Genesis 8:1 h.ויזכור אלהים AND GOD REMEMBERED— This Divine Name really signifies the God of Strict Justice but it is transformed into Divine Mercy through the prayers of the righteous, whilst the evil practised by wicked people transforms Divine Mercy into Strict Justice, as it is said (Genesis 6:5) “And the Lord ('ה) saw that the wickedness of man was great” and (Genesis 5:7) “And the Lord ('ה) said, “I will blot out etc.”— yet in these passages the Name ('ה) is מדת רחמים, that signifying Divine Mercy (Genesis Rabbah 33:3).
h.‘ויזכור אלהים את נח וגו AND GOD REMEMBERED NOAH etc. — What did He remember regarding the cattle? The merit that no perversion of their way had been seen amongst them previously to the Flood, and that they lived apart in the Ark.
h.ויעבר אלהים רוח AND GOD MADE A WIND (or SPIRIT) TO PASS — A spirit of consolation and relief passed before Him.
h.על הארץ OVER THE EARTH — Because of what was happening on earth.
h.וישכו AND THE WATERS ASSUAGED — The word occurs again (Esther 2:1), “when the wrath of the king was assuaged (כשוך)”, and it means there abatement of anger.
Genesis 8:2 h.ויסכרו מעינות AND THE FOUNTAINS … WERE STOPPED –– When they were opened, it was stated that all fountains were opened (7:11), whilst here the word all is omitted: the reason is that such of them as were essential to the world were left unstopped, such as the hot springs of Tiberias and their like (Sanhedrin 108a).
h.ויכלא means was restrained. withheld, as (Psalms 40:12) “Thou wilt not withhold (תכלא) thy mercies” and (Genesis 23:6) “None of us will withhold (יכלה) from thee.’’
Genesis 8:3 h.מקצה חמשים ומאת יום AFTER THE END OF ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DAYS they began to decrease: that was on the first day of Sivan. How so? The rains ceased to fall on the twenty-seventh day of Kislev — you have three days left in Kislev, and the 29 days of Tebeth make 32, and Shebat, Adar, Nisan and Eyar have together 118, making altogether 150.
Genesis 8:4 h.בחדש השביעי IN THE SEVENTH MONTH — viz., Sivan, which is the seventh from Kislev in which the rains stopped falling.
h.בשבעה עשר יום ON THE SEVENTEENTH DAY — From here you may infer that the Ark was submerged in the water to a depth of eleven cubits. For it is written (next verse) “In the tenth month on the first day of the month the tops of the mountains were seen” and this was Ab which is the tenth month after Cheshvan — after the rain began to fall. Now the waters were 15 cubits high above the mountains so that they subsided from the first of Sivan to the first of Ab 15 cubits for those 60 intervening days, which is one cubit each four days. Consequently by the sixteenth of Sivan they had subsided only 4 cubits, and since the Ark rested on Ararat on the next day, you may learn that it was submerged eleven cubits in the waters which were then still above the mountain tops (Genesis Rabbah 33:7).
Genesis 8:5 h.בעשירי וגו' נראו ראשי ההרים IN THE TENTH MONTH … WERE THE TOPS OF THE MOUNTAINS SEEN —This was Ab which is the tenth from Marcheshvan when the rain began. If, however, you say that it means Elul, the tenth month from Kislev in which the rain stopped, just as you said (see Rashi on verse 4) that “in the seventh month” means Sivan which was the seventh month after the rain stopped, then I reply that it is impossible to argue so. For you must needs admit that the “seventh” month when the Ark rested can only be counted from the time when the rain stopped, since the 40 days during which the rain fell and the 150 days during which the waters prevailed did not terminate until the first day of Sivan, and if you say that it means the seventh after the rain began to fall, this would not be Sivan. The “tenth month”, however, when the tops of the mountains became visible cannot possibly be counted except from the time the rain began to fall, for if you say that it must be calculated from the time when it stopped, which would be Elul, you would not then find that “in the first month, on the first day of the month the waters dried up from off the earth” (Genesis 8:13). For it was only at the end of 40 days after the tops of the mountains were visible that he sent forth the raven (Genesis 8:6), and he waited periods amounting altogether to 21 days during which he was sending forth the dove, making altogether 60 days from when the tops of the mountains became visible until when the face of the earth became dry; if, therefore, you say that it was in Elul that they were seen, it would follow that the earth became dry in Marcheshvan (60 days after Elul). But it (Scripture) calls it (the month when the waters were dried up; Genesis 5:13) the first month, and that can only be Tishri which is the first month reckoning according to the creation of the world — or according to R. Joshua, it would be Nisan (Genesis Rabbah 30:6).
Genesis 8:6 h.מקץ ארבעים יום AT THE END OF FORTY DAYS from when the tops of the mountains were seen.
h.את חלון התבה אשר עשה THE WINDOW OF THE ARK WHICH HE HAD MADE — for the light; it does not mean the door of the Ark intended for entry and exit.
Genesis 8:7 h.יצא ושוב WENT FORTH TO AND FRO — It (the raven) flew in circles round and round the Ark and did not go on its errand for it suspected that he (Noah) intended to injure its mate, just as we learn in the Agada of Chelek (Sanhedrin 108b).
h.עד יבשת המים UNTIL THE WATERS WERE DRIED UP—The real sense of the verse is what it plainly implies (until the waters of the Flood were dried up); but the Midrashic explanation (Genesis Rabbah 33:5) is: The raven went to and fro in the world being kept in readiness for another errand during the time when the rain was withheld and the waters dried up in the days of Elijah, as it is said, (1 Kings [17]:6) “And the ravens brought him bread and flesh”.
Genesis 8:8 h.וישלח את היונה AND HE SENT FORTH A DOVE at the end of seven days, for it is written, (Genesis 8:10) “And he stayed yet other seven days” — from this statement you may infer that after the first occasion, also, he waited seven days.
h.וישלח And HE SENT FORTH — This does not mean merely “sending on an errand”, but “sending away”, “letting go” — he freed her to go where she liked, and thus he could see whether the waters abated, because if she could find a resting place she would not return to him.
Genesis 8:10 h.ויחל AND HE STAYED — The word means waiting, as (Job 29:21) “Unto me they gave ear and waited (ויחלו)”, and it occurs frequently in the Scriptures.
Genesis 8:11 h.טרף בפיה PLUCKED IN HER MOUTH — I am of opinion that it (the dove) was a male and that therefore it (the text) speaks of it sometimes as masculine and sometimes as feminine, because really wherever יונה “dove” occurs in the Scriptures it is spoken of as feminine, as (Song 5:12) “[His eyes] are like those of doves beside the water brooks. that are washing themselves (רוחצות fem.) in milk”; (Ezekiel 7:16) “Like the doves of the valleys, all of them moaning" and as (Hosea 7:11) “Like a silly (פותה fem.) dove”
FIXME
h.טרף means IT HAD PLUCKED OFF — The Midrashic explanation takes it as meaning “food”, and interprets בפיה as “speaking” — viz., she said. “Rather that my food be bitter as an olive but from the hand of God, than as sweet as honey and from the hand of mortal men” (Eruvin [18]b; Genesis Rabbah 33).
Genesis 8:12 h.וייחל AND HE STAYED — This has the same meaning as ויחל (Genesis 8:10), only that the latter is the Kal, whereas the word here is the Hithpael: ויחל means “he wailed” וייחל “he had patience”.
Genesis 8:13 h.בראשׂון IN THE FIRST MONTH — According to R. Eliezer this would be Tishri, and according to R. Joshua Nisan (Rosh Hashanah 11b).
h.חרבו [THE WATERS] DRIED UP — It (the earth) had become like clay, for now its surface had become somewhat hardened.
Genesis 8:14 h.בשבעה ועשרים ON THE TWENTY-SEVENTH [OF THE MONTH] —The rain had begun to fall in the second month on the seventeenth day (Genesis 7:11): the ten days are those by which the solar year exceeds the lunar year; for the punishment of the generation of the Flood lasted a full (i.e. a solar) year (Genesis Rabbah 33:17).
h.יבשה WAS [THE EARTH] DRIED — It became hard as is its normal condition.
Genesis 8:16 h.’אתה ואשתך וגו THOU AND THY WIFE etc. — Husband and wife are mentioned together— now He allowed them to resume family life (Genesis Rabbah 34:8).
Genesis 8:17 h.הוצא BRING FORTH — The Ketib is הוצא and the Keri היצא — ;היצא means, “tell them to go forth”, הוצא means, ‘‘if they do not wish (if they refuse) to go forth, you make them go out”.
h.ושרצו בארץ THAT THEY MAY BRING FORTH ABUNDANTLY IN THE EARTH but not in the Ark: this teaches that cattle and fowls also were separated, male and female, in the Ark (Genesis Rabbah 34:8).
Genesis 8:19 h.למשפחתיהם AFTER THEIR FAMILIES — They took upon themselves to keep to their specie.
Genesis 8:20 h.מכל הבהמה הטהרה OF ALL CLEAN CATTLE — He said: “The Holy One, blessed be He, ordered me to take in seven pairs of these only in order that I might offer a sacrifice of them” (Genesis Rabbah 34:9).
Genesis 8:21 h. מנעריו FROM HIS YOUTH — This word is written without a Vav after the ע so that it may be read as מנעריו which would imply that from the moment the embryo bestirs itself to have an independent existence the evil inclination is given to it (Genesis Rabbah 34:10).
h.לא אסף… ולא אסף I WILL NEVER AGAIN … NEITHER WILL I EVER AGAIN — He repeated the expression that it might serve as a solemn oath, and it is to this that the text (Isaiah 54:9) refers: “For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah [will never again pass over the earth]”. We, however, do not find any explicit oath regarding this, but this passage in which He repeated these words, which may be regarded as an oath. Thus do our Sages explain in Treatise Shevuot 36a.
Genesis 8:22 h.עוד כל ימי הארץ וגו' לא ישבתו WHILE THE EARTH REMAINETH … SHALL NOT CEASE — Of these six seasons each consists of two months, as we have learned (Bava Metzia 106b): Half of Tishri, Marcheshvan and half of Kislev is seedtime; half of Kislev, Tebeth and half of Shebat is the cold-season.
h.קור COLD-SEASON is more severe than חורף winter.
h.חורף WINTER is the time of sowing barley and pulse which are quick (חריף) to ripen. It is half of Shebat, Adar and half of Nisan.
h.קציר HARVEST — Half of Nisan, Eyar, and half of Sivan.
h.קיץ SUMMER — Half of Sivan, Tammuz and half of Ab. This is the time of fig-gathering, the time when they lay them out to dry in the fields. and its name is קיץ “summer-fruittime”, as (2 Samuel 16:2) “And the bread and the summer-fruit (קיץ) for the young men to eat”.
h.חום HEAT — This is the end of the hot season, half of Ab, Elul and half of Tishri, when the world is excessively hot, as we have learned in Treatise Yoma 29a: “The end of the summer is worse than the summer itself”.
h.ויום ולילה לא ישבתו DAY AND NIGHT SHALL NOT CEASE — From this we may infer that they (day and night) ceased during the period of the Flood, for the planetary system did not function, so that there was no distinction between day and night (Genesis Rabbah 34:11).
h.לא ישבתו SHALL NOT CEASE — None of these shall cease to take their natural course