manded to leave their prison,
the ark, and to return upon the earth now everywhere open before them.
In recounting the kinds of animals, however, he arranges them in a
different order, distinguishing them by families, as it were, to let
us see that only propagation was God's aim. It must have been a glad
sight when each one of the many beasts, after leaving the ark, found
its own mate, and then sought its accustomed haunt: the wolves, the
bears, the lions, returning to the woods and groves; the sheep, the
goats, the swine, to the fields; the dogs, the chickens, the cats, to
man.

V. 20. _And Noah builded an altar unto Jehovah, and took of every
clean beast, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on
the altar._

45. This text shows conclusively that Moses was not the first person
to introduce sacrifices but that, like a bard who gathers chants, he
arranged and classified them as they had been in vogue among the
fathers and transmitted from the one to the other. Thus also the law
of circumcision was not first written by Moses but received from the
fathers.

46. Above (ch 4, 4-5), where Moses mentioned the sacrifice of Abel and
Cain, he called it _minchah_, an offering; here, however, we find the
first record of a burnt-offering, one entirely consumed by fire. This,
I say, is a clear proof that the law of sacrifices had been
established before the time of Moses. His work, then, consisted in
arranging the rites of the forefathers in definite order.

V. 21. _And Jehovah smelled the sweet savor._

47. It is set forth here that Jehovah approved Noah's sacrifice which
he offered by virtue of his office as a priest, according to the
example of the fathers. However, the differences of phraseology is to
receive due attention. Of the former sacrifice he said that Jehovah
"had respect" to it; here he says that "Jehovah smelled the sweet
savor." Moses subsequently makes frequent use of this expression. The
heathen also adopted it; Lucian, for example, makes fun of Jove who
was conciliated by the odor of meats.

48. The word in the original, however, does not properly signify the
"savor of sweetness," but "the savor of rest", for _nichoach_ meaning
"rest", is derived from the verb _nuach_, which Moses used before,
when he said that the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.
Therefore it is the "savor of rest," because God then rested from his
wrath, dismissing his wrath, becoming appeased, and, as we commonly