And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour. And Jehovah said in his heart, I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done.
Noah steps out of the ark onto a washed world and builds an altar. God is pleased — and the very reason He gave for sending the flood now becomes His reason for never sending another.
Older versions render the "pleasing aroma" as "a sweet savour." One writer gives a second rendering of the phrase, and shows what the offering secures for the one who brings it:
Here we have the sacrifice presenting a "sweet savour," or "a savour of rest," to God. It is what He finds His rest and delight in. And in its excellence the offerer finds the ground of his acceptance. The term burnt offering occurs here for the first time. We discover what it means in particular when we come to the book of Leviticus.
The flood did not improve anyone. Comparing God's words here with what He said before the judgment, one writer notes a small but sharp shift in wording:
Man had not improved, so there was no reason for God to deal with him differently. The Lord's estimate of man after the flood differed little, if at all, from that before it. Compare Genesis 6:5 with Genesis 8:21. Before the flood God spoke of evil as being constantly in the heart of His creature man. After it He declared it was innate. "The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth."
Notice the word "for" in the verse. One writer sets the reason God gives here beside the reason God gave for the flood:
It is interesting too that in Genesis 6:5 the reason for the flood was that "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Yet this same fact becomes a reason that God would not curse the earth again (v. 21). Since man's heart is evil from his youth, God would not again curse the earth or destroy every living thing out of it. The reason is that in the sacrifice of Christ there is a remedy for man's evil nature.
The altar changes what God's eye rests on, and the principle reaches far past Noah:
The reason God gave for not cursing is that He looks to Noah's sacrifice, not to the sin. God deals with us on the ground of what the Mediator is, instead of what we are. The sacrifice ought to be always in our hearts, but it is always before God.
But the offering did not win God over. The same writer is careful about what the sweet savour does:
There was to be no repetition of the curse. Otherwise the Lord might have been always at it, for every thought of man's heart was only evil, and that continually. But on the ground of sacrifice this was said: "the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will no more again curse." He would not again act as He had done. The effect of this sweet savour is very striking. It does not change God's mind; it reveals what He is — the source of peace.
God speaks this promise to Himself before He speaks it to anyone else:
When the Lord smelled the savour of Noah's sacrifice, He said in His heart that He would not again curse the ground. But that was just His own purpose and grace. For a time it was the secret of His own heart. In due time He made His purpose and grace known to Noah. Then Noah took the blessing in a way of special sweetness. He took it as coming from the deep, well-considered, and fully approved counsels and affections of the heart of the Lord Himself.
The pleasure was never in the dead animals themselves:
For God the sweet savour was in what the offerings meant: a new world brought in on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ, His own Son. God had no more pleasure in the actual death of Noah's animals than in those killed on Jewish altars. Hebrews 10:6 says as much: "In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure."
And what God rests in, the believer may rest in as well:
We must have a basis of approach to God. And more than this: we must be fully accepted, to be completely at rest there. If God finds a savour of rest in the death of Christ, we find our rest there too.
- Rest offered. The aroma is also rendered "a savour of rest." Scripture names the burnt offering here for the first time, and God finds His rest and delight in it.
- Rest despite man. The flood washed the earth but not the heart; God's verdict is now even sharper — evil is there from youth, innate.
- Rest instead of curse. The same fact that justified the flood becomes the reason for never repeating it. A sacrifice now stands between God's eye and man's sin.
- Rest revealed, not negotiated. The offering did not change God's mind. It showed what He is. He spoke the promise in His own heart before telling Noah.
- Rest shared. What God rests in at Noah's altar points on to Christ. Whoever trusts that sacrifice rests where God rests.
Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed [time] and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.
After the flood, God makes a promise that has ruled the world ever since. As long as the earth lasts, the seasons will keep their round. Two questions follow. Why is the promise safe when man's heart has not changed? And how long do the words "while the earth remains" run?
The promise comes straight after Noah's burnt offering. That order decides everything.
No one can deny that God in His sovereignty has blessed man unconditionally. On what ground have the millions of our race since Noah's day enjoyed seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, day and night? Have these been conditional blessings?… Genesis 8:20-22 makes it clear. We have these blessings only on the ground of sacrifice — Noah's burnt offering, a type of Christ. If God gave them on the ground of men's conduct, men would have forfeited them long ago.
The flood washed the earth clean. What did it do to the heart inside man?
The cleansing of the waters of judgment had made no change in the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart. They were still evil, and only evil. The heart was uncured, for "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," though there be water to cleanse or fire to refine. It was no change there which gave the Lord thoughts of peace and not of evil towards men.
Something new starts here. Compare it with the earlier blessing of paradise.
With the new method of dealing with men, God would bring in a stability unknown before… To man in innocence God made no such announcement. Whether the blessing of paradise lasted depended on his obedience. The flood broke the natural order of the seasons: seedtime and harvest stopped for a year. Because of the sacrifice, nothing will break that order again as long as the earth remains. Man can count on this; and man has proved it. God has often held back the earth's full crop, but the seasons have kept running their round.
Three pairs cover the whole year between them.
When God created the lights in the sky He said, "Let them be for signs and for seasons." It is well known that the different seasons on the earth come largely from the days being longer or shorter, so the earth gets more or less of the sun's heat. After the flood, God declared that while the earth remained the seasons should continue, Genesis 8:22. They fall roughly like this: seedtime, cold and winter run from October to March; harvest, heat and summer run from April to September.
The promise holds the seasons steady. It does not lift the curse on the ground.
Then after the flood God secures seedtime and harvest. Farming is blessed in a way. The curse is not gone, but man is comforted. So I should think it takes less work to get things out of the earth now than it did before the flood.
The promise has an end date. One writer traces the whole span.
The sign or token of this covenant with creation is the rainbow in the cloud. Under it the earth has continued until the present time, and it will continue throughout the millennial period. Then Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father. The heaven and the earth will pass away and give place to the new heaven and the new earth — the everlasting state, in which God shall be all in all.
Anyone can test the promise by looking at the record:
Few things show the divine perfection stamped on the Bible more than its unfailing accuracy about what has already been fulfilled. More than four thousand years ago, Jehovah said, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest … shall not cease" (Gen. 8:22); and do they not continue to this day?
One writer carries the verse beyond farming, into the way God deals with what we sow.
The reaping does not come as soon as the seed is sown. So we need patience. But reap we shall — in due season, and God, not we, is Judge as to when the fitting season arrives. Still, arrive it certainly shall. Genesis 8:22 stands true even in this connection.
- Cause — The seasons keep going on the ground of Noah's burnt offering, a type of Christ. They do not rest on human conduct.
- Contrast — The flood left man's heart uncured. God's promise rests on the sacrifice He accepted, not on any change in man.
- Gift — Adam never had this. The seasons now run in a fixed order that no longer hangs on man's obedience.
- Limit — The curse on the ground is eased, not lifted. The promise runs only "while the earth remains" — through the millennium, up to the new heaven and new earth.
- Lesson — Seedtime and harvest never fail. So sowing and reaping hold good in the moral world too: the harvest is delayed, never denied.