A Christian's Guide to Studying and Applying the Old Testament
Text: Genesis 8:20-9:17 (NKJV)
8:20 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. 21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
22 “While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”
9:1 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.
7 And as for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Bring forth abundantly in the earth
And multiply in it.”
8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: 9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. 11 Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; 15 and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Devotional Thoughts and Commentary:
8:20-22 is one of my favorite Old Testament passages. God has just purged the Earth, sparing only a sliver of life. There was no Israel, no Christianity, and there is no evidence of a divine commandment to worship as Noah did here. Noah apparently just felt compelled to worship God, an act that he knew would require a sacrifice of the utmost importance. But, "What to sacrifice?" Noah had likely not understood the purpose of the 7th clean animal coming onto the Ark until he started the ponder this question. With an Earth barren of food resources, Noah took the animals that were really his primary options and sacrificed them to the Lord.
What a contrast from 315 days earlier! God was being deluged by the sin of humanity (remember that He knew Christ would pay the ultimate penalty for it thousands of years later), and He then deluged the Earth to cleanse it. Then, Noah offers a profound sacrifice in worship to the Lord. What amazes me most about this passage is that God, while vowing to never unleash such judgment on the Earth again until the end of time, acknowledges that man is born and raised as a bundle of evil. This is important for our theology of man- he is not born basically good but basically evil. That is human nature since Adam's sin in Eden. God forgave despite knowing that He would be violated by the same group for the rest of time. What love and patience!
God then commands Noah to repopulate the Earth. 9:2 sure made hunting hard! Man is commanded not to murder.
9:6 confirms for us that man was made in the image of God, and that was not wiped out by the overwhelming sin then nor the Flood. This required divine design and not evolutionary chance.
Verses 9:8-17 record God making an unconditional covenant with mankind. He agrees not to wipe out humanity with a flood again. The Book of Revelation tells us how it will be judged and destroyed at the end of time though. Still, God established this covenant with humanity and gives a sign of it- the rainbow. Today, we see it and it looks pretty; however, this must have meant a lot more to Noah. Having just experienced this lengthy, harrowing ordeal by rain that he had not seen before, the natural inclination would have been to fear anytime it rained. If you got mauled by a pack of wolves behind your home in Wyoming, you would probably cringe anytime you heard a wolf howl in the future. Instead, God turned that human fear into a beautiful sign of His forgiveness and longsuffering.
Application(s):
Forgive like God. He forgave and promised longsuffering despite knowing that the evil tide was coming right back. Our forgiveness should be extended without condition or prejudice. That is hard to do. I mean, really hard to do. That spouse who does the same thing 1,000,000 times and you are certain will do it again deserves your forgiveness because God set the precedent of forgiving you.
Other Studies from Genesis
"Herme- what?" How to Understand the Bible
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