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Genesis 8
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Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Genesis, Old Testament Minute Commentary Series, ed. Taylor Halverson (Springville, UT: Book of Mormon Central, 2021).

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In 1 Peter 3:18-21, Noah’s journey through the Flood is compared with baptism. “[A]s Noah was rescued through water (i.e., the Flood) from an evil world and subsequently entered into a new and cleansed world, so the Christians are rescued through water (i.e., their baptism) from the evil world that surrounds them and are delivered into the new world of the Christian community.”[1] Of course, the nature of both rescues as a “burial”[2] reminds us that these events save their participants not merely from evil but also from death.

 

The turning point of the story is in the first verse of Genesis 8—the moment when “God remembered Noah.” Then He began again to assert the glory of His presence on the world through the movement of the divine “wind,” the stopping of the “fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven,” and the resultant return of the waters “from off the earth” (vv. 1–3). Exiting the Ark, Noah “builded an altar unto the Lord” (v. 20), “offered burnt offerings” (v. 20), and established a covenant with God.[3] Then, in Genesis 9, according to our reading of the story, Noah made a heavenly ascent from his sanctuary tent to the divine throne room of the renewed Cosmos where he received a fulness of blessings.[4] The subsequent actions of Noah’s sons foreshadowed the patterns of their later lives. Accordingly, Noah will prophesy the fates of his righteous and wicked posterity.[5]

 

Creation and garden motifs associated with the temple abound within Genesis 8. Of special note are the rich thematic connections between the emergence of the dry land at Creation, the settling of the Ark at the top of the first mountain to emerge from the Flood, New Year’s Day, the Tabernacle, and Solomon’s Temple.

 

Spotlighting the theme of a new beginning, the number “one” plays a key role in the description of re-creation after the Flood. For example, note that “on the first day of the [tenth] month … the tops of the mountains [were] seen,” and that “in the six hundred and first year [of Noah’s life] in the first month, the first day of the month … the waters were dried up.”[6] “There can be no mistaking the emphasis on the number one,” writes Claus Westermann. Moreover, both of these verses, like their counterpart in the story of the original creation, use the rarer Hebrew term yom ehad, corresponding to the English cardinal term “day one” rather than the common ordinal term “first day.” This would hint to the ancient reader that the date had special ritual significance.[7] Consider that it was also the “first day of the first month”[8] when the Tabernacle was dedicated, “while Solomon’s temple was dedicated at the New Year festival in the autumn.”[9]

 

Apart from brief allusions to selected works of the subsequent days of Creation in verse 22, Elizabeth Harper’s detailed study[10] reveals that “the majority of the created works of the first five days are completely disregarded” in the story of the Flood. On the other hand, “the elements of the sixth day: animals (with birds attached), the adam (male and female in the image of God), the blessings, commands, and provisions of food are … recalled, rearranged, and at times reinterpreted” within subsequent episodes of Noah’s life.

 

As we will see in this chapter and the next, most of the significant elements in the Garden of Eden are present in Noah’s “garden:” a prominent mountain (Ararat)[11]; fruit (grapes), the eating of which will lead to important consequences; and a place of holiness (Noah’s tent sanctuary) where unauthorized entry is forbidden. In Genesis 9, we will show how Noah’s “holy place” becomes the scene of a “Fall” and consequent judgment.

 

Further Reading

**TBD

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8 chapter heading

[1] Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter. Hermeneia, ed. Helmut Koester, Harold W. Attridge, Adela Yarbro Collins, Eldon Jay Epp and James M. Robinson. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996. 266.

[2] Compare Ether 6:6-10, where the Jaredite barges are described as being “buried in the deep” during their journey. See also Ether 2:24-25. With respect to baptism as burial, see Romans 6:3-6.

[3] Genesis 9:8-17.

[4] See Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen. Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel. In God’s Image and Likeness 2. Salt Lake City, UT: The Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2014. https://archive.org/download/131203ImageAndLikeness2ReadingS, overview Genesis 9, p. 300.

[5] Genesis 9:24-27.

[6] Genesis 8:5, 13. For overviews of interpretation issues arising from different calendrical systems used in various textual traditions of the flood story, see Philippe Guillaume, “Sifting the debris: Calendars and chronologies of the flood narrative.” In Opening Heaven’s Floodgates: The Genesis Flood Narrative, Its Context and Reception, edited by Jason M. Silverman. Bible Intersections 12, 57-83. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2013; Helen R. Jacobus, “Flood calendars and birds of the Ark in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q252 and 4Q254A), Septuagint, and ancient Near East texts.” In Opening Heaven’s Floodgates, 85-112.

[7] Mark S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010, 81. Besides Genesis 1:5, 8:5, and 8:13, Smith notes this use of ‘ehad for “(day) one” in Exodus 40:2, 17; Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 1:1, 18, 29:1, 33:38; and Ezekiel 26:1, 29:17, 31:1, 32:1, and 45:18.

[8] Exodus 40:1, emphasis mine.

[9]  Nicolas Wyatt, “‘Water, water everywhere…’: Musings on the aqueous myths of the Near East.” In The Mythic Mind: Essays on Cosmology and Religion in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature, edited by Nicholas Wyatt, 189-237. London, England: Equinox, 2005, 215-216. See 1 Kings 8:2. Wyatt notes that the expression about the New Year festival comes from S. W. Holloway, What Ship, remarking that “[m]any scholars regard the search for the New Year festival to be something of a futile exercise” (Wyatt, “Water,” 235n129).

[10] Elizabeth A. Harper, In the beginning: The interrelationship of Genesis 1 and Genesis 6-9. First draft paper prepared as part of initial research into a doctorate on the Flood Narrative.  In Elizabeth Harper’s Web Site. http://www.eharper.nildram.co.uk/pdf/gen1.pdf. (accessed June 18, 2012), 19.

[11] Since the European Middle Ages, a mountain in Armenia has been the supposed location for mount Ararat. However, over the centuries, some have thought mount Judi or mount Lubar or other mountains are the location of where Noah’s ark landed. God has not provided revelation on this point, likely because it is irrelevant to our spiritual progression and salvation.

  1. God remembered Noah. The phrase “God remembered Noah” does not imply that Noah had ever been forgotten. Indeed, a better way to convey the sense of the phrase might be to translate it as “God had not forgotten Noah.” Genesis scholar Nahum Sarna explains: “In the Bible, ‘remembering,’ particularly on the part of God, is not the retention or recollection of a mental image, but a focusing upon the object of memory that results in action.”[1] Having “remembered” Noah, God sent a wind that dried the waters so his family could come out on “dry ground,” just as in having “remembered” Israel, God sent a wind to dry the waters of the Red Sea so the children of Israel could cross on dry ground (Exodus 14:21).[2]

 

  1. a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged. In ancient Hebrew the movement of air and the movement of the Divine spirit are described by the same word (ruach). Here, as in the story of Creation, the ruach “indicates the beginning of new life.”[3] “As the waters are the symbol of chaos, the undoing of Creation, so the movement of the wind … heralds the reimposition of order.”[4]

 

  1. the ark rested. The Hebrew va-tanach describes the final parking of the Ark in terms of “rest,” reminding us of the verb that underlies Noah’s name.[5] According to the calendar in Jubilees,[6] this was a Friday — thus the Ark came to its rest just in time for the Sabbath.[7]

 

  1. mountains of Ararat. A prominent mountain is identified in Christian tradition as Mount Ararat.[8] “This identification, however, is incorrect. The Bible does not refer to a summit called Ararat, but to “the mountains of Ararat,” and this proper name refers to the kingdom of Urartu (compare Jeremiah 51.27. See also 2 Kings 19:37; Isaiah 37:38). Ancient Jewish authors and early translators of the Bible were well aware that there was no mountain called Ararat.

 

Ancient Israelites believed the holiest spot on earth to be the Foundation Stone in front of the Ark of the Covenant within the temple at Jerusalem:[9] “It was the first solid material to emerge from the waters of Creation, and it was upon this stone that the Deity effected Creation.” The depiction of the Ark-Temple of Noah perched upon Mount Ararat would have evoked similar temple imagery for the ancient reader of the Bible.

 

  1. at the end of forty days. “If this is not a round number, it makes Noah start work on a Sunday, the day after the Sabbath.”[10]

 

  1. Noah opened the window of the ark. God expected Noah to act for himself in finding out whether the earth was ready for his debarkation.

 

Further Reading

**TBD

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8:1–6

[1] N. M. Sarna, Genesis, p. 56. Compare Genesis 19:29, 30:22; Exodus 2:24, 6:5.

[2] J. H. Sailhamer, Genesis, p. 89.

[3] U. Cassuto, Noah to Abraham, p. 101.

[4] N. M. Sarna, Genesis, p. 56.

[5] See Endnote M8-16, p. 246.

[6] J. C. VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 5:27-28, p. 36.

[7] See G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, p. 184.

[8] In Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Dana M. Pike, and David Rolph Seely. Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2009, 27.

[9] J. M. Lundquist, Meeting Place, p. 7.

[10] G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, p. 186.

  1. he sent forth a raven. With regard to Noah’s release of the birds, Westermann remarks that it is “the most amazing of all motifs” in the worldwide stories of the Flood: “It is almost incredible how widespread this motif is and how similar the most widely separated texts are.”[1] Anciently, mariners used birds to determine the proximity of land and to take their direction accordingly.[2]

 

  1. raven. Nahum Sarna observes:

 

The raven is a wild bird that is not discriminating in its diet.[3] It feeds on carrion as well as vegetation and could thus obtain its food from among the floating carcasses. That is why it made repeated forays [v. 7: “went forth to and fro”] from the Ark.[4]

 

Further Reading

TBD**

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8:7

[1] C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, p. 403. Sometimes three birds are sent out (e.g., a dove, a swallow, and a raven in Gilgamesh (A. George, Gilgamesh, 11:147-156, pp. 93-94).

[2] C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, p. 446.

[3] According to Leviticus 11:15 and Deuteronomy 14:14, it is an unclean animal.

[4] N. M. Sarna, Genesis, p. 57. See the caption to figure g8-6, p. 283.

  1. he sent forth a dove. “The dove … is a symbol of beauty and gentleness, integrity and friendship. Time and again the maiden in the Song of Songs is called ‘my dove’ or ‘my dove, my perfect one’ (Song of Solomon 2:14; 5:2; 6:9); and her eyes and the eyes of the youth are compared to doves (Song of Solomon 1:15; 4:1; 5:12).”[1] A “phonetic affinity”[2] can be found between Noah (noach) and the term for dove (hayyonah) which, on her first sortie from the Ark, found “no rest [manoah] for the sole of her foot” (v. 9). When the dove brought the olive leaf back on her second sortie, however, the leaf is understood to have “rested” in her beak.[3] In contrast to the black, unclean raven, the dove “is white, a clean animal often used in sacrifice (e.g., Leviticus 1:14, 12:6). Like other sacrificial animals, it is sometimes seen as a symbol of Israel (Hosea 7:11, 11:11) and therefore within this story it is an ideal representative of Noah himself.”[4]

 

  1. no rest for the sole of her foot. Claus Westermann takes this phrase to mean that “not even the tiniest resting place”[5] was available for the bird.

 

  1. the waters were on the face of the whole earth. Hugh Nibley explains:[6] “From where [Noah] was, ‘the whole earth’ was covered with water as far as he could see; after things had quieted down for 150 days and the Ark ground to a halt, it was still three months before he could see any mountain tops. But what were conditions in other parts of the world? If Noah knew that, he would not have sent forth messenger birds to explore. The flood as he described it is what he saw of it.”

 

  1. he put forth his hand. “This is the second reference in Genesis to putting forth one’s hand to take hold of something. Noah’s hand is stretched forth to offer refuge to one of God’s creatures. Earlier God had seen the possibility that man would ‘put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life’ (Moses 4:28).”[7]

 

  1. in the evening. “That is, when birds customarily return to their nests. The note implies that the dove had been out all day, signifying the availability of resting places.”[8]

 

  1. an olive leaf. Genesis scholar Umberto Cassuto[9] explains that the dove brought Noah “good tidings, in the form possible to a creature that cannot speak.” Nahum Sarna discusses the symbolism of the olive tree as follows:[10]

 

The olive tree, one of the earliest to be cultivated in the Near East, is an evergreen. It is extraordinarily sturdy and may thrive up to a thousand years. Thus it became symbolic of God’s blessings of regeneration, abundance, and strength, which is most likely the function it serves here. In the present context the olive branch is invested with the idea of peace and reconciliation, and for this reason it was incorporated into the official emblem of the State of Israel.

 

The scenes following the Flood conjure up memories of the story of Adam and Eve. Though no analogs to the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are explicitly mentioned in the description of the place where the Ark landed, an olive tree is implied in the story of the dove which returns to Noah with its branch. A variety of texts associate the olive tree with the Garden of Eden. For example, ancient traditions recount that on his sickbed Adam requested Eve and Seth to return to the Garden to retrieve oil — presumably olive oil — from the “tree of his mercy.”[11] Recalling the story of the dove that returned to Noah’s ark with the olive branch in its mouth, a rabbinical opinion states that the “gates of the garden of Eden opened for the dove, and from there she brought it.”[12]

 

  1. plucked off. “The rare noun taraf connotes that it was freshly removed from the tree and was not flotsam, a sure sign that plant life had begun to renew itself.”[13]

 

Further Reading

TBD**

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8:8–12

[1] Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Vol. 2: From Noah to Abraham. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1st English ed. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1997, 108.

[2] Gordon J. Wenham, ed. Genesis 1-15. Word Biblical Commentary 1: Nelson Reference and Electronic, 1987, 186.

[3] Michael Maher, ed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Genesis. Vol. 1b. Aramaic Bible. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992, 8:11, p. 43. See also 43n11.

[4] Wenham, Genesis 1-15, 186.

[5] Claus Westermann, ed. 1974. Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary 1st ed. Translated by John J. Scullion. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994, 448.

[6] Hugh W. Nibley, “Before Adam.” In Old Testament and Related Studies, edited by John W. Welch, Gary P. Gillum and Don E. Norton. The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 1, 49-85. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1986, 65-66.

[7] Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1990, 305.

[8] Nahum M. Sarna, ed. Genesis. The JPS Torah Commentary, ed. Nahum M. Sarna. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989, 58.

[9] Cassuto, Noah to Abraham, 111.

[10] Sarna, Genesis, 58.

[11] Gary A. Anderson and Michael Stone, eds. A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve 2nd ed. Society of Biblical Literature: Early Judaism and its Literature, ed. John C. Reeves. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1999, Latin 36:2, p. 40E.

[12] Jacob Neusner, ed. Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis, A New American Translation. 3 vols. Vol. 1: Parashiyyot One through Thirty-Three on Genesis 1:1 to 8:14. Brown Judaic Studies 104, ed. Jacob Neusner. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985, 33:6:5, p. 351. Others said it came from the Mount of Olives (e.g., Maher, Pseudo-Jonathan, 8:11, p. 43).

[13] Sarna, Genesis, 58.

  1. in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month. “On New Year’s day, exactly one year after God first communicated with Noah, the ground was dry.”[1] “Precisely at the commencement of the year, on the anniversary of Creation, the world resumed again the form that God had given it when first it came into being.”[2] Just as Moses 3:1-3 lays a foundation for the institution of the Sabbath, so Genesis 8-9 provides a primeval precedent for the New Year celebration among the Israelites.[3]

 

  1. Noah removed the covering of the ark. The possibility that “the ‘covering [mikseh] of the Ark’ establishes a link to the [skin] ‘covering of the Tabernacle’’[4] (Exodus 40:19) is significant.[5]

 

  1. in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month. The earth attained its dry state again “on the twenty-seventh day of the second month of the six hundred and first year [of Noah’s life], that is, if we count both the first and the last day, a year and eleven days after the commencement of the Deluge: a complete solar year of 365 days in all.”[6] Bible scholar Claus Westermann adds: “The two statements then would represent two different systems of calculation, the lunar year and the solar year.”[7] Genesis scholar Umberto Cassuto explains: “The Septuagint, which was composed in Egypt for the use of the Jews living there, who were accustomed to the Egyptian year of 365 days, also had in mind a complete year, and with this in view wrote twenty-seven instead of seventeen in Genesis 7:11 and in 8:4.”[8]

 

Further Reading

TBD**

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8:13–14

 

 

[1] Sarna, Genesis, 58.

[2] Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Vol. 2: From Noah to Abraham. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1st English ed. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1997, 113.

[3] Claus Westermann, ed. 1974. Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary 1st ed. Translated by John J. Scullion. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994, 470.

[4] L. Michael Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus. Biblical Tools and Studies 15, ed. B. Doyle, G. Van Belle, J. Verheyden and K. U. Leuven. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2012, 157.

[5] See Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen. Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel. In God’s Image and Likeness 2. Salt Lake City, UT: The Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2014. https://archive.org/download/131203ImageAndLikeness2ReadingS, overview Genesis 9, p. 310.

[6] Cassuto, Noah to Abraham, 113.

[7] Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 450.

[8] Cassuto, Noah to Abraham, 113-114.

  1. Go forth. See commentary Moses 6:30-b, p. 59. The corresponding command for embarkation is found in Genesis 7:1. “There is a striking thematic parallel between the picture of God’s calling Noah out of the Ark (vv 15–20) and the call of Abraham” (Genesis 12:1–7).[1] The author “is careful to show that … Noah left the Ark only at God’s command.”[2]

 

  1. thou and thy wife. See also Genesis 8:18. “The variation in the order of persons from Genesis 6:18 and 7:7, where husbands and wives are not listed together, led midrashic sources to infer that sexual relationships were forbidden in the Ark and were permitted to be resumed only after disembarkation.”[3] See overview Moses 8, p. 215.

 

  1. that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. Compare Moses 2:22.

 

  1. Every beast. Compare Moses 2:24.

 

 

Further Reading

TBD**

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8:15–19

 

 

[1] John H. Sailhamer, “Genesis.” In The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, edited by Frank E. Gaebelein, 1-284. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990,  91; John H. Sailhamer, The Meaning of the Pentateuch: Revelation, Composition, and Interpretation. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009, 308-309.

[2] Sailhamer, Meaning, 308.

[3] Nahum M. Sarna, ed. Genesis. The JPS Torah Commentary, ed. Nahum M. Sarna. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989, 58. See Jacob Neusner, ed. Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis, A New American Translation. 3 vols. Vol. 2: Parashiyyot Thirty-Four through Sixty-Seven on Genesis 8:15-28:9. Brown Judaic Studies 105, ed. Jacob Neusner. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985, 34:7:1, p. 4.

  1. Noah builded an altar unto the Lord. Noah’s first action on the renewed earth as the building of an altar for burnt offerings. In contrast to every major action Noah had performed previously,[1] he made the sacrifice without divine instruction. In scripture this type of sacrifice is called a freewill offering.[2] It is foremost a means of rendering thanksgiving:[3]

 

When a person has been saved from a terrible danger, or has escaped from a general catastrophe, his first reaction is to give thanks to him who saved him or helped him to escape. And there could be no greater thanksgiving than these sacrifices. Of the few domestic animals and birds that constituted his sole, meagre possessions for the new period of his life in a world that is completely waste, Noah gave up several animals and birds in honor of his Divine Savior.

 

In addition to describing this natural expression of thanks, the account portrays Noah as a new Adam, “reversing the estrangement” between God and man by means of this atoning sacrifice.[4]

 

Claus Westermann notes:[5] “The sacrifice of Noah is one of those elements which occurs very often in the flood narratives, e.g., in the Babylonian, Greek, Phoenician, Indian stories. Ziusudra, Utnapishtim, Deucalion, Demarius, Manu, all offer sacrifice after they have been saved.”

 

Further Reading

TBD**

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8:20–22

 

 

[1] If we class the sending forth of the birds as a minor action.

[2] Leviticus 22:17-25; Numbers 15:1-11. See Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1990, 308.

[3] Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Vol. 2: From Noah to Abraham. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1st English ed. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1997, 117.

[4] L. Michael Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus. Biblical Tools and Studies 15, ed. B. Doyle, G. Van Belle, J. Verheyden and K. U. Leuven. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2012, 197. Cf. Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen ar).” In The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, edited by Florentino Garcia Martinez. 2nd ed. Translated by Wilfred G. E. Watson, 230-37. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1996, 10:13, p. 231; J. C. VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 6:2, p. 36.**

[5] Claus Westermann, ed. 1974. Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary 1st ed. Translated by John J. Scullion. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994, 452.

  1. the Lord smelled a sweet savour. The JST makes Noah rather than the Lord the subject of verses 21 and 22:[1] “And the Lord spake unto Noah, and he blessed him. And Noah smelled a sweet savor, and he said in his heart; I will call on the name of the Lord, that he will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and that he will not again smite any more every thing living, as he hath done, while the earth remaineth, and that seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night may not cease with man.”

 

  1. sweet savour. In the KJV translation of Genesis, the “sweet savour” was not principally due to the pleasant odor of the sacrifice.[2] The play on words in this verse make it clear that it was Noah’s righteousness that made the offering “sweet” or, more literally “restful” (nihoah). God has finished the work of re-creation and will rest from His labors.[3] In Genesis 9, Noah will build God’s sanctuary and, as His righteous and duly-appointed king, will rule on earth in accordance with divine law.

 

  1. I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake. A lifting of the curse had been prophesied uncomprehendingly by Lamech in Moses 8:9. Cassuto observes:[4]

 

The curse on the ground — that is to say, the decree that the ground would not again produce of its own accord, without human labor, what was needed for man’s sustenance, and that he would eat his bread only with toil and the sweat of his face — remained valid, except that the Lord promised not to add thereto, that is, not to aggravate further man’s position on earth.

 

  1. the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Commenting on the Genesis version of this verse, Nahum Sarna writes: “As compared with Genesis 6:5, the language is considerably modified and is no longer all-inclusive. 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.”[5]

 

  1. neither will I again smite any more every thing living. Compare Isaiah 54:9: “I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth.”
  2. seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. This phrase articulates the re-establishment of the alternating rhythm of the times and seasons required to sustain agricultural life and the cultic calendar that goes along with it. The words “describe three environmental phenomena: agricultural, climatic, and temporal” — “the expression of totality by means of opposites.”[6]

 

A revelation of Joseph Smith qualifies this promise as follows:[7]

 

I have asked of the Lord concerning His coming; and while asking the Lord, He gave a sign and said, “In the days of Noah I set a bow in the heavens as a sign and token that in any year that the bow should be seen the Lord would not come; but there should be seed time and harvest during that year: but whenever you see the bow withdrawn, it shall be a token that there shall be famine, pestilence, and great distress among the nations, and that the coming of the Messiah is not far distant.

 

Further Reading

TBD**

 

Source

Book of Moses Minute by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

 

Related verses

Genesis 8:21–22

 

 

[1] Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004, 115-116, 629.

[2] See Leviticus 26:31; Amos 5:21-22.

[3] Compare Moses 3:2.

[4] Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Vol. 2: From Noah to Abraham. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1st English ed. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1997, 120.

[5] Nahum M. Sarna, ed. Genesis. The JPS Torah Commentary, ed. Nahum M. Sarna. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989, 59.

[6] Sarna, Genesis, 60.

[7] Joseph Smith, Jr. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1969, 10 March 1844, 340-341.

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