According to Genesis, five months pass before Noah’s Ark rests on the mountains of Ararat.
Genesis dates the flood’s beginning to the seventeenth day of the second month of Noah’s six-hundredth year. Genesis 8:4 says the Ark rests on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. Counting from the same day in the second month to the same day in the seventh month gives five months.
The chronological detail is easy to confuse with the 150 days during which the waters prevail. Genesis 7:24 says the waters prevail for 150 days, and Genesis 8:3 says the waters recede at the end of that period. The matching seventeenth-day dates create a five-month interval in the narrative’s calendar.
The account continues much longer after the Ark rests. Noah waits for the mountain tops to appear, sends out birds, and remains aboard until God tells him to leave.