Genesis 8:20-22

NOAH'S BURNT OFFERING

"And Noah builded an altar unto Jehovah, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And Jehovah smelled the sweet savor; and Jehovah said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

"Noah builded an altar ..." As Willis and other scholars have noted, "This is the first time that an altar is mentioned"[15] in the Bible. The fact of this having apparently been a free-will offering, not the result of a specific command from God, and the further fact of the animal sacrifices of antiquity being used universally as food for the worshipers, as later confirmed in the Mosaic regulations concerning such things, we are perhaps justified in seeing in this, strong evidence that the antediluvians were carnivorous and not vegetarians, as apparently indicated also by the fact that the food taken into the ark probably included, at least in part, a certain number of those clean beasts taken aboard.

Many have commented on the proportion of Noah's sacrifice. In regard to the relation of the number of the total supply of clean creatures available, assuming that some had been consumed for food, and that therefore the total must have been far less than seven each. And in view of the fact of Noah's presenting to God a burnt offering of "every clean beast, and of every clean bird," it must be concluded that this was indeed an appropriate and tremendous sacrifice, offered by Noah from the gratitude of a faithful heart for the marvelous deliverance that God had provided for him and his.

"Burnt-offering ..." We find agreement with Unger that such sacrifices were not first initiated by Moses, but "that they were instituted from the Fall of man."[16]

"And Jehovah smelled the sweet savor ..." The Hebrew word for God here is not [~'Elohiym] but [~Yahweh], as frequently used in connection with God's covenant actions and in exhibitions of His grace.[17] Such name changes in the references to God have absolutely nothing to do with various alleged documents which some think were combined to form the Book of Genesis. Here is another example of the impassable gulf that exists between mythical and Biblical accounts. 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 sacrifice,"[18] 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.

"I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake ..." Some believe that this is the nullification of Genesis 3:17-19; but that is an error. This merely means that, "The curse will not be applied again in the same way as it was in the Deluge."[19] Whitelaw pointed out that:

"This is not a revocation of the curse of Genesis 3:17-19, nor pledge that such curse would not be duplicated. The language refers solely to the Deluge, and promises not that God may not sometimes visit particular localities with a flood, but that another such world-wide catastrophe should never overtake the human race."[20]

"As I have done ..." This clause is a qualifier of the whole passage. The simple meaning of it is that the Great Deluge will never be duplicated in the subsequent history of the world. The beneficent curse upon the ground for the sake of man will not be removed, but just such a thing as the Flood will never be repeated.

"For that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ..." Although this is sometimes mistakenly assigned as the reason for the ensuing promise, such a view is erroneous. What is really meant by it is that Noah and his descendants will not be any better than were the posterity of Adam. Despite such a fact, God would nevertheless go forward with his Operation Mankind. It was exactly the same situation that Hosea, one of God's great prophets, confronted in the instance of sinful Gomer. Despite her wickedness, he took her back home, not as a wife, but as one who would "sit still" for him many days. Rather than destroy the whole race again, God would find other means of reaping the intended harvest from the populations of earth. Those other means would include at a later time, the introduction of the device of the "Chosen People," and still later, the visitation of our world by the Glorious One, even Jesus Christ our Lord (Luke 1:71f).

Elliott's comment on this unmistakable prophecy of the continuing wickedness of humanity was to the effect that Noah's behavior soon provided "a striking example"[21] of mankind's depravity.

"While the earth remaineth ..." This is not a promise that the established order will continue eternally, but that "as long as the earth itself exists," that order will continue. The Scriptures make it explicit that there is still another event that shall annihilate the whole world in the fires of the eternal judgment (2 Peter 3). The same world that was destroyed in the Flood has yet another appointment on the "day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." This great promise that God would preserve the orderly constitution and course of nature "till the end of the world," is sometimes called God's covenant of the day and night. (See Jeremiah 33:20,25).

This whole passage is invaluable in the proper understanding of the phenomena prophesied in Revelation 16, because the validity of these promises forces an understanding of the disasters prophesied there as symbols of the corruption of man's spiritual, religious, and cultural environment. Many of the wild postulations about what will happen in the "end times" are possible only by a gross misunderstanding of what is written here, or by a failure to accept the truth and validity of these assurances.

"Seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night..." Josephus described the necessity for the promises in these verses as follows:

"But as for Noah, he was afraid, since God had determined to destroy mankind, lest he should drown the earth every year. So he offered God burnt offerings and besought God that nature might hereafter go its further orderly course. He also prayed God to accept his sacrifice, and to grant that the earth might never again undergo the like effects of his wrath."

If this reasonable opinion should be accepted, then the event of the rainbow covenant mentioned in the next chapter would appear to be, at least partially, the result of Noah's fearful petitions.