In Genesis, Noah waited seven days between the dove's later flights from the Ark.
The bird sequence in Genesis 8 is carefully structured. Noah first sends out the dove, which returns because the waters still cover the land. He waits seven more days and sends it out again; this time it returns with an olive leaf. After another seven-day interval, Noah sends the dove once more, and it does not return.
These repeated intervals help mark the gradual change in conditions around the ark. The passage does not present the flood's end as an instantaneous event. Instead, Noah tests the environment in stages before opening the covering of the ark and eventually leaving.
The seven-day interval is easy to confuse with the forty days of rain or the seven pairs of some clean animals. Those numbers refer to different parts of the Genesis narrative and should not be substituted for one another.