Genesis 8:20-22

Genesis 8:20-22

[20] And Noah  builded  an altar  unto the LORD;  and took  of every clean  beast,  and of every clean  fowl,  and offered  burnt offerings  on the altar.  [21] And the LORD  smelled  a sweet  savour;  and the LORD  said  in  his heart,  I will not again  curse  the ground  any more for man's  sake;  for the imagination  of man's  heart  is evil  from his youth;  neither will I again  smite  any more every thing living,  as I have done.  [22] While the earth  remaineth,  seedtime  and harvest,  and cold  and heat,  and summer  and winter,  and day  and night  shall not cease. 

What does Genesis 8:20-22 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

Noah"s "altar" is the first altar mentioned in the Bible. His "burnt offerings" were for worship. Some of the burnt offerings in the Mosaic cultus (system of worship) were for the same purpose. Specifically, a burnt offering made atonement and expressed the offerer"s complete personal devotion to God (cf. Leviticus 1; Romans 12:1-2). As the head of the new humanity, Noah"s sacrifice represented all humankind.
God may judge the wicked catastrophically and begin a new era of existence with faithful believers.
The non-biblical stories of the Flood are undoubtedly perversions of the true account that God preserved in Scripture. God may have revealed the true account directly to Moses, or He may have preserved a true oral or written account that Moses used as his source of this information. Moses may have written Genesis under divine inspiration to correct the Mesopotamian versions (the maximalist view), or both the biblical and Mesopotamian accounts may go back to a common tradition (the minimalist view). [1]
"Biblical religion explained that the seasonal cycle was the consequence of Yahweh"s pronouncement and, moreover, evidence of a divine dominion that transcends the elements of the earth. There is no place for Mother-earth in biblical ideology. Earth owes its powers (not her powers!) to the divine command." [2]