19 JUNE GENESIS 8

The 17th of the 7th Month – A Resurrection Foreshadowed

Note to the Reader: In Genesis 8:4, the ark rests on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Tishri). Later, in Exodus, God restructured Israel’s calendar, making Nisan the first month. This repositions the ark’s resting day to align with Nisan 17, the same day Christ rose from the dead. Thus, what began as the end of a flood becomes a powerful prophetic foreshadowing of resurrection, new beginnings, and divine deliverance through Jesus Christ.

After the devastation of the flood, God acted once again, not with judgment, but with remembrance and renewal. Genesis 8:1–4 (NIV) "But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and He sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat."

This date, the seventeenth day of the seventh month, takes on prophetic meaning when understood through the lens of Israel's restructured religious calendar. After the Exodus, God commanded:

Exodus 12:2 (NIV) "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year."

That month was Nisan. Therefore, the ark’s resting date, originally 17 Tishri, corresponds to 17 Nisan, the very day of Christ’s resurrection. It becomes a divine sign of hope: the end of judgment and the beginning of new life.

This pattern appears repeatedly in Israel’s salvation history. After the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, tradition holds that it happened on this same day—17 Nisan—marking the defeat of their oppressors and the birth of national freedom. Another transitional moment occurred when Israel entered the Promised Land and tasted the produce of Canaan:

Joshua 5:10–12 (NLT) "While the Israelites were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they celebrated Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month. The very next day they began to eat unleavened bread and roasted grain harvested from the land. No manna appeared on the day they first ate from the crops of the land, and it was never seen again. So from that time on the Israelites ate from the crops of Canaan." On the day following the cessation of manna, again aligning with 17 Nisan, they began life anew under God's fulfilled promise.

A similar reversal occurred in the Book of Esther. When the Jews were threatened with extermination, Haman's plot was overturned on the same symbolic day: On the 17th of Nisan, Haman was hanged, and divine deliverance was established. These signs pointed forward to the greatest victory of all, Jesus Christ rising from the dead.

Luke 24:1–8 (AMP) "But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women went to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared . And they found the stone rolled back from the tomb, but when they went inside, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed and wondering about this, suddenly, two men in dazzling clothing stood near them; and as the women were terrified and were bowing their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why are you looking for the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise .’ And they remembered His words."

Thus, Genesis 8:4 does more than mark the moment the ark came to rest. It prophetically points to the rest, security, and victory we find in Jesus Christ. Judgment is over. Grace has begun. Just as the ark came to rest, so did Christ rise in power on that same day, Nisan 17, ushering in a new covenant of eternal life.