Seedtime and Harvest, Cold and Heat, Summer and Winter (Genesis 8:21-22)

2025-01-25

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. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (Genesis 8:21-22)

When Noah and his family got off the ark and made his offerings, the LORD promised certain things.

  1. The ground would not be cursed again. The ground was cursed because of Adam’s sin and rebellion. “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (Genesis 3:17). Later Lamech, Noah’s father, said, “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). Here, we now see that the LORD “will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake.” Clearly, the effects of the fall are still here. But the LORD would either not curse the ground a second time, or perhaps things were not going to be as bad as they were in the antediluvian world.
  2. The entire world’s population of humankind and of beasts will never be entirely destroyed again. If “the earth was filled with violence,” then the world was likely full of people at the time of the flood. All but eight people were wiped out. The LORD promised to never do this again. In the end times, many more than eight shall be saved by the pardoning found in Jesus Christ.
  3. Predictable seedtime and harvesting times will continue while the earth exists. Specific seedtime and harvesting seasons shall continue throughout the world. Cold and heat will always exist; the world will not be fully frozen over or burned up. The only exception is at the end of time: “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7).

This all means that the world shall remain habitable until the end of time. The world will only be destroyed when God carries it out.

This does not negate the responsibility of humankind to take care of the earth. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28). And again, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). The LORD shall “destroy them which destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). However, we have the hope that the LORD will put us into the new earth in the future.