suggest that God had ever forgotten Noah. Rather, it was a Hebrew way of saying that, through all of the stormy days, God had had Noah on his mind continually. Just as God had shut the ark’s door initially to protect Noah, so God had continued to act in mercy to watch over and preserve the ark and its living cargo (cf. Genesis 30:22).

• When Genesis 8:1 said “God sent a wind over the earth,” it used the same word as Genesis 1:2. The clear idea was that God was re-creating the earth, giving life a fresh start. The New Testament writers took a cue from that, connecting the new life after the Flood with new spiritual life after baptism, as in Romans 6:4 (“We were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life”). How have you experienced “newness of life” in your own walk with God? How have you seen that kind of renewal, of re-creation, in the lives of others you know well?