Genesis 8:20 Bible Commentary
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.
Why would Noah do this?
Noah had already spent more that three hundred days aboard the ark where every human and every animal ate only plant foods which God created for them and us and the animals to eat, and to us the Flood was part of God’s plan to wipe out the sin in the world.
To kill another living being, whether human or animal, it requires a person to harden their heart, because with a soft heart we have empathy and feel the pain and suffering of the whole of God’s creation (all the humans, all the animals, and the environment in which we all live) and wouldn’t harm anyone or anything; thus we could not kill if we are living in the heavenly will of God.
Some people think that this is a thanksgiving offering to God for bringing them through the flood, but that doesn’t make sense, because the very act of an animal sacrifice is part of the corrupt ways of this world. We are to be the loving, compassionate, and empathetic peacemaking children of God who live in His heavenly will and do everything in our power to free creation from its present corruption, and sacrificing an animal is a violent act which is part of this corrupt and evil world.
Therefore, we can only conclude that Noah recognized that there was still sin in his life and in the lives of his children and their wives, so he returned to his pagan ways of appeasement, an animal sacrifice sin offering.
We further believe that this is confirmed in the next verse.
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