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LXX Genesis

Septuagint

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Chapter 8

1 And God remembered Noah, and all the wild beasts, and all the cattle, and all the birds, and all the reptiles that creep, as many as were with him in the ark, and God brought a wind upon the earth, and the water stayed. 2 And the fountains of the deep were closed up, and the flood-gates of heaven, and the rain from heaven was withheld. 3 And the water subsided, and went off the earth, and after one hundred and fifty days the water was diminished. 4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the water continued to decrease until the tenth month. And in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, the heads of the mountains were seen.⁠ 6 And it happened after forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 And he sent forth the raven to see if the water had ceased; and it went forth and did not return until the water was dried from the earth.⁠ 8 And he sent a dove after it to see if the water had ceased from the earth. 9 And the dove not having found rest for her feet, returned to him into the ark, because the water was on all the face of the earth, and he stretched out his hand and took her, and brought her to himself into the ark. 10 And having waited yet seven other days, he again sent forth the dove from the ark. 11 And the dove returned to him in the evening, and had a leaf of olive, a sprig in her mouth; and Noah knew that the water had ceased from the earth. 12 And having waited yet seven other days, he again sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him again any more. 13 And it happened in the six hundred and first year of the life of Noah, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water subsided from the earth, and Noah opened the covering of the ark which he had made, and he saw that the water had subsided from the face of the earth. 14 And in the second month the earth was dried, on the twenty-seventh day of the month. 15 And the Lord God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 Come out from the ark, you and your wife and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. 17 And all the wild beasts as many as are with you, and all flesh both of birds and beasts, and every reptile moving upon the earth, bring forth with you: and increase and multiply upon the earth. 18 And Noah came forth, and his wife and his sons, and his sons' wives with him. 19 And all the wild beasts and all the cattle and every bird, and every reptile creeping upon the earth after their kind, came forth out of the ark. 20 And Noah built an altar to God, and took of all clean beasts, and of all clean birds, and offered a whole burnt offering upon the altar. 21 And the Lord God smelled a smell of sweetness, and the Lord God having considered, said,⁠ I will not any more curse the earth, because of the works of men, because the imagination of man is intently bent upon evil things from his youth, I will not therefore any more strike all living flesh as I have done. 22 All the days of the earth, seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and spring, shall not cease by day or night.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 8:7 and LXX Genesis 8:7

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

At the end of the flood in Genesis 8, the raven is described as going "back and forth" until the land is dry, while in the Greek Septuagint translation, it goes out and does not return, perhaps to simplify the story for Greek readers.

Passages

Genesis 8:7

Hebrew Bible
5 The waters kept on receding until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains became visible. 6 At the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven; it kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up on the earth. 8 Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

LXX Genesis 8:7

Septuagint
5 And the water continued to decrease until the tenth month. And in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, the heads of the mountains were seen. 6 And it happened after forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 And he sent forth the raven to see if the water had ceased; and it went forth and did not return until the water was dried from the earth. 8 And he sent a dove after it to see if the water had ceased from the earth.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

References

"... Another question is whether the possible Qumran commentary on Genesis 8:7 is clarifying this half verse in the Hebrew Bible, or its parallel in the LXX, since Genesis 8:7 in the Masoretic text and the Septuagint are different. In the Masoretic of Genesis 8:7, Noah sent out the raven and “it went out and returned until the waters dried from upon the earth.” One interpretation could be that it went flying out across the waters and returned again and again, back and forth repeatedly, until the earth was dry. In the LXX, Noah sent out the raven “to see if the water had subsided [not in the Masoretic text], and after it had gone out it did not return until the water had dried up from the earth.” This suggests that in the LXX version the raven took just one return journey, going out and coming back when the earth was dry. As Brooke notes, in 4Q254a the raven returns. But when? Does the Qumran raven return constantly back and forth until the earth is dry (Masoretic Genesis 8:7)? Or just once when the waters had dried from the earth (LXX Genesis 8:7)? Furthermore, does the raven come back to Noah after the earth is dry in the Masoretic/Samaritan Pentateuch, or does it then fly forth as a free bird? ..."
Helen R. Jacobus, “Flood Calendars and Birds of the Ark in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q252 and 4Q254a), Septuagint, and Ancient Near East Texts,” in Opening Heaven’s Floodgates: The Genesis Flood Narrative, Its Context, and Reception, ed. Jason M. Silverman (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2013), 85–112.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 8:7 and LXX Genesis 8:7

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