Fathers

Genesis 8

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God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided. The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained. The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded. The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains. The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible. At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made, and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground, but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned into the ship to him, for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship. He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship. The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more. In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.” Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship. Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”

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What the Fathers say

Genesis 8:21

Western Saints

Ambrose of Milan

Now let us consider more carefully what He says: And the Lord God said: Considering, I will not add to curse the earth on account of the works of men; because the heart of man remains diligently upon evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). Therefore, He would not strike the whole earth again, as He did, all the days of the earth. …

On Noah and the Ark, 22.80 ↗

Bede

"And the Lord smelled a sweet savor, and He said to him: I will never again curse the ground because of humans." It was appropriate that, as a holy man and providing for future things, just as Abel consecrated the first age of the world by offering sacrifices to God, Noah would also consecrate the beginning of the second world age. This same act is remembered to have been done by Abraham and Melchizedek at the beginning of the third age, and by King David, a patriarch of the fourth age, on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. …

Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron) ↗

Bonaventure

The manner in which sacrifice was introduced is seen in the fact that Abel offered a sacrifice by faith, and so did Noah, of whose offering it is said: The Lord smelled the sweet odor. And these sacrifices represented that which Christ offered on the cross. Hence it is said, the Lord smelled: God was appeased by the death of His only Son. …

Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 5 ↗