Genesis 8:8-12 - “Has the water receded?”
In Genesis 8:6-7 - “Is the land dry?”, we saw that Noah used a raven, potentially a fan-tailed raven, to see whether the flooded land had dried. It would seem that the fan-tailed raven’s habitat was almost exactly the sections of the Middle East and Africa that would have been impacted by a flood overflowed both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. This doesn’t mean it rained all that way, just that it was effected enough for the raven to find no dry land 150 days after the floodwaters stopped flowing. However, just because the land wasn’t dry does not mean the waters had not receded. So, Noah changed tactics…
8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.
Now, doves are different than ravens, being far less limited in habitat. Doves appear nearly everywhere in the world except the driest areas. This means that doves won’t balk at wet land nearly as much as ravens do. However, wouldn’t it then be more likely to fly beyond the reaches of the flood, given their habitat? Not necessarily. A well-train homing pigeon (almost the same as a dove) can fly home up to 600 miles. Now take a look at the following map…
What this tells us that 600 miles would take the dove as far east is central Iran, as far south as the Gulf or the Red Sea, or as far west as Turkey or the Mediterranean. If we postulate the most likely direction of the dove would be away from the mountains as quickly as possible, then it would most likely fly south into Syria or Iraq, possibly as far as Saudi Arabia. Assuming the flood impact (if not the rains themselves) reach at least as 600 miles in that direction (a very reasonable hypothesis), then the dove would be a great test of whether the waters receded… much better than the raven sent before it. And because doves are so related to homing pigeons, it would most likely return to Noah on the ark when it finally decided to land.
9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
At this point, Noah knew where the dove had flown, assuming it flew south, the water had receded from the land enough for Noah to venture out. The land may or not be dry, but things were growing, and that was enough for him!
Interesting note: Noah’s dove never returned after the baptism of the earth, but another dove descended from an opening in heaven after the baptism of Jesus.