God’s covenant with Noah
9
📚And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.9:1 All peoples and nations on earth today are Noah’s descendants.⚜
2 📚And the fear of you and the dread of you will be on every beast of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on all that moves on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hands. 3 📚Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. I have given you everything, just as I gave the green plants.
4 📚“But flesh with its life, which is its blood, you shall not eat. 5 📚And I will certainly require punishment for your lifeblood. I will require it at the hand of every beast, and at the hand of man. I will require punishment for the life of a man at the hand of every man’s brother. 6 📚Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man will his blood be shed; for in the image of God he made man.
7 📚And you, be fruitful and increase in number. Bring forth abundantly on the earth and increase in it”.
9:2-7 There are two changes now introduced which indicate a new order of things on earth. God now gives man permission to eat meat (compare Gen 1:29), and commands capital punishment for murder (compare Gen 4:15). Observe that at this time there was no distinction made between “clean” and “unclean” animals for food. Man could eat any that he chose. Compare Leviticus chapter 11.⚜
8 And God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 📚“And, see, I am establishing my covenant with you, and with your offspring after you, 10 📚and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. 11 📚And I establish my covenant with you; never again will all flesh be cut down by the waters of a flood, and never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth”.
9:9-11 Judging from v 10, this covenant with Noah is more like a simple promise, not an agreement. Certainly animals could not enter into an agreement with God.⚜
12 📚And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all succeeding generations: 13 📚I set my bow in the cloud, and it will be for a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it will come about when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will appear in the cloud, 15 📚and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of every kind of flesh. And the waters will not again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 📚And the bow will be in the cloud, and I will look at it, so that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of every kind of flesh on the earth”.
17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh on the earth”.
The beginning of nations
18 📚And the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 📚These were the three sons of Noah. And from them people spread over the whole earth.
20 📚And Noah was a man who tilled the soil, and he planted a vineyard, 21 📚and drank of the wine and became drunk. And he was uncovered inside his tent.
9:21 The Bible does not conceal the faults and sins of God’s people. It tells things as they are. In this case it is uncertain whether Noah had ever drunk wine before or knew what it could do to him. When he realized it was affecting him he should have stopped drinking but this would probably have been very difficult (compare Prov 20:1; 23:29-35). Drunkenness is condemned in the Bible and its results are shown to be disastrous (Gen 19:30; Isa 5:11, 22; Rom 13:13; 1 Cor 5:11; 6:10; Gal 5:21; Eph 5:18).⚜
22 📚And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.
23 📚And Shem and Japheth took a garment and put it on both their shoulders and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were turned away and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and came to know what his younger son had done to him. 25 📚And he said, “Cursed be Canaan. He will be a servant of servants to his brothers”.
26 📚And he said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. 27 📚God will enlarge Japheth and he will live in the tents of Shem. And Canaan will be his servant”.
9:25-27 Three prophecies are here (compare Gen 49:1; Deut 33:1). Concerning Ham (v 25) – as a son he had not shown the proper behavior, so judgment would come on one of his sons. Perhaps Canaan was with his father when the above event occurred. We do not know. But we do know that God always acts in perfect justice. This prediction was at least partially fulfilled when Israel subdued the Canaanites in the land of Canaan many centuries later (Josh 9:23; 1 Kings 9:20-21).
Concerning Shem (v 26) – Jehovah was already the God of Shem. This suggests Shem’s faith. The God of Shem would bring His blessings into the world through Abraham, the nation Israel, and Jesus Christ all of whom were descendants of Shem.
28 And Noah lived after the flood for three hundred and fifty years. 29 📚And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.