HITHERTO the account throughout this chapter, as also much the greater part of the preceding, has been general history: all since chap. 7:6, save the beautifully appropriate exception of the last clause of chap. 7:17. Now, as in that exception, special relationship is meant to be put forward, and Jehovah appear, rather than Elohim, in the close of chap. 8., as in the opening of chap. vii. Never was a weaker effort to account for the use of the divine names than the fancy of two distinct writings joined into one, never a scheme more utterly unproductive of good fruit. Who was ever helped thereby to a ray of light divine? What holy affection was ever exercised by it? Its direct and inevitable tendency is to destroy reverence for the sacred letters, and to undermine the Lord's authority Who declares that Moses wrote of Him, not the mythical legendists of rationalist imagination. Accepting the scripture as God-breathed, we may easily and surely learn the propriety of the change of designation in the verses before us, and the enhanced value which the name here employed imparts. “And Noah built an altar to Jehovah, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And Jehovah smelled the odor of rest. And Jehovah said in his heart, I will not any more again curse the ground on account of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will not any more again smite every living thing as I have done. Henceforth all the days of the earth, seed and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease” (vers. 20-22).
After such grave and long detention, with death and desolation all around in judgment executed on bold and open sin, the natural impulse would have been to build a house for himself and houses for his sons. But as Noah had found grace in the eyes of Jehovah, so he remained righteous before Him; and his first thought, on emerging with all entrusted to his care from the ark, was to own Jehovah and His grace sacrificially. This needed no fresh commandment. It had already received His signal recognition from the beginning, when Abel, just because he had faith, approached Him with the slain firstling and its fat, and Cain was rejected, because he rose not above the religion of nature. There was no sense of sin in himself, nor of grace in God reigning through righteousness to eternal life through the coming Savior.
Noah perceived now the fit provision of the seventh clean beast and bird. He saw by faith that it could only be rightly for an offering to Jehovah. The seventh was not one of a pair: how suitable for presenting on the altar! And so he took of “every clean beast and of every clean bird.” It had thus afar larger range than Abel's; appropriate as his was for one coming to God by faith. Nor was Noah's any more than Abel's a sin-offering. What then suited was a burnt-offering. It was of a sweet savor, or savor of rest, and of course propitiatory; but here there was no question of individual acceptance as in Abel's case. It was no less a righteous ground for presenting the renewed earth to Jehovah. No such position was taken by Adam when set in Paradise. It was exactly right and due to Jehovah now, that man and every living creature and the earth might be before Him in the sweet savor He smelled: the witness of an infinitely efficacious offering whereby Christ in His death would reconcile all things. Now came, it would seem, the fulfillment of Lamech's word in calling his son Noah, This same shall comfort us concerning our works and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed (Gen. 5:2929And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed. (Genesis 5:29)). Only Christ coming in power will remove the curse; but Noah brought in meanwhile alleviation and comfort for man in his toil.
Nor was this all; “Jehovah said in his heart, I will not any more again curse the ground on account of man, for the thought of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will not any more again smite every living thing as I have done.” How blessed was the effect even of this witness to the great Sacrifice! Compare chap. 6:5-7. When Jehovah saw, not the sacrifice, but man's wickedness great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually, it grieved Him in His heart, and He said I will destroy man, &c. Now when He (according to the gracious language of scripture) smelled the savor of rest, He said in His heart, I will not again any more curse the ground, nor smite any living thing, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Sacrifice made the difference, bringing Christ's death before Him as it should be later. And grace could flow righteously even then. Man was no better in himself; but here the chief of the new world acts in faith, and God answers in grace on this righteous ground. The earth was to be spared. During all its days the seasons should follow, not in the fullness that Christ will impart when He reigns over it, but adequately; seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. And so it has ever been, though many willfully forget why it is, less grateful than the ox which knows its owner, or the ass which knows its master's crib.