Noah and his family spend a solar year on the Ark (or thereabout). That is a lot of waiting in a sunless wooden hull (and the size of the ark only deepens that darkness).
After the waters subside, and the Ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat, the world still spends a lot of time draining and drying. This means additional waiting, more than just waiting for the flood to end, for Noah and those with him on the Ark.
Even once the Dove comes back with the olive branch (Gen. 8.12) Noah waits another sabbath week and sends it out again. More waiting.
And then, after removing the door from the Ark (Gen. 8.13a), on or close to the first day of the first month of a new year, and after seeing that the “face of the ground was dry” (Gen 8.13b), Noah still waits —waits almost two more months! More waiting.
What is Noah waiting for?
He is waiting for the voice of God. He is waiting for the divine invitation, the glad welcome of God, into the new creation (Gen. 8.15-17). Only then does Noah sally-forth (Gen. 8.18-19).
But Noah’s waiting is not sheer waiting. It is not an empty waiting. It is a hopeful waiting. It is a waiting marked by rest.
Noah’s name means “rest”. The Ark doesn’t merely “wait” in Mt. Ararat, it “rests” (the Hebrew here is like the verb form of Noah’s name). The Dove sent-out by Noah is looking not for some abstract landing place but a “resting-place” (8.9, yes, again related to the family of words from which we get Noah’s name). When Noah offers a sacrifice to Yahweh in the following section (Gen 8.20-9.17), it ascends to Yahweh as a “pleasing aroma”, and again this is a pun on Noah’s name: it is a Noah-smell, it is a restful-smell, it is flavor that makes one at peace (8.20).
Wait on the Lord like Noah, let us find our rest in him. Let him be our God of Sabbath.