According to Genesis, Noah waited seven days before the Flood began after receiving God’s warning.
Genesis 7:4 records God telling Noah that the Flood would begin in seven days. Genesis 7:10 then says that after the seven days, the waters of the Flood came upon the earth. This interval follows the instructions to bring Noah’s family and the animals into the Ark.
The seven-day period is easy to confuse with the forty days and forty nights of rain. The two figures describe different stages: seven days mark the warning interval before the Flood, while forty days describe the continuing rainfall. Genesis later gives additional numbers for the waters’ persistence and recession, creating a longer chronology.
The passage does not present the seven days as a period in which Noah builds the Ark from scratch. Earlier chapters describe God’s command and construction process before the final entry. The timetable is part of the narrative’s sequence and should not be read as a complete construction schedule.