Genesis 8:20 - Meaning and Application

Here is Noah’s thankful response to God’s mercy in completing his rescue, Genesis 8:20. First, he built an altar. Up to this point, he had done nothing without a clear command from God. He had a special call to enter the ark, and another to leave it, but sacrifices and altars were already part of God’s appointed worship. So he did not wait for a separate command to show his thanks. Those who receive mercy from God should be quick to give thanks, and they should do it willingly, not under pressure.

Noah had just stepped out into a cold, empty world. One might think his first concern would be building a house for himself, but he begins with an altar for God. God must come first, and a good beginning is one that starts with Him. He also offered a sacrifice on the altar from every clean animal and every clean bird, one of each, that is, the extra seventh of the clean animals and birds mentioned in Genesis 7:2-3.

Notice two things here. He offered only clean animals, because it is not enough to offer sacrifice, we must offer what God has appointed, not something unfit. Also, though his supply of animals was very small, and had been preserved at great cost, he did not hesitate to give God His due from it. He could have said, “I have only seven sheep left to begin the world with. Must one of them be killed and burned?” But instead he gladly gave God the seventh, showing that all belonged to God anyway.

Serving God with what little we have is often the way God increases it. Nothing given to honor God is truly wasted. This also shows how old true worship is. The first act we read of in the new world was an act of worship, Jeremiah 6:16. Today we do not offer burnt offerings, but we still give God the sacrifices of praise, the sacrifices of right living, and a godly life.

Second, we see God’s gracious acceptance of Noah’s thankfulness. In the patriarchal age, this was a settled rule: if you do well, will you not be accepted? Noah was accepted. God was pleased with the offering, Genesis 8:21. It says He “smelled a sweet savor,” or, in the Hebrew sense, a smell of rest. Just as God rested and was refreshed after making the world, so now, after making the world new again, He rests in this sacrifice of the seventh day. He was pleased with Noah’s sincere devotion and with these hopeful beginnings of a renewed world, as people are pleased with a sweet and pleasing smell. Though the offering was small, it was given according to Noah’s ability, and God accepted it.

Because God had already let His anger rest on the world of sinners, He now let His love rest on this small remnant of believers. Then He resolved never to destroy the world by a flood again. This looks beyond Noah’s sacrifice to Christ’s sacrifice of Himself, which this offering pointed to and pictured. Christ’s sacrifice was indeed an offering of a sweet smell, Ephesians 5:2.

Here is a sure promise that can be trusted. This judgment would never be repeated. Noah may have wondered, “Why rebuild the world if it will soon be ruined again because of human wickedness?” But God answers, “It will never happen again.” In Genesis 6:6, it says the Lord was sorry that He had made man. Here He speaks as if He were sorry that He had destroyed man. Neither statement means that God changed His mind. It means He changed His way of dealing with them. He has compassion on His servants, Deuteronomy 32:36.

God explains this resolve in two ways. First, “I will not again curse the ground.” The Hebrew sense is, “I will not add to the curse on the ground anymore.” God had already cursed the ground when sin first entered, Genesis 3:17. When He flooded the earth, He added to that curse, but now He will not add to it again. Second, “I will not again destroy every living thing.” This means that, though God may bring ruin on particular people, families, or nations, He will never again destroy the whole world until the final end of time.

The reason He gives is surprising, because it sounds much like the reason for the flood in the first place, Genesis 6:5. There it says the imagination of man’s heart is evil continually. Here it says it is evil from his youth, or childhood. Evil is inborn. Man carries it into the world with him, shaped and conceived in sin. One might expect God to say, “Then this guilty race must be wiped out.” But He says, in effect, “I will not use that severe method again.” First, sinful man is more to be pitied, because this evil comes from sin living in him, and it is what we would expect from such a fallen race. He is called a transgressor from the womb, so it is no surprise that he acts treacherously, Isaiah 48:8. God remembers that man is flesh, corrupt and sinful, Psalm 78:39. Second, if God dealt with humans exactly as they deserve, one flood would have to follow another until all were destroyed.

This teaches two things. Outward judgments may frighten people and hold them back, but by themselves they cannot make people holy or new. God’s grace must work with those judgments. Human nature was just as sinful after the flood as before it. It also teaches that God’s goodness uses man’s sinfulness to display His mercy more clearly. The reasons for His mercy come from Himself, not from anything in us.

Finally, God promises that the order of nature will continue, Genesis 8:22. “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” This means it will not always be winter, as it had been during the flood year, and it will not always be night, as it likely was while the rain was falling. At the same time, this also suggests that the earth will not remain forever. It and all its works will one day be burned up, and we look for new heavens and a new earth when all these things are dissolved.

But as long as the earth lasts, God’s providence will keep the seasons in their proper order. He will preserve the steady cycle of times and seasons and give each its place. We owe it to His care that the world stands and the order of nature keeps moving. This shows how changeable time is, and yet how constant it is in its changes. The times are always shifting, like day and night, summer and winter. But even in all this change, there is a steady pattern. That constancy in change is part of God’s faithful rule over the world.

These seasons have never stopped, and they will not stop, while the sun keeps marking time so steadily and the moon remains such a faithful witness in the sky. This is God’s covenant for day and night. Its lasting order is mentioned to strengthen our faith in the covenant of grace, that is, God’s promise to save and bless his people, which is no less unbreakable (Jeremiah 33:20, 21).

We see God’s promises to his creatures kept in full. From that, we can safely conclude that his promises to all believers will also be kept.