Genesis 8:4

Summary

Genesis 8:4 states that the ark came to rest on a specific day of the seventh month, on the mountains of Ararat. The verse marks a turning point in the flood narrative, giving a precise date and geographic landmark for the ark's landing.

Key words

• Tanach ("it rested", H5117) — qal verb, third person feminine singular, referring back to ha-tevah ("the ark"); narrative form continuing the sequence of the flood account.
• tevah ("ark", H8392) — feminine singular noun with definite article, the grammatical subject of the resting action.
• chodesh ("month", H2320G) — masculine singular noun, appearing twice (verse position 6 and 14), once with the ordinal shevi'i ("seventh", H7637) and once with the cardinal date formula.
• shiv'ah-'asar ("seventeen", H7651 + H6240) — a compound cardinal number (literally "seven-teen"), giving the specific day of the month.
• harei ("mountains of", H2022G) — masculine plural noun in construct state, linking directly to the following proper name Ararat (H0780).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative va- prefix on Tanach, continuing the sequential storytelling pattern typical of Hebrew narrative prose ("and then it rested"). The subject ha-tevah follows the verb, which is standard verb-subject word order in Biblical Hebrew narrative. The date is expressed in two layers: first the month is identified as ha-shevi'i ("the seventh"), using an ordinal number, and then the specific day is given using the cardinal compound shiv'ah-'asar ("seventeen"), followed by la-chodesh ("of the month") repeating the noun chodesh to complete the day-month phrase. The final phrase uses the construct form harei ("mountains of"), a grammatical link showing that the mountains are specifically identified as belonging to or named after Ararat.

The construct chain harei Ararat ("mountains of Ararat") functions as a single geographic designation rather than two separate elements, which is a common construction in Biblical Hebrew for place names involving multiple peaks.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text gives the day as shiv'ah-'asar ("seventeen", H7651+H6240), the seventeenth day of the seventh month. The LXX renders this as ἑβδόμῃ καὶ εἰκάδι ("twenty-seventh"), and the Vulgate similarly gives "vigesimo septimo die" ("the twenty-seventh day"), both diverging numerically from the Hebrew's "seventeenth." Additionally, the Vulgate translates the place name as "montes Armeniæ" ("mountains of Armenia") rather than transliterating Ararat as the Hebrew and LXX do (Áραρατ).