Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/259

 13b. Noah ventures to remove the covering of the ark, and sees that the earth is dry.

20-22. Noah's sacrifice.—J's account of the leaving of the ark has been suppressed. Noah's first act is to offer a sacrifice, not of thanksgiving but (as v.$21$ shows) of propitiation: its effect is to move the Deity to gracious thoughts towards the new humanity. The resemblance to the Babylonian parallel is here particularly close and instructive (see p. 177): the incident appears also in the Greek and Indian legends.—20. an altar] Lit. 'slaughtering-place.' The sacrificial institution is carried back by J to the remotest antiquity (see on 4$3f.$ 7$2f.$), but this is the first mention of the altar, and also of sacrifice by fire: see p. 105 above.—] holocausts,—that form of sacrifice which was wholly consumed on the altar, and which was naturally resorted to on occasions of peculiar solemnity (e.g. 2 Sa. 24$25$).—21. smelled the soothing odour] (, nidor) becomes a technical term of the Levitical ritual, and is never mentioned elsewhere except in P and Ezk. This, Gu. points out, is the only place where Yahwe is actually described as smelling the sacrifice; but cf. 1 Sa. 26$19$. It is probably a refinement of the crude eudæmonism of the Bab. story (see p. 177 below); and it is doubtful how far it elucidates primitive Heb. ideas of the effect of sacrifice. That "the pleasing odour is not the motive but merely the occasion of this gracious purpose" (Knobel), may be

—13b. ] possibly described in J's account of the building of the ark. Elsewhere only of the covering of the Tabernacle (P); but cf. , Ezk. 27$7$.—] G ins. .

20. ] G .—21. ] G (bis).—] S —conflate?—] a different vb. from that used in 3$17$ 4$11$ 5$29$. Ho. points out that Pi. of is never used with God as subj. (cf. Gn. 12$3$); and for this and other reasons regards $21a$ as an unskilful attempt to link the Noah of the Flood with the prophecy of 5$29$. But $21a$ can only refer to the Flood, while the curse of 5$29$ belongs to the past: moreover, an interpolator would have been careful to use the same verb. The sense given to is fully justified by the usage