And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
Again he sent forth the dove. Her flight, judging by the time she continued abroad, was pursued to a great distance; because she returned "in the evening;" and if a number of trees had appeared above the water, it was natural for her to repair to the olive plantation, where, as travelers inform us, doves in the East prefer to perch and to feed, above all others. The olive is a pale evergreen, which, like other evergreens, changes and renews its foliage every season, the young leaves displacing the old. It attains a moderate height, seldom exceeding thirty feet, and will not grow on high latitudes. 'It seems,' says Perowne (Smith's 'Dictionary'), to have the power of living under water, according to Theophrastus and Pliny, who mention olive trees in the Red Sea. The olive grows in Armenia, but only in the valleys on the south side of Ararat, not on the slopes of the The olive grows in Armenia, but only in the valleys on the south side of Ararat, not on the slopes of the mountains.
It will not flourish at an elevation where even the mulberry, walnut, and apricot are found.' The tree, then, from which the dove plucked the leaf must have stood in the plains, or on some low declivity, and consequently been among the latest vegetation uncovered by the decreasing waters. Though immersed for a whole year, it must have flourished, shed its old leaves, and renewed its leafy growth; because the leaf plucked off by the dove was х Taaraap (H2965)] a sprout of fresh foliage (cf. Ezekiel 17:9). 'The olive tree, from the effect of its oil in supplying, relaxing, and preventing or mitigating pain, seems to have been adopted from the earliest period as an emblem of the benignity of the divine nature, and particularly after the fall, to have represented the goodness and placability of God through Christ, and of the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit in mollifying and healing our disordered nature, and in destroying or expelling from it the poison of the old (spiritual) serpent, even as olive oil does that of the natural serpent. Hence, we see a special propriety in the olive-leaf or branch being chosen by Divine Providence as a sign to Noah of the abatement of the deluge' (Carpenter's 'Scripture Natural History').