Noah's ark: Seven Pairs and the Altar After the Flood
Before the flood, Noah received instructions to take animals into a boat so that their kinds would survive. Genesis includes two different arrangements for the passengers on Noah's ark. One directs him to bring a male and female of each kind. Genesis 7:2 calls for seven pairs of every clean animal, alongside a pair of animals that are not clean. Those extra pairs have a purpose beyond surviving the water: they make room for the sacrifices Noah offers afterward. The journey from the animal instructions to an altar joins the preservation of life with worship after the flood.
In Genesis 6:19 and 6:20, birds, animals, and creeping things are to come into the ark in pairs. The stated purpose is to keep them alive with Noah. Male and female animals will preserve their kinds, and the directions do not separate them according to their suitability for sacrifice. Lisbeth S. Fried identifies these instructions with the Priestly telling of the flood story. She understands the Genesis narrative as two tellings woven together, differing in such details as God's name, the origins of the floodwaters, and how long the flood lasts. The passenger instructions also vary within that combined narrative.
The other arrangement gives Noah's ark a larger number of selected animals. Seven pairs of clean animals come aboard, while those that are not clean arrive as a single pair. The next verse also specifies seven pairs of birds, male and female, to keep their kind alive on earth. Clean animals are those Israelites are permitted to eat. Their religious role becomes important once Noah leaves the boat. Fried associates these instructions with the telling designated J, whose scenes include offerings and altars before the later establishment of the Tabernacle and its priestly system of worship.
After the flood, Noah builds an altar to YHWH. Genesis 8:20 says he takes clean animals and clean birds and offers burnt offerings there. With only a single breeding pair of each kind, sacrifice would jeopardize the continuation of that kind. The larger complement aboard Noah's ark allows both survival and offerings. The altar belongs to the same religious pattern as the earlier sacrifices of Cain and Abel, who bring produce and the choicest firstlings of a flock. In this pattern, worshipers can make offerings without waiting for a sanctuary or a sacrificial system controlled by a designated priesthood.
YHWH smells the pleasing odor of Noah's offerings and resolves never again to curse the ground because of humankind or strike every living creature in the same way. The divine resolve recognizes that the human heart inclines toward evil from youth. It is followed by a promise concerning the world's continuing rhythms: seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease while the earth endures. In the Priestly telling, the assurance against another worldwide flood is instead connected to the rainbow and does not depend on a human sacrifice to bring it about.
The departure from Noah's ark also leads to a command that the animals abound, be fruitful, and multiply on earth. That language echoes the Priestly creation story. In the Priestly religious framework, sacrifices begin with commands at Mount Sinai and are controlled by priests of Aaron's lineage. They belong at the Tabernacle and later the Jerusalem Temple. Worship there includes regular burnt offerings: a lamb in the morning and another at twilight, accompanied by grain, oil, and wine or another alcoholic beverage. Additional offerings mark the Sabbath, New Moon, and festivals, setting sacrifice within the continuing service of a sanctuary.
Elsewhere in Genesis, patriarchs build altars as they move through the land. Abram builds one near Shechem after YHWH promises the land to his offspring. He later pitches his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east, builds another altar, and invokes YHWH's name. Farther south, he builds an altar at the terebinths of Mamre in Hebron. Isaac builds one at Beersheba after receiving a divine communication; he also pitches his tent there, and his servants begin digging a well. These scenes place worship along the patriarchs' travels, wherever an encounter or religious need calls forth an altar.
The same pattern reaches into stories of Israel's early kings. During a battle with the Philistines, Saul sees soldiers eating improperly prepared animals and establishes an altar so that they eat sacrificed meat. It is identified as his first altar to YHWH. David builds an altar while a plague is overtaking Israel, offering burnt offerings and offerings of well-being as part of his plea for the land. YHWH responds, and the plague is checked.