What Does Genesis 8:5 Mean?
And the waters were going and dwindling until the tenth month, and in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the heads of the mountains were seen.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.THE KEY
The mountains do not rise; they become visible as the covering keeps withdrawing.
THE MEANING
The waters keep diminishing until the mountain tops come into view. What has been hidden beneath the covering is revealed as the covering recedes, step by step.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being out of sight does not mean something is gone; what is still covered may already be there.
THE ROOT
הָלוֹךְ וְחָסוֹר
halokh ve-chasor
GROWS FROM
חסר
to lack, diminish, or be reduced
“were going and dwindling” in this verse is halokh ve-chasor. The Hebrew describes the waters as going on in a state of diminishing. Its root, חסר, carries the sense of lack: the covering recedes by degrees until the mountains can be seen.
ALSO GROWS
chaser: lacking; diminishing
חָסֵר
This is the word-form behind the waters’ steady reduction.
machsôr: lack; need; want
מַחְסוֹר
It shows the same root naming what is missing as well as the process of becoming less.
נִרְאוּ
nir'u
GROWS FROM
ראה
to see, look, or appear
The mountains are described as being seen: the verse marks a change in visibility, not the mountains’ arrival. The root connects seeing with appearing, so the diminishing waters uncover what was already beneath them.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ah: to see; look at
רָאָה
It names the act of perceiving that becomes possible as the water recedes.
mar'eh: sight; appearance
מַרְאֶה
It carries the root’s movement from seeing to what comes into view.
THE PATTERN
As covering waters are bounded or withdrawn, what they concealed comes into view.
And God said, "Let the waters beneath the heavens be pooled into one place, and let the dry land be seen." And it was so.You set a boundary they may not cross; they do not return to cover the earth.Then the streambeds of waters appear, and the foundations of the world are uncovered at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.THE THREAD
The waters turned back from upon the earth, going and returning, and at the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters dwindled.Genesis 8:3 uses the same root, חסר (chaser), for the waters diminishing. Verse 5 shows that steady reduction reaching a threshold: the mountain tops can now be seen.
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