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Interpretation 1: Man's heart will not change.
Summary: God knows that the sinful natures of the people who remain after the flood will not change. So he could send new floods all the time. But he decides not to do so because the hearts of man will simply not change. Instead, God limits himself to more controlled punishments that do not destroy the whole earth and do not wipe out (almost) all mankind.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. God already established before the flood that every intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 6:5). After the flood, things do not change in this regard; think of Noah’s drunkenness and the ridicule of his son Ham.
2. God’s righteousness demands that sin be punished. So his pledge after the fall to never again curse the ground because of man
cannot have meant that he is now simply suspending the curse of Genesis 3:16–19. The intention therefore must have been that he would apply his punishments on a more limited scale from now on.
Arguments against this view:
1. This interpretation raises the question of whether, in retrospect, the flood was therefore rather pointless: nothing had been changed by it.
2. This interpretation also leaves room for the unscriptural idea that God just accepts the situation because that is just the way it is.
3. This interpretation makes no connection whatsoever with the impressive sacrifice Noah brought, from among all the clean animals in the ark.
Interpretation 2: It is merely a repetition of why the Lord sent the flood.
Summary: The concluding words are meant not to give the reason for God’s commitment for never again cursing the ground, but rather to echo God's previously revealed reason for sending the flood (Genesis 6:5).
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. The clause for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth
is an expansion of because of man.
This means it is simply a repetition of God's earlier reason for cursing the ground by a flood (Genesis 6:5).
Arguments against this view:
1. With this interpretation, no reason is given as to why God would now refrain from sending any new floods.
2. This interpretation also makes no connection with the impressive sacrifice Noah brought, from among all the clean animals in the ark.
Interpretation 3: The Lord accepts the sacrifice made.
Summary: The word translated as for
should instead be translated as although
or even though
(per the CSB, NET, and NIV): I will never again curse the ground because of man, even though the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. The Hebrew word ki can be translated as either for/because
or (al)though
. The annotations with the well-known Dutch Dort Translation of 1619 already mention this possibility of translation.
2. There are quite a few places in the Old Testament where (al)though
is much more obvious. For instance, in Genesis 50:17 (Please forgive...though they did evil to you
), Exodus 34:9 (“Please let the Lord go in the midst of us, even though it is a stiff-necked people”), Psalm 25:11 (“O Lord, pardon my guilt, though it is great”), Psalm 27:10 (Though my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in
), Jeremiah 12:6b (though they speak friendly words to you
), Jeremiah 14:12 (“Though they fast, I will not hear”). In Exodus 13:17 a translation with for
instead of “though” would cause the statement to become illogical that God did not lead the people whom he freed from Egypt up the road through the land of the Philistines, the shortest way to Canaan.
3. This translation does indicate a connection with the impressive sacrifice Noah brought. Once they are back on the ground that had dried up after the flood, Noah immediately starts sacrificing a whole series of animals. Is he now going to exterminate the last rare specimens? Noah does this because he is well aware that he and his family are still sinners to the core. God has the right to kill them too. That is why Noah is hiding (as it were) behind the death of those animals he sacrifices: Please take their lives, Lord, instead of ours. God smelled that aroma
in this sacrifice. And that is why he decided not to send any new floods, even though man was still as evil as before the flood. Later on, when all the animals from the ark have been sacrificed, Noah does not have to lay one of his sons on the altar. It is not Noah’s son but God’s Son who would one day be sacrificed vicariously, that is, in our place. He would become the ark that would safely carry sinners through the flames of God’s final judgment.
21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.