Bible Strands
Genesis 8:22
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks to Noah, and by extension all humanity, immediately after the flood and the pleasing aroma of Noah's sacrifice. This is a divine pledge delivered in the moment of covenant re-establishment.
The words — עֹד ('od, "again") carries the "never again" of verse 21 into this verse's "as long as the earth endures," making the agricultural promise a direct corollary of the cessation of destruction. זֶרַע (ze.ra', "seed") and קָצִיר (ka.tzir, "harvest") name the full cycle that is guaranteed.
The thread — Psalms 74:16 attributes the establishment of day and night to God; Jeremiah 5:24 names the autumn and spring rains as the LORD's gift; James 5:7 points to the farmer's patient waiting on the soil's fruit as a model for awaiting the Lord's coming.
Why it lands — The seasons are guaranteed independent of human moral performance; the ground was cursed in Genesis 3, yet here the cycle is secured by divine promise, not by human righteousness. The reader is asked to trust that the rhythm of labor holds even when the world has been broken.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Cross-references
- James 5:7 Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the soil—how patient he is for the fall and spring rains.
- Psalms 74:16 The day is Yours, and also the night; You established the moon and the sun.
- Jeremiah 5:24 They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’
- Jeremiah 31:35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, who sets in order the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of Hosts is His name:
- Song of Solomon 2:11 For now the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.
- Jeremiah 33:20 “This is what the LORD says: If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that day and night cease to occupy their appointed time,
- Exodus 34:21 Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in the seasons of plowing and harvesting, you must rest.
- Isaiah 54:8 In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.
- Genesis 45:6 For the famine has covered the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting.