What does Genesis 8:14 mean?
The previous verse marked the day when Noah removed a covering from the ark and saw that the ground was dry. At least "the face of the ground" seemed to be ready for life. Looks can be deceiving, however. We don't know exactly why Noah waited so long to release the occupants of the ark. Perhaps the ground was dry but not yet dry enough to support all of them. Perhaps Noah was waiting for God to give the word that it was okay to disembark (Genesis 8:15). This verse marks a day nearly two months later, where we are again told that the earth was dried out.Noah was sealed into the ark on the seventh day of the second month of his 600th year. He leaves it on the twenty-seventh day of the second month of his 601st year. Using the 360-day Old Testament calendar, this is one year and ten days. Adding up the days in this account, we have 150 days of flooding, 150 days of receding waters, and seventy days of waiting for the earth to dry.
God will make it clear, in the next verse, that the time has finally come for the last of earth's humans and all of the ark's animals to leave the ark and begin to repopulate earth once again.