Free Bible Commentary
“Genesis 8:20-22”
Categories: Genesis“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, 'I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.'”
---End of Scripture verses---
“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord...” (verse 20) This is the very first mention of an “altar” of sacrifice in the Bible. But I do not believe this was necessarily an invention on Noah's part because both Cain and Abel could have used altars when they offered sacrifices to the Lord (Genesis 4:3-4). There can be no doubt that Noah offered these sacrifices by his own “free will” from a heart overflowing with gratitude, but I hesitate to accept the view shared by most commentaries that he offered this of his own design and initiative. While there is no record of God directly or specifically demanding Noah to offer these sacrifices, I believe the command is implied in the very fact that God told him to bring “every clean animal” and “every clean bird” onto the ark in the first place. Noah lived his life by obedient faith, and “faith comes by hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
“The Lord smelled the soothing aroma...” (verse 21) “God's smelling the 'sweet savor' of Noah's magnificent sacrifice is merely an anthropomorphism to describe God's acceptance and approval of it. On the other hand, the vulgar Babylonian myth represents 'the gods' as being 'gathered like flies above the offerer of the sacrifice,' as if they were hungry and even starving because they had not been fed by sacrifice in such a long time! Even the most casual glance at the various mythical stories with accounts of a great flood reveals them as distorted and perverted accounts of the event accurately recorded in Genesis.” (James Burton Coffman)
“I will never again curse the ground on account of man” (verse 21). Some people view this as a reversal of the curse recorded in Genesis 3:17-19 after Adam sinned and the earth no longer yielded up its produce with ease to mankind as punishment. From this understanding various scholars see this as a “fulfillment” to the “prophecy” that Lamech made of Noah in Genesis 5:29: “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.” While this is possibly true, the context strongly suggests that God is promising to never “curse the ground” by sending another world-wide flood to destroy “every living thing” as He had so recently done.
“For the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth....” (verse 21) Before the Lord destroyed the earth and its inhabitants, He said “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh” (Genesis 6:3), and “that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) In verse 21 He reverses course and says He will NOT “destroy every living thing” because “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Mankind was going to continue to pursue the path of sin and destruction regardless of God's most extreme measures. Nahum Sarna observed: “The statement is not a judgment but an observation that a proclivity for evil is woven into the fabric of human nature. The key phrase is 'from his youth,' not from birth or conception, implying that the tendency to evil may be curbed and redirected through the discipline of laws. Hence, the next section deals with the imposition of laws upon postdiluvian humanity.”
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” (verse 22) By saying “while the earth remains,” the Lord is clearly implying that the earth will not endure forever. But as long as the world is still spinning, its Creator will never again interrupt or upend the ordinary, ordered, rhythmic processes of nature in a worldwide fashion. The totality of natural law will continue on as dependable, predictable, comforting constants. Humanity can set its hope upon on the ground continuing to produce its crops (seedtime and harvest), the climate remaining relatively constant (cold and heat), and the seasons persistently marching to the drumbeats of time (summer and winter).
Please read Genesis 9:1-7 for tomorrow.
Have a blessed day!
- Louie Taylor
