In a very astute comment, Matthew Henry notes that Noah ‘could not foresee the flood but by revelation; but he might, by ordinary means, discover the decrease of it, and therefore God was pleased to leave him to the use of them.’
The flood narrative of Genesis 6-8 proceeds with remarkable rapidity. Once the preliminaries are done the Lord imprisons Noah in his ark until it was safe for him to emerge. The forty days of universal deluge are described quickly; the 150 days of the earth being submerged is simply stated. What went on outside the ark is noted; what went on inside is not even mentioned.
But when it comes time for Noah to leave, the chronology slows to a remarkable pace. In painstaking detail we are told about the sending out of a raven after forty days of the ark resting on Ararat, Noah sending out a dove, which returned; waiting seven days and sending out the dove again, when she returned with her olive leaf; waiting seven more days and finally sending her out again.
There must be some deep symbolism in these details; why else would the pace of the story slow down in the telling? We are to stop and think about what is going on here. Even the tenderness of the moment arrests us, as the hands that became rugged as ‘the holy man was required to be engaged more than a hundred years in most troublesome labour’ (Calvin on Genesis 6:22) now show the most consummate tenderness, receiving back the dove as the messenger of rest.
In a very astute comment, Matthew Henry notes that Noah ‘could not foresee the flood but by revelation; but he might, by ordinary means, discover the decrease of it, and therefore God was pleased to leave him to the use of them’ (Commentary on Genesis 8). Some things could only be known by special revelation in the forms of visions and divine speech; but other things – most things – are discovered to us simply by using the means God has given us. In Noah’s case, the discovery of the flood’s subsidence and the signal that the earth was habitable again came, not by a vision from heaven, but by using the means at his disposal. So a bird fluttered over the waters.
The symbolism points in two directions. Although a dove is not mentioned in Genesis 1, we are told that the Spirit of God was moving or fluttering over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2). The image of God the Holy Spirit flying and hovering over the waters of the original creation is striking, and is now echoed and paralleled in the dove flying over the waters of the re-creation.
But this also points forward, anticipating the baptism of Jesus at the commencement of his public ministry. He too stands in the waters, over which the Holy Spirit hovers, to descend on him and set him apart.
But if the dove is significant, so too is what is in her beak: ‘a freshly plucked olive leaf’. ‘Trees and plants are growing again’ comments Bruce Waltke (Commentary on Genesis 8:11). To be sure; but in its scriptural context the olive leaf is fertile with a much wider range of biblical application.
So in Exodus 30:22-33, for example, olive is significant as the main ingredient in the holy anointing oil, the marker of the consecration of the priests and their tabernacle service. Olive oil, blended with choice spices, is placed on everything that is set apart for God. It will become a primary symbol of sanctified, consecrated service.
Deuteronomy 6 talks about olives in terms of the inheritance of God’s people. Moses warns Israel not to forget God ‘when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob to give you, with great and good cities that you did not build…and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant….’ (Gen. 6:10-11). The olive was a marker of God’s overwhelming grace.
For Isaiah the olive becomes a glorious picture of salvation. ‘When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them… I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle and the olive…’ (Is. 41:17;19). God’s provision is greater than any other.
For Zechariah, the olive is a potent symbol of God’s power. A vision of a golden lamp stand with two olive trees pouring into the bowls reinforces the lesson that Jerusalem will be rebuilt ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts’ (Zechariah 4:6). In a perceptive footnote, Greg Beale comments that this empowerment for rebuilding after exile ‘would issue into the consummate eschatological restoration and final new creation’ (A New Testament Biblical Theology, p562n9). The olive leaf of Noah’s new world is pregnant with the hope of a final new creation.
But the olive is gloriously rich in the ministry of Jesus. The public service that began in the waters of the Jordan, over which the Spirit-dove hovered, takes him ultimately to the Mount of Olives and to the olive-press called Gethsemane. It is there that the true vine is to be pressed in an act of atonement, from which the anointing of the Spirit will be given to his people, thus fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant (Gal. 3:14).
So in Genesis 8, at the dawn of this new chapter in t he world’s history, the dove, the great symbol of the Holy Spirit, brings the leaf, the great symbol of God’s sanctifying grace, of God’s glorious inheritance, of his power in the gospel, and of the sufferings of Christ for his people, and places it in the hands of Noah.
The covenant is written in its entirety in the beak of the dove.
[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on “xyz.org” – however, the original URL is no longer available.]