrences) meaning to grow still, abate, assuage. Ellicott observes the waters' "strength" in Genesis 7:24 was their violent currents; what subsides here is not first the level but the fury of the waters.

ma‘·yə·nōṯ (H4599) — the springs/fountains. These are the subterranean source named in Genesis 7:11; Maclaren and others take them as "probably the sea." Their stopping is the structural mirror of their breaking open at the flood's onset.

tə·hō·wm (H8415) — the great deep, the surging subterranean water-mass; in Genesis 1:2 the unformed abyss. Its sealing signals the reversal of chaos.

’ă·rub·bōṯ (H699) — "lattices/windows" of heaven, a rare word. The Pulpit Commentary derives the cognate verb from the idea of enclosing; the LXX reads epekalyphthēsan, "were covered over."

way·yis·sā·ḵə·rū (H5534) — were stopped/dammed. The Pulpit Commentary glosses it as a byform of sāḡar, "to surround, enclose"; literally were shut up.

way·yik·kā·lê (H3607, kālā’) — was restrained. The Pulpit Commentary lines it up with Greek kleiō, kōlyō and Latin celo, occulo: the rain is shut in, held back, not merely ceased.

way·yā·šu·ḇū (H7725, šūḇ) — turned back/returned. Keil notes the verb means here "flowed off"; the same root underlies the call to "return" to God.

hā·lō·wḵ (H1980, infinitive absolute of hālaḵ) paired with wā·šō·wḇ — the doubled infinitive expresses continuous, intensifying action. Keil: "the inf. absol. wᵉšōḇ hālōḵ expresses continuation." The Pulpit Commentary wonders whether it captures "the undulatory motion of the waves in an ebbing tide."

ū·mə·’aṯ (H3967, "a hundred") with ḥă·miš·šîm (H2572, "fifty") — the 150 days reckoned from the flood's commencement (Genesis 7:24). Keil takes 30 days to a month, making exactly five months to the ark's resting.

way·yaḥ·sə·rū (H2637, ḥāsēr) — were diminished/made to fail. Barnes lists this among the unit's distinctive verbs: "want, fail, be abated."

hat·tê·ḇāh (H8392) — the ark, the box-vessel; see note on 8:1. Its grounding marks the exact midpoint of the deliverance.

wat·tā·naḥ (H5117, nūaḥ) — rested. The root meaning of "rest" is the same root behind Noah's name and behind the Sabbath rest; the third feminine singular agrees with the feminine noun tēḇāh (ark).

hā·rê (H2022, masculine plural construct) — "mountains of." The plural-for-singular is a recognized Hebrew idiom (Poole cites Judges 12:7); the ark rests on a single height within the range.

’ă·rā·rāṭ (H780) — Ararat, a kingdom/region named in Jeremiah 51:27 (beside Minni and Ashkenaz) and equated with Armenia in 2 Kings 19:37 and Isaiah 37:38. Barnes, Cambridge, and the Pulpit Commentary all insist it is a country, not a peak; the rare word recurs in only four verses, making the verbal link to those passages exact.

hā·lō·wḵ (H1980) joined to wə·ḥā·sō·wr (H2637) — "going and decreasing," the second of the unit's two "going-and-___" infinitive pairs, binding 8:3 and 8:5 into a single slow movement of withdrawal.

hā·‘ă·śî·rî (H6224) — the tenth month. Cambridge and Keil reckon 73 days between the ark's grounding (8:4) and this sighting of the surrounding peaks — the slowness itself is the point.

rā·šê (H7218, rō’š) — "heads/tops" of the mountains. The waters had stood fifteen cubits above the highest hills (Genesis 7:20); their reappearance is the first visible promise that the earth will be habitable again.

nir·’ū (H7200, Niphal of rā’āh) — were seen / appeared. The Pulpit Commentary, following Tayler Lewis, presses "became distinctly visible," distinguishing emergence from mere projection above the water.