Genesis 8:22

Hebrew Bible

20 Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, even though the inclination of their minds is evil from childhood on. I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done. 22 “While the earth continues to exist, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”

1 Enoch 55:1

Pseudepigrapha

1 And after that the Head of Days repented and said: 'In vain have I destroyed all who dwell on the earth.' 2 And He sware by His great name: 'Henceforth I will not do so to all who dwell on the earth, and I will set a sign in the heaven: and this shall be a pledge of good faith between Me and them for ever, so long as heaven is above the earth. And this is in accordance with My command.'

 Notes and References

"... Other passages in 1 Enoch that refer to the Flood Narrative confirm this pattern. They are found in the second part, the first-century BCE “Book of the Parables” (1 Enoch 37–71), and in the second-century BCE “Dream Visions” (1 Enoch 83–90). One passage presents an interpolation describing the obliteration of all who dwell on earth by opening the chambers of the male waters above heaven and the female waters beneath the earth (1 Enoch 54:1–55:2). The cosmological distinction in gender most likely refers to the sons of God (in heaven) and the daughters of men (on earth) in Genesis 6:1–4. A remarkable feature in this passage is the divine response to this destruction. The “Head of Days” repents, saying: “In vain have I destroyed all who dwell on earth” (1 Enoch 55:1). This verse changes the image of God in the Flood Narrative by combining Genesis 8:20–21 and 9:11 with the divine pain and regret in response to the propagation of human violence in Genesis 6:6. If 1 Enoch no longer holds human beings fully accountable for the violence on earth, one might ask why humankind as a whole was obliterated. The fact that the divine regret comes after the flood – in some way resembling the divine reaction to the deluge in the Mesopotamian flood traditions – answers this question ..."

van Bekkum, Koert "Violence in the Flood Narrative: Text and Reception" in Ruiten, J. van, and K. van Bekkum (eds.) Violence in the Hebrew Bible: Between Text and Reception (p. 67–96) Brill, 2020

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