According to Genesis, what was the first thing Noah did after the Flood waters dried?

According to Genesis, Noah removed the Ark’s covering after the Flood waters had dried. Genesis 8:13 says that, in Noah’s 601st year, he removed the covering and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.

This action occurs before Noah leaves the Ark. God later commands him to go out with his wife, sons, daughters-in-law, and all the animals. The sequence shows that Noah first inspected conditions, then waited for the divine instruction to disembark.

The passage is easy to confuse with later events. Noah built an altar after leaving the Ark, and he planted a vineyard afterward, but neither action comes first in Genesis’s order of events.

Genesis uses several time markers for the drying process, including the first day of the first month and the twenty-seventh day of the second month. Those dates help distinguish the inspection from the final departure.