8:20 offered burnt offerings. Noah thus sacrificed what amounted to one-seventh of his flocks and herds of domestic animals, a real act of thanksgiving and faith on his part. The world was far more forbidding in aspect than when they had entered the ark: rugged and desolate, cold and stormy, barren and silent. It had been purged and cleansed of its wicked and violent inhabitants, however, and God had preserved His remnant through the awful cataclysm, so this was a service of both great praise and earnest petition.