Verse 22 is often printed in indented lines to show its poetic form. See, for example, New English Bible, Revised English Bible, Bible en français courant, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, New Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible. This short poem appears to consist of six short lines in which each line receives two major stresses.

As long as the earth lasts,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night,
they will never cease.

While the earth remains means “As long as there is an earth,” or “As long as the world exists” (Good News Translation). A number of translations move these words to the end of the verse; for example, “… All these kinds of time will not finish while the world exists” and “… All these things will not disappear until the very end of the world.”

Seedtime refers to the season for planting crops, and harvest to the season for harvesting what has been planted and grown. Cold and heat means the cold season and the hot season of the year. Summer and winter are parallel with cold and heat and refer to the same thing. Day and night means daytime followed by nighttime. Shall not cease serves as the verb for the four previous expressions and means that all these seasons and times shall continue to exist, shall come and go again and again.

Translators in tropical areas often find it necessary to make some adjustments in regard to cold and heat, summer and winter. For example, it may be necessary to speak of cold times and hot times, or cold days and hot days. These are relative degrees of cold and heat, but many languages speak of certain rainy or overcast days as “cold.” Summer is sometimes equivalent to the major rainy season, if there is more than one. In some areas summer may be referred to as the growing season. In some areas it is possible to speak of winter as the time of the cold rains. However, if that expression is used for the growing season, the translator will have to use a different expression for winter. Where the year is divided into seasons such as “wet season” and “dry season,” the names of these seasons will usually be suitable for use in this context, even if the seasons are not exactly equivalent to summer and winter. For example, one translation in the tropical zone refers to the “trade-wind season and the monsoon season.” Another translation, for people who live further from the equator, has “the time when leaves fall, and the time when leaves grow again,” reflecting the way those people divide up their year according to the appearance of certain trees.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .