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Going Biblical: Fascinating Divine Punishments Recounted in the Old Testament

Khalid Elhassan May 9, 2025 19 min

Punishment - The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden — The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Encyclopedia Britannica

8. Forty Days and Forty Nights of Rain

Noah’s Ark during the Great Flood. Live Science

In the Old Testament account, when Noah finished the ark, God ordered him, his wife, sons, their wives, and the animals to enter. Then God made it rain for forty days and forty nights. Water also emerged from beneath the earth. Eventually, even the highest mountains were inundated, and every living thing on land perished.

After 150 days, the waters began to recede, and the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah sent out a raven and later a dove to check for dry land. When the dove returned with an olive twig leaf – the origin of the association of doves and olive branches with peace – Noah knew the floodwaters had subsided.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.