And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
1. And God blessed, &c.] The substance of this verse is a repetition of Gen 1:28. Another chapter in history is begun. As in chap. 1, after the Creation, a single pair confronted the whole earth and its animal world, so here, the single family of Noah is to “replenish the earth,” and receives a special blessing, the assurance of Divine favour.
his sons ] The females are not mentioned, but, as often in the O.T., the wives are included in the mention of the husbands: cf. the Sethite Genealogy in chap. 5.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– The Blessing of Noah
2. mora’, fear, reverence, awful deed. chat, dread, breaking of the courage.
Noah is saved from the deluge. His life is twice given to him by God. He had found grace in the sight of the Lord, and now he and his family have been graciously accepted when they approached the Lord with burnt-offerings. In him, therefore, the race of man is to be begun anew. Accordingly, as at the beginning, the Lord proceeds to bless him. First. The grant of increase is the same as at first, but expressed in ampler terms. Second. Dominion over the other animals is renewed. But some reluctance on their part to yield obedience is intimated. The fear and dread of you. These terms give token of a master whose power is dreaded, rather than of a superior whose friendly protection is sought. Into your hand are they given. They are placed entirely at the disposal of man.
Gen 9:3
The grant of sustenance is no longer confined to the vegetable, but extended to the animal kinds, with two solemn restrictions. This explains how fully the animals are handed over to the will of man. They were slain for sacrifice from the earliest times. Whether they were used for food before this time we are not informed. But now every creeper that is alive is granted for food. Every creeper is everything that moves with the body prone to the earth, and therefore in a creeping posture. This seems to describe the inferior animals in contradistinction to man, who walks erect. The phrase that is alive seems to exclude animals that have died a natural death from being used as food.
Gen 9:4
The first restriction on the grant of animal food is thus expressed: Flesh with its life, its blood, shall ye not eat. The animal must be slain before any part of it is used for food. And as it lives so long as the blood flows in its veins, the life-blood must be drawn before its flesh may be eaten. The design of this restriction is to prevent the horrid cruelty of mutilating or cooking an animal while yet alive and capable of suffering pain. The draining of the blood from the body is an obvious occasion of death, and therefore the prohibition to eat the flesh with the blood of life is a needful restraint from savage cruelty. It is also intended, perhaps, to teach that the life of the animal, which is in the blood, belongs not to man, but to God himself, who gave it. He makes account of it for atonement in sacrifice; otherwise it is to be poured on the ground and covered with dust Lev 17:11-13.
Gen 9:5-6
The second restriction guards human life. The shedding of human blood is sternly prohibited. Your blood of your lives. The blood which belongs to your lives, which constitutes the very life of your corporeal nature. Will I require. I, the Lord, will find the murderer out, and exact the penalty of his crime. The very beast that causes the death of man shall be slain. The suicide and the homicide are alike accountable to God for the shedding of mans blood. The penalty of murder is here proclaimed – death for death. It is an instance of the law of retaliation. This is an axiom of moral equity. He that deprives another of any property is bound to make it good or to suffer the like loss.
The first law promulgated in Scripture was that between Creator and creature. If the creature refuse to the Creator the obedience due, he forfeits all the Creator has given him, and, therefore, his life. Hence, when Cain murdered his brother, he only displayed a new development of that sin which was in him, and, being already condemned to the extreme penalty under the first transgression, had only a minor punishment annexed to his personal crime. And so it continued to be in the antediluvian world. No civil law is on record for the restriction of crime. Cain, indeed, feared the natural vengeance which his conscience told him his sin deserved. But it was not competent in equity for the private individual to undertake the enforcement of the penalties of natural law. So long as the law was between Creator and creature, God himself was not only the sole legislator, but the sole administrator of law.
The second law is that between creature and creature, which is here introduced on the occasion of giving permission to partake of animal food, as the first was published on that of granting the use of vegetable diet. In the former case, God is the administrator of the law, as he is the immediate and sovereign party in the legal compact. In the latter case, man is, by the express appointment of the Lord of all, constituted the executive agent. By man shall his blood be shed. Here, then, is the formal institution of civil government. Here the civil sword is committed to the charge of man. The judgment of death by the executioner is solemnly delegated to man in vindication of human life. This trust is conveyed in the most general terms. By man. The divine legislator does not name the sovereign, define his powers, or determine the law of succession. All these practical conditions of a stable government are left open questions.
The emphasis is laid solely on man. On man is impressively laid the obligation of instituting a civil constitution suited to his present fallen condition. On the nation as a body it is an incumbent duty to select the sovereign, to form the civil compact between prince and people, to settle the prerogative of the sovereign and the rights of the subjects, to fix the order of succession, to constitute the legislative, judicial, and administrative bodies, and to render due submission to the constituted authorities. And all these arrangements are to be made according to the principles of Scripture and the light of nature.
The reason why retribution is exacted in the case of man is here also given. For in the image of God has he made man. This points on the one hand to the function of the magistrate, and on the other to the claims of the violated law; and in both respects illustrates the meaning of being created in the image of God. Man resembles God in this, that he is a moral being, judging of right and wrong, endowed with reason and will, and capable of holding and exercising rights. Hence, he is in the first place competent to rule, and on his creation authorized to exercise a mild and moral sway over the inferior creatures. His capacity to govern even among his fellow-men is now recognized. The function of self-government in civil things is now conferred upon man. When duly called to the office, he is declared to be at liberty to discharge the part of a ruler among his fellow-men, and is entitled on the ground of this divine arrangement to claim the obedience of those who are under his sway. He must rule in the Lord, and they must obey in the Lord.
However, in the next place, man is capable of, and has been actually endowed with, rights of property in himself, his children, his industrial products, his purchases, his receipts in the way of gift, and his claims by covenant or promise. He can also recognize such rights in another. When, therefore, he is deprived of anything belonging to him, he is sensible of being wronged, and feels that the wrongdoer is bound to make reparation by giving back what he has taken away, or an equivalent in its place. This is the law of requital, which is the universal principle of justice between the wrongdoer and the wrong-sufferer. Hence, the blood of him who sheds blood is to be shed. And, in setting up a system of human government, the most natural and obvious case is given, according to the manner of Scripture, as a sample of the law by which punishment is to be inflicted on the transgressor in proportion to his crime. The case in point accordingly arises necessarily out of the permission to use animal food, which requires to be guarded on the one hand by a provision against cruelty to animals, and, on the other, by an enactment forbidding the taking away of human life, on the pain of death, by order of the civil magistrate. This case, then, turns out to be the most heinous crime which man can commit against his fellow-man, and strikingly exemplifies the great common principle of retributive justice.
The brute is not a moral being, and has, therefore, no proper rights in itself. Its blood may therefore be shed with impunity. Nevertheless, man, because he is a moral being, owes a certain negative duty to the brute animal, because it is capable of pain. He is not to inflict gratuitous or unnecessary suffering on a being susceptible of such torture. Hence, the propriety of the blood being shed before the flesh is used for food. Life, and therefore the sense of pain, is extinguished when the blood is withdrawn from the veins.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 9:1-7
God blessed Noah and his sons
The Divine benediction on the new humanity
I.
PROVISION FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF ITS PHYSICAL LIFE. This divinely appointed provision for the continuance of man upon the earth–
1. Raises the relation between the sexes above all degrading associations.
2. Tends to promote the stability of society.
3. Promotes the tender charities of life.
II. PROVISION FOR ITS SUSTENANCE. The physical life of man must be preserved by the ministry of other lives–animal, vegetable. For this end God has given man dominion over the earth, and especially over all other lives in it. We may regard this sustenance which God has provided for mans lower wants–
1. As a reason for gratitude. Our physical necessities are the most immediate, the most intimate to us. We should acknowledge the hand that provides for them. We may regard Gods provision herein–
2. As an example of the law of mediation. Mans life is preserved by the instrumentality of others. Gods natural government of the world is carried on by means of mediation, from which we may infer that such is the principle of His moral government. That bread of life by which our souls are sustained comes to us through a Mediator. Thus Gods provisions for our common wants may be made a means of educating us in higher things. Nature has the symbols and suggestions of spiritual truths.
3. As a ground for expecting greater blessings. If God made so rich and varied a provision to supply the necessities of the body, it was reasonable to expect that He would care and provide for the deeper necessities of the soul.
III. PROVISION FOR ITS PROTECTION.
1. From the ferocity of animals.
2. From the violence of evil men.
IV. PROVISION FOR ITS MORALITY.
V. PROVISION FOR ITS RELIGION.
1. Mankind were to be educated to the idea of sacrifice.
2. Mankind were to be impressed with the true dignity of human nature.
3. Mankind must be taught to refer all authority and rule ultimately to God. (T. H. Leale.)
Noah a representative person
1. In the earliest fauna and flora of the earth, one class stood for many. The earliest families combined the character of several families afterwards separately introduced. This is true, for instance, of ferns, which belong to the oldest races of vegetation. Of them it has been well said that there is hardly a single feature or quality possessed by flowering plants of which we do not find a hint or prefiguration in ferns. It is thus most interesting to notice in the earliest productions of our earth the same laws and processes which we observe in the latest and most highly-developed flowers and trees.
2. At the successive periods of the unfolding of Gods great promise, we find one individual representing the history of the race, and foreshadowing in brief the essential character of large phases and long periods of human development. Hence it is that here Noah becomes the representative of the patriarchal families in covenant with God. He is the individual with whom God enters into covenant, in relation to the successive generations of the human race.
3. And in this respect Noah is a retrospective type of Him who, in the eternal ages, consented to be the representative of redeemed humanity, and with whom the Father made an everlasting covenant; and a prospective type of that same Representative who, in the fulness of time, received the Divine assurance that in Him should all nations of the earth be blessed. (W. Adamson.)
The new world and its inheritors–the men of faith
1. The first is the new condition of the earth itself, which immediately appears in the freedom allowed and practised in regard to the external worship of God. This was no longer confined to any single region, as seems to have been the case in the age subsequent to the Fall. The cherubim were located in a particular spot, on the east of the garden of Eden; and as the symbols of Gods presence were there, it was only natural that the celebration of Divine worship should there also have found its common centre. But with the Flood the reason for any such restriction vanished. Noah, therefore, reared his altar, and presented his sacrifice to the Lord where the ark rested. There immediately he got the blessing, and entered into covenant with God–proving that, in a sense, old things had passed away, and all had become new. But this again indicated that, in the estimation of Heaven, the earth had now assumed a new position; that by the action of Gods judgment upon it, it had become hallowed in His sight, and was in a condition to receive tokens of the Divine favour, which had formerly been withheld from it.
2. The second point to be noticed here is the heirship given of this new world to Noah and his seed–given to them expressly as the children of faith. A change, however, appears in the relative position of things, when the flood had swept with its purifying waters over the earth. Here, then, the righteousness of faith received direct from the grace of God the dowry that had been originally bestowed upon the righteousness of nature–not a blessing merely, but a blessing coupled with the heirship and dominion of the world. There was nothing strange or arbitrary in such a proceeding; it was in perfect accordance with the great principles of the Divine administration. Adam was too closely connected with the sin that destroyed the world, to be reinvested, even when he had through faith become a partaker of grace, with the restored heirship of the world. Nor had the world itself passed through such an ordeal of purification, as to fit it, in the personal lifetime of Adam, or of his more immediate offspring, for being at all represented in the light of an inheritance of blessing.
3. The remaining point to be noticed in respect to this new order of things is the pledge of continuance, notwithstanding all appearances or threatenings to the contrary, given in the covenant made with Noah, and confirmed by a fixed sign in the heavens. There can be no doubt that the natural impression produced by this passage in respect to the sign of the covenant is, that it nowfor the first time appeared in the lower heavens. The Lord might, no doubt, then, or at any future time, have taken an existing phenomenon in nature, and by a special appointment made it the instrument of conveying some new and higher meaning to the subjects of His revelation. But in a matter like the present, when the specific object contemplated was to allay mens fears of the possible recurrence of the deluge, and give them a kind of visible pledge in nature for the permanence of her existing order and constitution, one cannot perceive how a natural phenomenon, common alike to the antediluvian and the postdiluvian world, could have fitly served the purpose. In that case, so far as the external sign was concerned, matters stood precisely where they were; and it was not properly the sign, but the covenant itself, which formed the guarantee of safety for the future. We incline, therefore, to the opinion that, in the announcement here made, intimation is given of a change in the physical relations or temperature of at least that portion of the earth where the original inhabitants had their abode; by reason of which the descent of moisture in showers of rain came to take the place of distillation by dew, or other modes of operation different from the present. The supposition is favoured by the mention only of dew before in connection with the moistening of the ground (Gen 2:6); and when rain does come to be mentioned, it is rain in such flowing torrents as seems rather to betoken the outpouring of a continuous stream, than the gentle dropping which we are wont to understand by the term, and to associate with the rainbow. (P. Fairbairn, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER IX
God blesses Noah and his sons, 1.
The brute creation to be subject to them through fear, 2.
The first grant of animal food, 3.
Eating of blood forbidden, 4.
Cruelty to animals forbidden, 5.
A man-slayer to forfeit his life, 6.
The covenant of God established between him and Noah and the
whole brute creation, 8-11.
The rainbow given as the sign and pledge of this covenant, 12-17.
The three sons of Noah people the whole earth, 18, 19.
Noah plants a vineyard, drinks of the wine, is intoxicated,
and lies exposed in his tent, 20, 21.
The reprehensible conduct of Ham, 22.
The laudable carriage of Shem and Japheth, 23.
Noah prophetically declares the servitude of the posterity of
Ham, 24, 25;
and the dignity and increase of Shem and Japheth, 26, 27.
The age and death of Noah, 28, 29.
NOTES ON CHAP. IX
Verse 1. God blessed Noah] Even the increase of families, which appears to depend on merely natural means, and sometimes fortuitous circumstances, is all of God. It is by his power and wisdom that the human being is formed, and it is by his providence alone that man is supported and preserved.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
God renewed the old blessing and grant made Gen 1:28, which might seem to be forfeited and made void by man’s sin, and by God’s judgment consequent upon it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. And God blessed NoahHereis republished the law of nature that was announced to Adam,consisting as it originally did of several parts.
Be fruitful, &c.Thefirst part relates to the transmission of life, the original blessingbeing reannounced in the very same words in which it had beenpromised at first [Ge 1:28].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And God blessed Noah and his sons,…. With temporal blessings, not spiritual ones; for though some of them were blessed with such, yet not all, particularly Ham:
and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth; depopulated by the flood: this is a renewal of the blessing on Adam, a power and faculty of propagating his species, which was as necessary now as then, since there were so few of the human race left in the world; and the renewal of this grant was the rather necessary, if, as has been observed, Noah and his sons were restrained from cohabiting with their wives while in the ark: but though these words are not an express command for the propagation of their species, yet more than a bare permission, at least they are a direction and instruction to it, and even carry in them a promise of fruitfulness, that they should multiply and increase, which was very needful at this time.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
These divine purposes of peace, which were communicated to Noah while sacrificing, were solemnly confirmed by the renewal of the blessing pronounced at the creation and the establishment of a covenant through a visible sign, which would be a pledge for all time that there should never be a flood again. In the words by which the first blessing was transferred to Noah and his sons (Gen 9:2), the supremacy granted to man over the animal world was expressed still more forcibly than in Gen 1:26 and Gen 1:28; because, inasmuch as sin with its consequences had loosened the bond of voluntary subjection on the part of the animals to the will of man-man, on the one hand, having lost the power of the spirit over nature, and nature, on the other hand, having become estranged from man, or rather having rebelled against him, through the curse pronounced upon the earth-henceforth it was only by force that he could rule over it, by that “fear and dread” which God instilled into the animal creation. Whilst the animals were thus placed in the hand (power) of man, permission was also given to him to slaughter them for food, the eating of the blood being the only thing forbidden.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Blessing of Noah and His Sons. | B. C. 2348. |
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. 7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
We read, in the close of the foregoing chapter, the very kind things which God said in his heart, concerning the remnant of mankind which was now left to be the seed of a new world. Now here we have these kind things spoken to them. In general, God blessed Noah and his sons (v. 1), that is, he assured them of his good-will to them and his gracious intentions concerning them. This follows from what he said in his heart. Note, All God’s promises of good flow from his purposes of love and the counsels of his own will. See Eph 1:11; Eph 3:11. and compare Jer. xxix. 11. I know the thoughts that I think towards you. We read (ch. viii. 20) how Noah blessed God, by his altar and sacrifice. Now here we find God blessing Noah. Note, God will graciously bless (that is, do well for) those who sincerely bless (that is, speak well of) him. Those that are truly thankful for the mercies they have received take the readiest way to have them confirmed and continued to them.
Now here we have the Magna Charta–the great charter of this new kingdom of nature which was now to be erected, and incorporated, the former charter having been forfeited and seized.
I. The grants of this charter are kind and gracious to men. Here is,
1. A grant of lands of vast extent, and a promise of a great increase of men to occupy and enjoy them. The first blessing is here renewed: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth (v. 1), and repeated (v. 7), for the race of mankind was, as it were, to begin again. Now, (1.) God sets the whole earth before them, tells them it is all their own, while it remains, to them and their heirs. Note, The earth God has given to the children of men, for a possession and habitation, Ps. cxv. 16. Though it is not a paradise, but a wilderness rather; yet it is better than we deserve. Blessed be God, it is not hell. (2.) He gives them a blessing, by the force and virtue of which mankind should be both multiplied and perpetuated upon earth, so that in a little time all the habitable parts of the earth should be more or less inhabited; and, though one generation should pass away, yet another generation should come, while the world stands, so that the stream of the human race should be supplied with a constant succession, and run parallel with the current of time, till both should be delivered up together into the ocean of eternity. Though death should still reign, and the Lord would still be known by his judgments, yet the earth should never again be dispeopled as now it was, but still replenished, Acts xvii. 24-26.
2. A grant of power over the inferior creatures, v. 2. He grants, (1.) A title to them: Into your hands they are delivered, for your use and benefit. (2.) A dominion over them, without which the title would avail little: The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast. This revives a former grant (ch. i. 28), only with this difference, that man in innocence ruled by love, fallen man rules by fear. Now this grant remains in force, and thus far we have still the benefit of it, [1.] That those creatures which are any way useful to us are reclaimed, and we use them either for service or food, or both, as they are capable. The horse and ox patiently submit to the bridle and yoke, and the sheep is dumb both before the shearer and before the butcher; for the fear and dread of man are upon them. [2.] Those creatures that are any way hurtful to us are restrained, so that, though now and then man may be hurt by some of them, they do not combine together to rise up in rebellion against man, else God could by these destroy the world as effectually as he did by a deluge; it is one of God’s sore judgments, Ezek. xiv. 21. What is it that keeps wolves out of our towns, and lions out of our streets, and confines them to the wilderness, but this fear and dread? Nay, some have been tamed, Jas. iii. 7.
3. A grant of maintenance and subsistence: Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, v. 3. Hitherto, most think, man had been confined to feed only upon the products of the earth, fruits, herbs, and roots, and all sorts of corn and milk; so was the first grant, ch. i. 29. But the flood having perhaps washed away much of the virtue of the earth, and so rendered its fruits less pleasing and less nourishing, God now enlarged the grant, and allowed man to eat flesh, which perhaps man himself never thought of, till now that God directed him to it, nor had any more desire to than a sheep has to suck blood like a wolf. But now man is allowed to feed upon flesh, as freely and safely as upon the green herb. Now here see, (1.) That God is a good master, and provides, not only that we may live, but that we may live comfortably, in his service; not for necessity only, but for delight. (2.) That every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, 1 Tim. iv. 4. Afterwards some meats that were proper enough for food were prohibited by the ceremonial law; but from the beginning, it seems, it was not so, and therefore is not so under the gospel.
II. The precepts and provisos of this character are no less kind and gracious, and instances of God’s good-will to man. The Jewish doctors speak so often of the seven precepts of Noah, or of the sons of Noah, which they say were to be observed by all nations, that it may not be amiss to set them down. The first against the worship of idols. The second against blasphemy, and requiring to bless the name of God. The third against murder. The fourth against incest and all uncleanness. The fifth against theft and rapine. The sixth requiring the administration of justice. The seventh against eating of flesh with the life. These the Jews required the observance of from the proselytes of the gate. But the precepts here given all concern the life of man.
1. Man must not prejudice his own life by eating that food which is unwholesome and prejudicial to his health (v. 4): “Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof (that is, raw flesh), shall you not eat, as the beasts of prey do.” It was necessary to add this limitation to the grant of liberty to eat flesh, lest, instead of nourishing their bodies by it, they should destroy them. God would hereby show, (1.) That though they were lords of the creatures, yet they were subjects to the Creator, and under the restraints of his law. (2.) That they must not be greedy and hasty in taking their food, but stay the preparing of it; not like Saul’s soldiers (1 Sam. xiv. 32), nor riotous eaters of flesh, Prov. xxiii. 20. (3.) That they must not be barbarous and cruel to the inferior creatures. They must be lords, but not tyrants; they might kill them for their profit, but not torment them for their pleasure, nor tear away the member of a creature while it was yet alive, and eat that. (4.) That during the continuance of the law of sacrifices, in which the blood made atonement for the soul (Lev. xvii. 11), signifying that the life of the sacrifice was accepted for the life of the sinner, blood must not be looked upon as a common thing, but must be poured out before the Lord (2 Sam. xxiii. 16), either upon his altar or upon his earth. But, now that the great and true sacrifice has been offered, the obligation of the law ceases with the reason of it.
2. Man must not take away his own life: Your blood of your lives will I require, v. 5. Our lives are not so our own as that we may quit them at our own pleasure, but they are God’s and we must resign them at his pleasure; if we in any way hasten our own deaths, we are accountable to God for it.
3. The beasts must not be suffered to hurt the life of man: At the hand of every beast will I require it. To show how tender God was of the life of man, though he had lately made such destruction of lives, he will have the beast put to death that kills a man. This was confirmed by the law of Moses (Exod. xxi. 28), and I think it would not be unsafe to observe it still. Thus God showed his hatred of the sin of murder, that men might hate it the more, and not only punish, but prevent it. And see Job v. 23.
4. Wilful murderers must be put to death. This is the sin which is here designed to be restrained by the terror of punishment (1.) God will punish murderers: At the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man, that is, “I will avenge the blood of the murdered upon the murderer.” 2 Chron. xxiv. 22. When God requires the life of a man at the hand of him that took it away unjustly, the murderer cannot render that, and therefore must render his own in lieu of it, which is the only way left of making restitution. Note, The righteous God will certainly make inquisition for blood, though men cannot or do not. One time or other, in this world or in the next, he will both discover concealed murders, which are hidden from man’s eye, and punish avowed and justified murders, which are too great for man’s hand. (2.) The magistrate must punish murderers (v. 6): Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, whether upon a sudden provocation or having premeditated it (for rash anger is heart-murder as well as malice prepense, Mat 5:21; Mat 5:22), by man shall his blood be shed, that is, by the magistrate, or whoever is appointed or allowed to be the avenger of blood. There are those who are ministers of God for this purpose, to be a protection to the innocent, by being a terror to the malicious and evildoers, and they must not bear the sword in vain, Rom. xiii. 4. Before the flood, as it should seem by the story of Cain, God took the punishment of murder into his own hands; but now he committed this judgment to men, to masters of families at first, and afterwards to the heads of countries, who ought to be faithful to the trust reposed in them. Note, Wilful murder ought always to be punished with death. It is a sin which the Lord would not pardon in a prince (2Ki 24:3; 2Ki 24:4), and which therefore a prince should not pardon in a subject. To this law there is a reason annexed: For in the image of God made he man at first. Man is a creature dear to his Creator, and therefore ought to be so to us. God put honour upon him, let not us then put contempt upon him. Such remains of God’s image are still even upon fallen man as that he who unjustly kills a man defaces the image of God and does dishonour to him. When God allowed men to kill their beasts, yet he forbade them to kill their slaves; for these are of a much more noble and excellent nature, not only God’s creatures, but his image, Jam. iii. 9. All men have something of the image of God upon them; but magistrates have, besides, the image of his power, and the saints the image of his holiness, and therefore those who shed the blood of princes or saints incur a double guilt.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
GENESIS – CHAPTER 9
Verses 1-7:
God, Elohim, gave specific instructions to Noah and his offspring regarding their role in the earth following the flood. Man is to “be fruitful – multiply – replenish” the earth. This is similar to God’s commission to Adam, with one important exception, Ge 1:28. To Adam God added, “and subdue it (the earth).” He omitted this in His commission to Noah. Sin forfeited the original dominion over the earth which man enjoyed, and this dominion can only be restored in the work of the Second Adam, Christ. This will be realized during the reign of Jesus on earth, the Millennium, see Re 20:4, 6; Isa 2:1-5; Isa 11:4-9; Isa 65:17-25.
In the new role of man on the post-flood earth, the relationship with the animal world changed. God implanted instinctive fear of man in ail the animal world. Given the choice, and under normal conditions, even the fiercest of wild beasts will run from man. And man is able to impose his will upon even the strongest (as the elephant) and the most fierce (as lions, tigers, leopards, etc.)
God instituted certain important changes in man’s role and relationships, in this commission to Noah. Ge 1:29, 30 implies that from Adam to the flood, man was essentially vegetarian. For the first time, God affirms that man may become carnivorous, with meat added to his diet. It is suggested that prior to the flood, the fruits and herbs and vegetables supplied all the necessary proteins and vitamins and minerals necessary for complete health. It is suggested that the conditions upon the earth and in the atmosphere following the flood altered in such a way that this was no longer true. After the flood, man needed the additional nutrients which meat could supply. The distinction between the clean and unclean creatures (Le 11:1-31) is not here mentioned. However, it is likely Noah was aware of this, even prior to the flood, Ge 7:2.
Verse 4 affirms a biological principle which medical science only recently discovered. As late as the mid-19th Century, people were “bled” by doctors to rid their bodies of diseases. But God said long ago that the life is in the blood. Throughout the Scriptures, the blood is regarded as the seat of the soul or the life-principle, see Le 17:11, 14; La 2:12; Isa 53:12; Jer 2:34; Pr 28:17, et. al. The Divine provision is that the blood must be drained from the carcass before eating it, and that blood is not to be eaten under any circumstances. This was strictly enforced in the Mosaic code. And it is advised for the well being of the Christian community, see Ac 15:20, 29; 21:25.
Medical research in the 20th Century has established that not only does the blood carry the life, it also carries death. A blood transfusion can be fatal to the recipient, if the donor is diseased. Thus the Divine prohibition of the eating of blood. is both esthetically and medically sound.
In verses 5, 6 God institutes the principle of capital punishment. As a Divine mandate, this was apparently not true from the time of Cain to the flood. However, since that time God’s specific command is the judicial sentence of death for the sin (crime) of willful murder. This is God’s requirement of justice, whether the one who takes life be a human or a beast. This statute was later incorporated into the Mosaic Law, Ex 21:28-32. It applies to the willful, unwarranted, deliberate act of murder, and not to “accidental” manslaughter.
Many today, even in the religious world, argue that the death penalty is “morally wrong,” that it is but a form of “legalized murder.” They contend that under the Christian “law of love” capital punishment no longer applies. But there is no evidence in the Scriptures to support this claim. God Himself instituted capital punishment, to show the sanctity of human life. And He has never repealed this principle.
Those who say the death penalty no longer applies today quote the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” to support their view. However, a literal translation of this is, “Thou shalt do no murder.” In Ex 20:13, the verb “kill” is ratsach. This is the word Elijah used (1 Kings 21:19) when he confronted Ahab with his complicity in the death of Naboth. Nine other Hebrew verbs are translated “kill” and each has a meaning different from ratsach. Thus, the Sixth Commandment does not prohibit the judicial sentence of capital punishment; rather, it defines and strengthens this mandate. It is an Hebrew-Christian axiom that “he who in malice aforethought takes the life of another forfeits his own right to live.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And God blessed Noah. We hence infer with what great fear Noah had been dejected, because God, so often and at such length, proceeds to encourage him. For when Moses here says, that God blessed Noah and his sons, he does not simply mean that the favor of fruitfulness was restored to them; but that, at the same time, the design of God concerning the new restitution of the world was revealed unto them. For to the blessing itself is added the voice of God by which he addresses them. We know that brute animals produce offspring in no other way than by the blessing of God; but Moses here commemorates a privilege which belongs only to men. Therefore, lest those four men and their wives, seized with trepidation, should doubt for what purpose they had been delivered, the Lord prescribes to them their future condition of life: namely, that they shall raise up mankind from death to life. Thus he not only renews the world by the same word by which he before created it; but he directs his word to men, in order that they may recover the lawful use of marriage, may know that the care of producing offspring is pleasing to Himself, and may have confidence that a progeny shall spring from them which shall diffuse itself through all regions of the earth, so as to render it again inhabited; although it had been laid waste and made a desert. Yet he did not permit promiscuous intercourse, but sanctioned anew that law of marriage which he had before ordained. And although the blessing of God is, in some way, extended to illicit connections, so that offspring is thence produced, yet this is an impure fruitfulness; that which is lawful flows only from the expressly declared benediction of God.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE DAWN OF HISTORY
Gen 1:1 to Gen 11:9.
IN beginning this Bible of the Expositor and Evangelist, I am keenly sensible of the seriousness of my task. The book to be treated is the Book of Books, the one and only volume that has both survived and increasingly conquered the centuries, and that now, in a hoary old age, shows no sign of weakness, holds no hint of decay or even decrepitude; in fact, the Book is more robust at this moment than at any time since it came to completion, and it gives promise of dominating the future in a measure far surpassing its influence upon the past.
The method of studying the Bible, to be illustrated in these pages, is, we are convinced, a sane and safe one, if not the most efficient one. Years since, certain statements from the pen of Dr. James M. Gray, superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute, fell under our eyes, and those statements have profoundly influenced our methods of study.
Five simple rules he suggested for mastering the English Bible:
First, Read the Book.
Second: Read it consecutively.
Third: Read it repeatedly.
Fourth: Read it independently.
Fifth: Read it prayerfully.
Applying these suggestions to each volume in turn, if ones life be long continued, he may not hope to master his English Bible, but he will certainly discover its riches increasingly, and possess himself more and more of its marvelous treasures,
It was on the first Sunday of July, 1922, that I placed before myself and my people the program of study that produced these volumes. To be sure, much of the work had been done back of that date, but the determination to utilize it in this exact manner was fully adopted there and then. It was and is my thought that the greatest single weakness of the present-day pulpit exists in the circumstance that we have departed from the custom of our best fathers in the ministry, namely, Scriptural exposition. If, therefore, these volumes shall lead a large number of my brethren in the ministry, particularly the young men among them, to become expository preachers, and yet to combine exposition with evangelism, my reward will be my eternal riches.
Stimulated by that high hope, I turn your attention to the study itself, and begin where the Book begins and where all true students should begin, with Gen 1:1, but in thought, an eternity beyond the hour of its phrasing, for by the opening sentence we are pushed back to God. In the beginning
GOD.
That is the starting point of all true studies. The scientist is compelled to start there, or else he never understands where he is, nor yet with what he deals. God, the One of infinite wisdom, infinite power, infinite justice and of infinite goodnessIn the beginning God.
Having heard that name and having understood the One to whom it is applied, we are prepared for what follows,created the heavens and the earth marvelous first verse of the Bible!
All in this first chapter is wrapped up in that first sentence; that is the explanation of all things; what follows is simply the setting forth of details.
I agree with Joseph Parker that the explanation is simple. No attempt at learned analysis; that the explanation is sublime because it sweeps in all of time, all of material suggestions, all of power and illustrates all of wisdomthe heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork; day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge, and it is a sufficient explanation, the only one that satisfies the mind of man.
Infidel evolutionists cannot account for the beginnings. The geologist who does not believe, digs down to a point where he says, Who started all of this? and waits in sadness while the dumb rocks are silent; but for the Christian student no such mystery makes his work an enigma.
Everywhere he sees the touch of God; in the plants, the animals, the birds and in man,God. Where the unbeliever wonders and questions to get no reply, the believer admires, saying, This is my Fathers hand, the work of my Fathers word. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear (Heb 11:3), and he joins with the Psalmist, Let all nations praise the name of the Lord for He commanded and they were created (Psa 108:5).
Competent scholars have called attention to the careful use of words in the Bible, a use so painstaking and perfect as to give a scientific demonstration of the verbal inspiration theory. When it is said that God created the heavens and the earth, the Hebrew verb bara is employed, and it means to create something from nothing, so that God gave the death blow to the evolution theory some thousands of years before that unprovable hypothesis was born! The same word bara is also used in the 21st verse (Gen 1:21) concerning the creation of mammals, and three times in the 27th verse (Gen 1:27) concerning the creation of man, while a kindred word asah (neither of which convey any such thought as growth or evolution) is employed concerning His making man in His own image in Gen 1:26.
God, then, is not a mechanic; He is a Creator. He did not come upon the scenes of the universe to fashion what existed independent and apart from Him, but to create and complete according to His own pleasure.
In later chapters we shall show how these creative acts are confirmed by science itself, and argue the utter folly of trying to find incompatibility between Gods Work and Gods Word.
So for the present we may pass from God the Creator, as revealed in the first chapter, to
ADAM THE MAN
of the second chapter. An infinite decline, somebody says. But let us be reminded that it is not so great as appears at this present hour. The only man God ever made outright was not what you and I see now. The man He made was in His own image, after His own likeness, only as far below
Him as the finite is below the infinite; as the best creation is below the best Creator.
The man God made was good. The man God made was great. The man God made was wise. The man God made was holy. The men we see now are not His children, but the children of the fallen Adam instead, for Eve, fallen, brought forth after her kind; and what a fall was that!
When man disobeyed, he brought on himself and all succeeding ages sin, and its wretched results. There are those who blame God for the fall of man and say, He had no business to make him so he could fall. But everything that is upright can fall, and the difference between a man who could not fall and a man who could fall is simply the difference between a machine and a sentient, intelligent, upright, capable being.
There was but a single point at which this man could oppose Providence. Situated and environed as Adam was, the great social sins that have crushed the race could make no appeal to him. It is commonly conceded that the Decalogue sweeps the gamut of social, ethical and even religious conduct. Adam had no occasion to bow down before another God, for Jehovah, his Creator, was his counsellor and friend, and of other gods he knew nothing nor had he need of such. There was no provocation that could tempt him to take the name of that God in vain. There was no Sabbath day, for all days were holy, and the condemnation to labor was not yet passed. There was no father and mother to be honored. To have committed murder was unthinkable; first because there was no provocation, and second, such an act would have left him in the world alone, his heart craving, unsatisfied, and his very kind to perish. The seventh commandment meant nothing to the man whose wife was in the image of God, and the only woman known. Theft was impossible, since all things belonged to him. False witness and covetousness against a neighborhe had no neighbor.
But when God selected for Himself a single tree, leaving the rest of the earth to Adam, and he proved himself unwilling to let the least of earthly possessions be wholly the Lords, he gave an illustration to the unborn millenniums that man, in his almost infinite greatness, would not abide content that God Himself should be over and above him; and from that moment until this, that very thing has been the crux of every contention between the Divine and the human. If we may believe the Prophets, it was that very temptation that caused Lucifers fall and gave us the devil and hell!
All talk of shallow minds that God condemned the race because one man happened to bite into an apple, is utterly wide of the mark. Condemnation rests upon the race because every man born of the flesh has revealed the same spirit of rebellion shown by our first parentswe will not have God rule over us even to the extent of keeping anything from us. The wealth of His gifts should shame and restrain against His few prohibitions.
But, alas for mans guilt and godlessness! Equally wide of the mark is that other superficial reasoning that it is unjust of God to condemn me because some one of my forefathers misbehaved! Why charge God with injustice concerning something He has never done and will never do? Why not let
Him speak for Himself in such matters, and listen when he declares, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him (Eze 18:20).
If, therefore, Adam with a body, mind and spirit unsullied, never having been weakened by an evil act or habit, did not stand, what hope for any man in his own merit. Are we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that we are all under sin. As it is written, There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are altogether become unprofitable (Rom 3:9-12).
You say that the temptation was a subtle one. I answer, Yes, that is Satans way to this hour. You say, The desire was for wisdom. I answer, Yes, that is still Satans appeal; you need to see and to know more than you do, hence you had better try this sin.
Over one of the most palatial but wicked doorways of all Paris there used to be an inscription, Come in; nothing to pay, and so far as mere entrance to that place was concerned, that was true. But those who entered found when they had come out that they had visited the place at the cost of character, not to speak of that meaner thing money.
In passing, we call your attention to the justice of Gods judgment upon this sin. Its heaviest sentence fell upon the serpent, Satans direct agent; that wisest of all beasts of the field. He was accursed above all cattle, and brought down from his upright, manly-appearing position to go upon his belly and to eat dust all his days, and to be hated and killed by the seed of the woman with whom he had had such influence.
The second sentence in weight fell upon the woman who listened to this deception and led the way in disobedience. The man did not escape. The associate in sin never does. His love for the principal may in some measure mitigate Gods judgment, but the justice of God would be called in question, and even His goodness, if He permitted any sin to be unpunished.
EVE, THE PRINCIPAL PERSON
in this third chapter must have been in her unfallen state Adams equal, mentally and morally. We have had great women, beautiful women, women worthy the admiration of the world, but I have an idea that the worlds greatest woman was not Cleopatra, the beautiful but selfish; nor Paula, that firmest of all friends; nor Heloise, the very embodiment of affection; nor Joan or Arc, heroism incarnate; nor Elizabeth, the wonderful queen; nor Madam De Stael of letters; nor Hannah Moore of education; but Eve, our first mother.
When I think on her and look at the frail, feeble, sickly, sinful sister of the streets, I feel like weeping over the fact that our first mother fell; and today among her daughters are those so far removed from Gods ideal.
THE FAMILY
of the fourth chapter had its beginning in sin, and it is a dreadfully dark picture that is here presented. Envy, murder and lust appear at once. Abel is murdered, Cain made a criminal, polygamy introduced and all social vices which curse the sons of God. The picture would incite despair, but for the circumstance that in the third chapter God had made a promise which put Grace instead of Law.
There was need, for unless the womans seed should bruise the serpents head, that serpents venom will not only strike the heel of every son, but send its poison coursing to his heart and head; without God, without hopedead indeed!
Truly, as one writer has said, We lose our life when we lose our innocence; we are dead when we are guilty; we are in hell when we are in shame.
Death does not take a long time to come upon us; it comes on the very day of our sin. In the day when thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Before that sentence there is no hope, except in these words spoken of the seed of woman against that old serpent, Satan; It shall bruise thy head the first prophecy of the wonderful gift of Gods Son.
Of
CAIN AND ABEL
we appreciate the contrast! The self-righteousness on the part of one; self-abasement on the part of the other. Cains saying, The fruit of mine own hands shall suffice for my justification before God; Abel saying, Without the shedding of blood there is no remission, and that spirit of Cain dominates the early society, as we have already seen; for while the population grew rapidly, sin kept pace, and even seemed swifter still. From self-righteousness they rushed to envy, to murder, and to lust.
The Pharisee may thank God that he is not as other men are, but history is likely to demonstrate the want of occasion for his boasting, for pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
The most dangerous man is the man who recognizes no dependence upon another than himself; and the man most likely to be an extortioner, to be unjust, the man most apt to be an adulterer, yea, even a murderer, is this same Cain who says, See the fruit of my hands. The youthful Chicago murderers thought their fine family connections and their university educations would save them from suspicion and condemnation! I tell you, it is the humble man who is justified in Gods sight!
The man who cries, God be merciful to me a sinnerrather than the man who wipes his lips and says, I am clean, and is offended when you talk to him of the necessity of purifying Blood in which to baptize his soulhe is the man who is justified in Gods sight.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER
covers a period of about 1,500 years, and contains but one great name, not introduced in the other chapters, and this is the name of Enoch. Note that his greatness consisted in the single fact that he walked with God.
Dr. Dixon said, He did not try to induce God to walk with him. He simply fell in with Gods ways and work.
Some one asked Abraham Lincoln to appoint a day of fasting and prayer that God might be on the side of the Northern Army. To this that noble President replied, Dont bother about what side God is on. He is on the right side. You simply get with Him.
Enoch was an every-day hero! Walking patiently, persistently, continuously is harder than flying. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Like Enoch of old, they shall not see death, for God shall take them, and before their translation they shall have this testimony that they please God.
We have said that this fifth chapter covers 1,500 years. I call you to note the fact that it contains a multitude of names; names that even the best of Bible students do not, and cannot call. Nobody has ever committed them to memory; nobody cares to. They are not worth it. They were given to no noble deeds; they lived and died. The only wonder we have about them is that God let some of them live so long, unless it be that we also wonder how they managed to live so long and accomplish so little. Yet these nonentities have a part in Gods plan. They were bringing forth children; grandchildren came, and great grandchildren, and the children of great-grandchildren until Enoch was born, and by and by Noah; then the whole line was noble from Seth, Adams better of the living sons, down to these great names. It is worth while for a family to be continued for a thousand years, if, at the end of that time, one son can be born into the house who shall bring things to pass; one Enoch who shall walk with God; one Noah who shall save the race! There are people who are greatly distressed because their parents were neither lords, dukes nor even millionaires. They seem to think that the child who is to come to much must descend from a father of superior reputation at least. History testifies to the contrary, and shows us that the noblest are often born into unknown houses. The most gifted sons, the most wonderful daughters have been bred by parents of whom the great world never heard until these children, by their fame, called attention to their humble fathers.
The multiplied concessions that advocates of the evolution theory are obliged to make by facts they face at every turn, excite almost tender pity for them. Professor Conklin, in his volume The Direction of Human Evolution puts forth an endeavor in splendid defense of this hypothesis worthy of a better cause, and yet again and again he is compelled to say the things that disprove his main proposition. Consider these words. Think of the great men of unknown lineage, and the unknown men of great lineage; think of the close relationship of all persons of the same race; of the wide distribution of good and bad traits in the whole population; of incompetence and even feeble-mindedness in great families, and of genius and greatness in unknown families, and say whether natural inheritance supports the claims of aristocracy or of democracy.
When we remember that most of the great leaders of mankind came of humble parents; that many of the greatest geniuses had the most lowly origin; that Shakespeare was the son of a bankrupt butcher and an ignorant woman who could not write her name, that as a youth he is said to have been known more for poaching than for scholarship, and that his acquaintance with the London theatres began by his holding horses for their patrons; that Beethovens mother was a consumptive, the daughter of a cook, and his father a confirmed drunkard; that Schuberts father was a peasant by birth and his mother a domestic servant; that Faraday, perhaps the greatest scientific discoverer of any age, was born over a stable, his father a poor sick black-smither, his mother an ignorant drudge, and his only education obtained in selling newspapers on the streets of London and later in working as apprentice to a book-binder; that the great Pasteur was the son of a tanner; that Lincolns parents were accounted poor white trash and his early surroundings and education most unpromising; and so on through the long list of names in which democracy glories when we remember these we may well ask whether aristocracy can show a better record. The law of entail is aristocratic, but the law of Mendel is democratic.
Quaint old Thomas Fuller wrote many years ago in his Scripture Observations,
I find, Lord, the genealogy of my Saviour strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations:
1. Roboam begat Abia, that is a bad father and a bad son.
2. Abia begat Asa, that is a bad father a good son.
3. Asa begat Josaphat, that is a good father a good son.
4. Josaphat begat Joram, that is a good father a bad son.
I can see, Lord, from hence that my fathers piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.
It is not so much a question as to your birth, or to the line in which you are, as to the nobleness of the family tree, as it is what sort of a branch you are; what sort of a branch you may become.
The Duke of Modena flung a taunt at a Cardinal in a controversy, reminding him that his father was only a swineherd of the Dukes father. The Cardinal calmly replied, If your father had been my fathers swineherd, you would have been a swineherd still.
In the race of life it does not make so much difference where we start as how we end.
I do not mean to despise the laws of heredity. They are somewhat fixed, wise and wonderful. The child of a good father has the better chance in this world, beyond doubt. But our plea is that no matter who the fathers are, we may so live that our offspring shall be named by all succeeding generations. I call attention to Enoch in illustration.
About
NOAH
four chapters or more enwrap themselves. Gods man has a large place in history. It is hard enough for Him to find one who is faithful, but when found He always has an important commission for him.
The most important commission ever given to any man was given to this man; namely, that of saving the race. Noah did his best, but when he saw that he was not succeeding with the outside world, he turned his hope to himself as the last resort; to his family as his possible associates. That is always the last resort. Man must save himself, or he can save no one else. The man who saves himself by letting God save him, stands a good chance of being accepted by his own family, and his faith will doubtless find its answer in their salvation as well. Even if it fail with the outside world, that world will be compelled to remember, when Gods judgment comes, that this commissioned one did what he could for them.
In Hebrews we read, By faith Noah moved with fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house. The fear of man bringeth a snare. The fear of God effects salvation. The fear of man makes a coward; the fear of God incites courage. The fear of man means defeat; the fear of God accomplishes success. Be careful whom you fear! I like the man who can tremble before the Father of all. I pity the man who trembles before the face of every earthly foe.
The story is told that two men were commissioned by Wellington to go on a dangerous errand. As they galloped along, one looked at the other, saying, You are scared. Yes, replied his comrade, I am, but I am still more afraid not to do what the commander said. The first turned his horse and galloped back to the Generals tent and said, Sir, you have sent me with a coward. When I looked at him last his face was livid with fear and his form trembled like a leaf. Well, said Wellington, you had better hurry back to him, or he will have the mission performed before you get there to aid. As the man started back he met his comrade, who said, You need not go. I have performed the mission already.
It was through Noah that the Lord gave to humanity a fresh start. God is always doing that. It is the meaning of every revolutionGod overrules it for a fresh start. That is the meaning of wars they may be Satanic in origin, but God steps in often and uses for a fresh start. That is the meaning of the wiping out of nationsa fresh start, and man is always doing what he did at the firstfalling again.
Noah was a righteous man; with his family he made up the whole company of those who had been loyal to God, and one might vainly imagine that from such a family only deeds of honor, of valor, acts of righteousness would be known to earth. Alas for our hope in the best of men!
He has scarcely set foot upon dry ground when we read, (Gen 9:20-21), Noah began to be a husbandman and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine, and was drunken, and he was uncovered in his tent, and down the race went again! Man has fallen, and his nakedness is uncovered before God, and the shame of it is seen by his own blood and bone. Truly, by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight, because our deeds are not worthy of it. Faith becomes the only foundation of righteousness. That is what the eleventh chapter of Hebrews was written to teach us. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, and when once a man has fixed his faith in the living God, and keeps it there, the God in whom he trusts keeps him, and that is his only hope. For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast (Eph 2:8-9).
NIMROD
the principal personage in the tenth chapter has his offices given. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and he was a king. The beginning of his kingdom by Babel and Erich, and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
Our attention has been called to the fact that before this chapter, nations are unknown, but now established government appears. Chapter 9:6 is the basis of it, and in Rom 13:2-4 we see that God set the seal of His approval upon it. Nimrod comes forth as the first autocrat and conqueror. One can almost hear the marches to and fro of the people in this chapter; cities are going up and civilization doubtless thought it was making advance, but how far it advances we shall speedily see.
The things in its favor were dexterously employed. Some wise men suddenly remembered that they all had one speech and said, We ought to make the most of it. True, as Joseph Parker says, Wise men are always getting up schemes that God has to bring to naught. Worldly wise men have been responsible for the most of the confusion our civilization has seen. Men who get together in the places of Shinar and embark in real estate, and lay out great projects and pull in unsuspecting associates, and start up tremendous enterprises, and say, under their breath, in their secret meetings, We will get unto ourselves a great name. We will exalt ourselves to heaven, and after the world has done obeisance to us, we will walk among the angels and witness them bow down; but God still lives and reigns. The men who count themselves greatest are, in His judgment, the least; and those that reckon themselves most farseeing, He reckons the most foolish; and those who propose to get into Heaven by ways of their own appointment, He shuts out altogether and drives them from His presence, and they become wandering stars, reserved for the blackness of darkness; for we must learn that self-exaltation brings Gods abasement. He that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. God is willing that man shall come to Heaven but, as some one has said, If we ever get to Heaven at all, it will not be by the dark and rickety staircases of our own invention, but on the ladder of Gods love in Christ Jesus.
God is willing that we should have a mansion, but the mansion of His desire is not the wooden or brick structure that would totter and fall, but the building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. God is willing that we should dwell in towers, but not the towers of pride and pomp, but those of righteousness wrought out for us in Christ Jesus.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.
Gen. 9:1. God] Heb. Elohim. Blessed] Similar to the blessing pronounced upon Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:28.
Gen. 9:2. The fear of you, and the dread of you] The fear of you, as existing in the inferior animals. Dread imparts a greater intensity of meaning into the wordthe fear which paralyses. It may be that even in Paradise the lower animals had a wholesome fear of man, by means of which they could be kept in subjection. Now they are to be ruled by force and terror.
Gen. 9:3. Every moving thing that liveth] This form of permission forbids the using of any animal that hath died of itself.
Gen. 9:4. But the flesh with the life thereof] Some suppose that it is hereby intended to forbid the cruel custom of some ancient nations in tearing off the flesh from living animals. But this was the practice of later heathenism, and it is therefore more probable that we have here a command that the blood of animals must first be shed before they can be used for food. This prohibition was also made to serve the purpose of educating the people to the idea of the sacredness of blood as a means of atonement (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22).Life.] The animating principlethe animal soul. The blood is regarded as the basis of life (Deu. 12:23). The blood is the fluid-nerve: the nerve is the constructed blood (Lange). He disgorges the crimson tide of life (Virgil), n. IX., 348.
Gen. 9:5. Your blood of your lives] LXX. has blood of your soulsthe blood which contains the life or animal principle.Require] i.e., judicially, in the sense of making inquisition for; same verb used in Psa. 9:12.At the hand of every beast] They have no right to human flesh, and men are to avenge the injuries they suffer from them. Hence their extermination is justifiable for the protection of human life.Every mans brother] Heb. Of every man, his brother. Society was thus permitted to inflict punishment for the highest wrongs against itself. Every man was to see in every other a brother, which recognition would give an awful significance to the crime of murder. Some consider that the duty of blood-vengeance is thus laid upon the next of kin; but this sprang up in later times, and it is better to take the words as laying down the principle of all such punishments.Life of man] Man is emphatic.
Gen. 9:6. By man] This would seem to denote the instrument of the action, yet the Hebrew has a special phrase to indicate such a meaning, in that case using the expression by the hand of man. It is more probable that the preposition denotes substitution n the place of man, life for life. Thus 2Sa. 14:7, For the soul (the life, or in place of) his brother. The LXX has (Gen. 9:6) in return for his blood. The Targum of Onkelos has by the witnesses according to the word of judgment.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 9:1-7
THE DIVINE BENEDICTION ON THE NEW HUMANITY
The human race now starts from a new beginning. Through the Fall the contagion of sin had spread until the Old World had reached a maturity of corruption, and tempted beyond forbearance the vengeance of Heaven. The terrible judgment of the Flood overwhelmed the violence that filled the earth, and destroyed all except the eight souls who were saved by water. But Mercy at length finds a time for rejoicing and triumph, and those deeds of kindness in which she delights. The Divine benediction, so full of present gifts and of promise, came in answer to pious devotion expressed in an act of sacrifice. The new humanity had acknowledged sin, and the necessity of propitiating Him to whom alone man has to render an account. Gods blessings are no empty form of words, no pleasing abstractions in which alone philosophic meditation can delight. They are substantial good. God loves, and therefore gives. The word of blessing, in Gen. 9:1, is afterwards expanded into gifts and provisions for the new humanity. God blessed Noah and his sons, and spake unto them in words which represented solid benefits. Here we have blessing in the form of provisions for this new beginning of the human race.
I. Provision for the Continuity of its Physical Life (Gen. 9:1). Death must still reign until destroyed as the last enemy. Successive generations shall go down to the grave, to be replaced by others who in their turn must submit to the common fate. But while the individual dies, as far as his portion and work in the world are concerned, the race is destined to be immortal. The stream of human life must flow on throughout the ages, until God shall be pleased to bring in a new order, and the former things be passed away. This continuity of humanity through the wastes of death is to be maintained by the institution of marriage. To these progenitors of the new race, God said, as to our first parents, Be fruitful and multiply. Sexual sin Lad been the ruin of the old world; but now it shall be seen that lawful connections can be formed and the proper uses of marriage secured. The command to replenish the earth by the multiplication of the species is now given to men who with their wives came forth out of the ark. It is therefore a re-affirmation of the sanctity of marriage. This divinely appointed provision for the continuance of man upon the earth.
1. Raises the relation between the sexes above all degrading associations. Without the protection and guidance of a divine ordinance, such relations would be chiefly governed by natural instincts. Marriage controls these, and restrains their impetuosity within wholesome bounds. It brings the relation between the sexes under the sanction of Gods order, by which it becomes ennobled. Man is thus reminded that moral responsibility belongs to him in all the relations of life.
2. Tends to promote the stability of society. Wild and untamed passions, the indulgence of animal instincts without control, will keep any society of men in the lowest possible condition. It is only when the reason and conscience submit to the laws of God that man can exist in stable society, or rise in the family of nations. Men are not to herd together as beasts, they must live together, otherwise they debase the dignity of human nature. They cannot form a society possessing strength and nobility, unless they acknowledge that the relations of life rest upon something out of sight. They are ultimately spiritual relations. There is no real progress for man, unless in all the relations of life he acknowledges the will of the Supreme Father. Marriage is the foundation of the family, and the family is the foundation of the State.
3. Promotes the tender charities of life. To this ordinance we owe the love of husband and wife, parent and child, and the play of all those affections that make home sacred. Whatever is noble and tender in natural instinct becomes enhanced and permanent when God is acknowledged in all the domestic relations of life.
II. Provision for its sustenance (Gen. 9:3). In the history of the human creature the sustenance of life is the first consideration, though not the most important. It is necessary first to live before we can live well. First that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual, is the order of human progress, as it is the order in which we must supply the wants of our nature. Life is a flame that must be sustained by something outside of itself. No creature can live on its own blood. The physical life of man must be preserved by the ministry of other livesanimal, vegetable. For this end God has given man dominion over the earth, and especially over all other lives in it. We may regard this sustenance which God has provided for mans lower wants
(1) as a reason for gratitude. Our physical necessities are the most immediate, the most intimate to us. We should acknowledge the hand that provides for them. We should feel how much we are beholden to God for our very life itself, upon which foundation even the highest blessings rest. The order of thought requires that we thank God for our creation and preservation, even before we thank Him for His love to us in Christ Jesus. We may regard Gods provision herein
(2) as an example of the law of mediation. Mans life is preserved by the instrumentality of others. Gods natural government of the world is carried on by means of mediation, from which we may infer that such is the principle of His moral government. That bread of life by which our souls are sustained comes to us through a Mediator. Thus Gods provisions for our common wants may be made a means of educating us in higher things. Nature has the symbols and suggestions of spiritual truths
(3) as a ground for expecting greater blessings. If God made so rich and varied a provision to supply the necessities of the body, it was reasonable to expect that He would care and provide for the deeper necessities of the soul. Man was made in the image of God, and invested with dominion over the world. He is of the blood-royal of Heaven, and may be permitted to hope for those better things suitable to his high estate. God will surely maintain His own glory in caring for His image. If there be no provision for our souls, then would there be a strange break in the dealings of God with man, and a fatal gulf between Heaven and earth.
III. Provision for its protection. Human life must be protected from dangerous enemies (Gen. 9:5-6). There are evils against which no human foresight can provide, but there are many more from which we have abundant means of defending ourselves. Though the dominion of man over nature has limitations, yet it is real; otherwise man could never have held his place against such tremendous obstacles. It is necessary that our physical life be protected
1. From the ferocity of animals. From their numbers and strength, these would be formidable enemies. They increase rapidly and exist in external conditions against which the natural weakness of man could not contend. Their time of utter helplessness in infancy is short, they soon become independent of their fellows, they are provided with clothing and weapons of defence and attack.
Hale are their young, from human frailties freed,
Walk unsustained or unsupported feed;
Bound oer the lawn, or seek the distant glade,
And find a home in each delightful shade.
Man, on the other hand, passes through a long period of weakness and entire dependence upon others, requires artificial clothing to shelter him from the cold. He is not provided by nature with any formidable weapons for his defence; yet subdues all things, captures other animals for his food, compels them to perform his work, or tames them to make him sport. Man, inferior in every physical quality and advantage, reigns over them by his superior reason. The force of intellect, by directing and controlling all other forces, maintains his pre-eminence. The lower animals acknowledge his majesty in fear and dread. The Providence of God preserves the balance of power, in a wonderful manner, between man and the lower animals. Man has the Divine sanction for protecting himself against their ferocity. He is commanded to avenge the life of his fellow upon them. It is lawful for him to seek their extermination, should they become dangerous to his existence. Human life must be held sacred, and its rights vindicated, even when they are invaded by a blind ferocity.
2. From the violence of evil men. Sinners were destroyed by the flood, yet sin remained in the human family. The evils of our nature were too deeply seated to be cleansed away even by so dire a judgment. It was contemplated that in this new humanity evil passions would arise, and drive men to deeds of violence against their fellows. God would require, judicially, the blood of man at the hands of him who shed it, and has given authority to man to execute His vengeance. In this permission and command there may be a remembrance of Cain, who did the first murder. The new society must be protected by holding a terrible penalty over murderers. The Bible does not indulge in poetical theories of human nature, but soberly acknowledges all its most terrible facts.
IV. Provision for its Morality. Without morality society cannot be stable, exist in comfort, or make progress. Nations having the highest resources of talent, power, and wealth, have yet been destroyed by their own corruptions. The new humanity must have laws of right conduct, and sufficient penalties to enforce them; else it could not continue in prosperity, or rise to higher things. The inbred corruption of human nature, its fierce passions, imperfections, and frailties, demanded the restraint of law. Here, however, we have not so much the external command as (what might be called) the material and principle of law. We have the ethics of human conduct not settled into formulated statements, but held in solution. The aim is to attack the evils of society in their roots, to give ennobling views of human nature, and to create a sufficient authority on the side of order and good.
1. Hence the tendency to cruelty was to be repressed. They were not to eat the blood of animals. The prohibition was necessary to preserve men from acquiring savage tastes, and practising gross and revolting forms of cruelty. This would be one of the effects of the command to abstain from the use of blood, though it is probable that a higher lesson was intended. All that tends to repress cruelty greatly modifies the evils of depravity, is on the side of goodness, and strengthens the charities of the heart. Cruelty imparts a terrible momentum to evil, until that which is sad and pitiable becomes monstrous and horrible. When men are seized by this demon of cruelty, they go rapidly to the extremest verge of sin and crime. Hence to forbid what may lead to cruelty is a wise provision to preserve morality.
2. They were to remember the fact of mutual brotherhood. At the hand of every mans brother. God was the universal Father, and the human race was His family. Every man was to see in every other a brother. The recognition of this fact would be a fruitful source of goodwill towards all, and a promoter of social order and morality. No deed of violence, cruelty, or wrong could be done where there was a full and real knowledge of this truth. This conviction of our common brotherhood is so disguised, overlaid, and silenced by the depravity within and around us that it is comparatively weak as a restraint on the evils of the world. It can only be clear and come to strength and efficacy when we read it in the light of our Lords redeeming work. Men cannot have true union with one another until they have union with God through His Son. The hand has no direct connection with the foot, but each is connected with one centre of life. The unity of the body is thus maintained, and so it must be with the members of the human family. There will be no perfect union until they all partake of one spiritual life. Still, the fact of human brotherhood prepares the way for this sublime issue, and helps us to rise to the thought of it. The tie that really binds men together must be spiritual.
3. Morality was to be protected by authority armed with penalties. (Gen. 9:6.) Society was empowered to punish crimes committed against itself. The whole community, by means of appointed and responsible persons, must avenge the wrong done to any of the individuals of which it is composed. Here we have the punishment to be inflicted upon those who commit the highest offence against society. Hence the origin and use of the civil magistrate. The community should be on the side of right and justice, and against violence and wrong. But, for the sake of convenience, it is necessary that this feeling should be represented and the duties belonging to it carried out by the officers of the law. They represent the authority of God, and the just feeling of society. Nations could not exist with the stability and privileges of civil life without a government strong enough to enforce the laws. The form of government is a human ordinance, arising out of the necessities of life and moulded by the events of political history, but the end of government is of Divine appointment. By requiring so terrible a penalty from him who sheds the blood of man, God has given His sanction to the office of the civil magistrate. Such deal with offences against morality in the form of crime, or of evils affecting the comfort and well-being of society. In the present condition of mankind, teaching and moral suasion are insufficient to preserve public peace and order. There must be an authority, which is to be feared by evildoers. God sets His seal upon human institutions which have the safety and well-being of mankind for their object. Hence in this new beginning of the race, He directs that men shall protect themselves against all deeds of injustice and violence.
V. Provision for its Religion. Something more must be considered than the safety and prosperity of men regarded as inhabitants of this world. Man needs a religion, for he is conscious of relations with a higher world. We have here the outlines of certain religious truths, which compel us to refer the principles of conduct and the foundation of authority ultimately to God. They were also intended to prepare humanity for the superior light of a later Revelation
1. Mankind were to be educated to the idea of sacrifice. (Gen. 9:4.) Blood was forbidden as a separate article of food. Men were to be taught to regard it as a sacred thing, so that they might be prepared for the fact that God had set it apart as the symbol of expiation. The education of humanity is a slow process, and in its earlier stages it was necessary that men should attain to the knowledge of the deep truths of religion by the aid of outward symbols. Pictures and illustrations of truth were suitable to the childhood of the world. Mankind were first to see the form and appearance of truth before they could examine its structure, or know its essence. The sanctity of blood prepared the way for the rites of sacrifice, and sacrifice taught the sinfulness of sin and the necessity of some Divine expedient for restoring man to the favour of God. It also suggested mans superior relation to God and to the spiritual world. If man were not accountable to his Maker when this life is ended, why should he be taught the necessity of being purged from sin? Surely God contemplated a creature who, when he had attained purity, might be fitted to dwell with Himself.
2. Mankind were to be impressed with the true dignity of human nature. For the law concerning murder, there is the moral sanction arising from the brotherhood of man, but there is also the religious sanction founded upon the fact that he was made in the image of God. The sublime truths of revelation must be regarded as extravagant, unless we suppose them addressed to a creature having such dignity. Mankind were to be early impressed with the idea of their high and noble origin in order that they might be prepared for the successive advances of Gods kindness. The gifts of God, however great they may be, cannot be unsuitable to a being made in His image. From this fact we gather
1. That man has the capacity for religion. The image of God in him is greatly defaced, but it is not destroyed. He has the capacity for knowing God, for understanding his own responsibility, and feeling after the spiritual world. By this he is distinguished from, and placed far above, all other lives on the earth. There is something in man that answers to the voice of God and the suggestions of inspiration.
2. That man is destined for another life. To partake of the image of God is to partake of immortality. God, who has made and fashioned us in His likeness, will have respect to the work of His own hands, and will not suffer us to be destroyed in the grave.
3. Mankind must be taught to refer all authority and rule ultimately to God. The civil magistrate was to be invested with authority and power to punish the crime of murder by the infliction of the death penalty. The assigned reason is, man was made in the image of God. Thus all human authority, for its foundation and warrant, is cast ultimately on God. Religion is the life of all progress. Every question concerning the interests of mankind resolves itself, in the end, into a question of religion. Here are the only noble and sufficient impulses, motives, and sanctions of all the activities and aims of human life. Man must realise the full significance of his relations to God, that he might be fitted to occupy his position as the appointed ruler of the world.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 9:1. God gives his benediction at every great crisis in the history of mankind. Thus at the creation of man (Gen. 1:28). Even when He sent forth His fiery law, He loved the people and gave His blessing (Deu. 33:2-3). When the Messiah came, the blessing became more definite and plentiful.
At every great epoch of human history, Gods shows some sign of His favour to the race.
Gods blessing goes before His commands. Men must have the light of His favour before they can serve Him. Religion would be altogether impossible did not the grace of God go before men and lead the way.
This was the blessing of a Father, for it was spoken to His offspring. Given to rational beings, it implied duties which the righteous Father requires of His children.
God is the source of all paternity. Every society in heaven and earth must acknowledge Him as their origintheir Father. They were begotten by His gracious will (Joh. 1:13).
As the old blessing is repeated, so is the old command to be fruitful and multiply. God intends a human history, and thus provides for the continuity of the life of the race, without which history would be impossible.
In this text the marriage state is praised and celebrated, since thereout flows not only the order of the family and the world, but also the existence of the Church.(Lange.)
The earth was to be overcome by the diffusion of human life over it. Hence learn the energy of spiritual life, which is a power to conquer and subdue all opposition.
Mans place on earth is appointed by his Heavenly Father, who disdains not to give him direction for the lowest as well as the highest duties; for this world, and that which is to come.
Fruitfulness is another blessing of this stage. Just as in creation, when the third day rose, and the waters were restrained, the earth was made fruitful; so now in Noah, the third great stage in man, the flood being passed, man increases wonderfully. Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (Joh. 12:24). Now having died to the world by the cross, and the evil fruits which grow out of old Adam being judged by the overflowing waters, the new man within increases yet more. Being purged, he brings forth much fruit.(Jukes, Types of Genesis.)
The greatest desolations in the world cannot hinder God from having a people.(Hughes.)
The grant of increase is the same as at first, but expressed in ampler terms.(Murphy.)
Gen. 9:2. Human reason, fruitful as it is in resources of skill and contrivance, would not by itself secure the complete subjection of the lower animals. Man could not maintain his sovereignty unless they were weakened by dread and felt an awe of his majesty.
It is often Gods plan to work by an internal power upon the nature of His creatures as well as by influences from without.
To be compelled to rule by fear was a sign that man was now out of harmony with nature. This is one of the jarring notes of discord which sin has introduced.
Enmity is put between fallen man and all the brute creatures, as well as the serpent. But though they are so greatly superior in strength, their instinct is commonly to flee from the presence of man. If it were not so, how full of terror would man be in new settlements, where civilised society crowds upon the wilderness tribes.(Jacobus.)
Into your hand are they delivered. Man does not wear an empty title of sovereignty. A real dominion is conveyed to him.
The Scripture everywhere maintains the lordship of man. He is the central figure, all things deriving their worth and excellence from the relations in which they stand to him. Hence the Bible is not a history of external nature, but of man.
This dominion, as granted to the first Adam and renewed to Noah, was in itself limited and conditional, such as is fit to grant to sinners. As granted to the second Adam, He that is the Lord from heaven, under that mans feet God hath put all things (Heb. 2:6-9; 1Co. 15:27). This is given to Christ as Mediating Lord, and by Him is sanctified to His members; so the covenant renewed to Noah includes some special blessings in this dominion unto the Church, as it refers to the promised seed, the ground of all Gods gracious promises and revelations unto His people.(Hughes.)
God will, as it were, make a covenant for him with the beasts of the field, and they shall be at peace with him, or at least shall be awed by his authority. All this is out of respect to the mediation of Christ, and for the accomplishing of the designs of mercy through Him.(Fuller.)
Gen. 9:3. Physical life must be sustained by other lives of flesh and blood; mental, by the life of other minds; spiritual, by the infusion of the life of God.
God prepares a table for His family. Having granted the greater blessing, He will not withhold the lesser. He who gave life will give all that is necessary for its maintenance.
The daily supply of our common wants is now part of the established order of things. We are in danger of regarding it as a matter of course, and not calling for any special recognition. Yet we should realise the fact that these are gifts of God, and receive them as if they came fresh from His hand. The manna, though it came regularly every day, was yet given from heaven.
By the slaying of animals for food, men would grow familiar with the thought that life is preserved by death. They would be prepared for the doctrine of the atonement, where the death of the Divine victim procures the life of the world.
The grant of sustenance is no longer confined to the vegetable, but extended to the animal kinds, with two solemn restrictions. This explains how fully the animals are handed over to the will of man. They were slain for sacrifice from the earliest times. Whether they were used for food before that time we are not informed. But now every creeper that is alive is granted for food. Every creeper is every thing that moves with the body prone to the earth, and therefore in a creeping posture. This seems to describe the inferior animals in contradistinction to man, who walks erect. The phrase that is alive seems to exclude animals that have died a natural death from being used as food.(Murphy.)
Gen. 9:4. In the largest rights granted to man God reserves something to Himself. He maintains some supreme rights, and grants liberty with wholesome restraints.
It is Gods design to invest the seat of life with peculiar sacredness; to encourage that mysterious awe with which all life should be regarded.
The basis of life is still the most perplexing inquiry of philosophy. Human science fails to bridge over the chasm between physical organisms and the facts of volition and consciousness. It would seem that God has thrown around the whole subject the sacredness of mystery.
As the people were to be trained to great leading ideas of sin and salvation by means of these ritual ordinances, so they were to be taught of a special sanctity attaching to blood in the system of Divine grace. For without shedding of blood is no remission (Heb. 9:22). The natural horror of blood which obtains among men is evidence of such a Divine regulation.(Jacobus.)
As life, must the life of the beast go back to God its Creator; or, as life in the victim offered in sacrifice, it must become a symbol that the soul of man belongs to God, though man may partake of the animal materiality, that is, the flesh.(Lange.)
Blood is the life, and God seems to claim it as sacred to Himself. Hence, in all the sacrifices the blood was poured out before the Lord: and in the sacrifice of Christ, He shed His blood, or poured out His soul unto death.(Fuller.)
Gen. 9:5. Justice is not a mere abstraction, but a reality in the Divine nature, making demands upon the transgressor which must be satisfied, either by the provisions of grace, or by the exaction of penalty. Justice is made terribly real by the personality of God, the one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. (Jas. 4:12.) I will require.
The awful punishment for murder proclaims the sacredness of human life.
The principle is here approved that the safety of society must be secured at whatever cost to the individual.
The life of man was to be required judicially at the hands of irrational animals, though they must be ignorant of the moral aspects of their actions. Hence man has the right to exterminate them should it be necessary to the safety and welfare of society.
The civil magistrate is an ordinance of God, not an expedient of man to meet the necessities of society. We have reason to believe that the first ideas of law, order, and civilisation were the result of Divine teaching. Men have never risen from the savage state by any internal power, but have always been helped from without. A boat cannot be propelled by the strength of a man exerted within itsince action is always equal to reactionthe oar must press upon a fulcrum outside of it. In like manner, man, if he will make any progress, must have some fulcrum outside of himself.
This ordinance of the civil magistrate had not existed before this time. Rom. 13:4. From this preliminary legislation the synagogue has derived the seven Noachic precepts, which were held to be obligatory upon all proselytes. These forbid
(1) Idolatry.
(2) Blasphemy.
(3) Murder.
(4) Incest.
(5) Theft.
(6) Eating of blood and strangled animals.
(7) Disobedience to magistrates. (Jacobus.)
The brotherhood of man ought to be a sufficient guard of morality; but the sense of it in humanity is too weak to be effectual without the aid of religion, teaching, as it does, the highest form of that fact.
By thus reminding those who intend an injury to others of the common brotherhood of the race, there is an appeal to what is noble in human nature, which is anterior to the threat of law. We have here the suggestion and prophecy of those purer and nobler principles of action to which God is gradually leading up mankind. Moral principles are before the forms of law and shall survive them.
I will require it. The trebling of the expression notes the intention of care which God hath over the life of man.(Hughes.)
I, the Lord, will find the murderer out and exact the penalty of his crime. The very beast that causes the death of man shall be slain. The suicide and the homicide are alike accountable to God for the shedding of mans blood.(Murphy.)
Gen. 9:6. Here we have no pleasing dream of an ideal humanity. It is contemplated that the crime of murder would be committed.
The State must be founded upon justice, and in human society justice can only be maintained by punishment.
Punishment, though it may act as a deterrent, or as a means of improvement, must yet in itself be regarded as the upholding of justice against disobedience, the natural reaction of justice against its violation.
Those who are appointed to administer the law, and make effectual the sanctions of it, have a duty to do for society in the name of God.
Murder is the most extreme violation of the brotherly relation of mankind, and is to be punished accordingly. The penal power, attributable to God alone, is here committed to the hands of man.(Delitzsche.)
This image of God, in which man was first formed, so belongs even to fallen man that such wilful destruction of human life is to be regarded as a crime against the Divine majesty, thus imaged in man.(Jacobus.)
Capital punishment has been objected to on the ground that, as life is the gift of God, we have no right to take it away. But the real conflict here is between the sacredness of individual life and that of society. The question is not whether there shall be death, but whether society shall inflict it?
However expedient it may be to visit the crime of murder with the extreme penalty, yet the more excellent way, in which the spirit of the Christian religion leads, is to teach the sacredness of human life.
The image of God in man must be held as a constant fact, invariable in its essentials through all the changes of his moral history, and through all the mystery of his future. This fact has a bearing upon
(1) the question of human depravity. Man is not altogether evil. The image of God in him is only defaced, not destroyed. There is something in his nature to which religion can make an appeal, otherwise he would be incapable of it. There must be something in the soul answering to truth and goodness.
2. Upon the conversion of the soul. That great spiritual crisis in a mans life destroys none of his natural powers, but only directs them into new channels, and exalts their energy. The image of God is brought out more clearly and perfectly.
3. Upon immortality. Man was made in the image of God, and, therefore, in the image of His immortality. God will not suffer a spark of Himself to see corruption. The Gospel finds, but does not make, men immortal.
4. Upon wrongs done to our fellow creatures. He who sins against a man sins against God, to whose image he does dishonour. In an especial manner he does so who sins against a child, where the image of God is fresh and new. Hence our Lord pronounces a heavy woe upon all who lay a stumbling-block in their way.
The first law promulgated in Scripture was that between Creator and creature. And so it continued to be in the antediluvian world. No civil law is on record for the restriction of crime. So long as the law was between Creator and creature, God Himself was not only the sole legislator, but the sole administrator of the law. The second law is that between creature and creature. In the former case God is the administrator of the law, as He is the immediate and sovereign party in the legal compact. In the latter case, man is, by the express appointment of the Lord of all, constituted the executive agent.(Murphy.)
Gen. 9:7. An apparent repetition of Gen. 9:1, but with the added idea that the earth affords the necessary conditions for the multiplication of the race. The life of the earth is to be transformed into the life of man. The earth is the fruitful mother of mankind, both prefiguring and maintaining their fruitfulness.
How great is man, touching, as he does, the dust at one extremity and God at the other! He joins earth and heaven, frailty and immortal strength, brief life, and the day of eternity!
The command to multiply is repeated, and contains permission, not of promiscuous intercourse, like the brutes, but of honourable marriage. The same law which forbade the eating of blood, under the Gospel, forbade fornication.(Fuller.)
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Noachic Covenant! Gen. 9:1-17. We have here
(1) Principle of Government, as Gods institution for the good of His saints;
(2) Promulgation of Covenant, as Gods instruction to mankind of an everlasting covenant in Christ; and
(3) Proclamation of Rainbow, as Gods intimation of His faithfulness, in which no arrow shall ever find a place. There are men who can see no lofty aim in this chapter 9, and who only see the abstract moral principle of right and wrong, virtue and vice. Like the first visitors to the coral lagoons, they can only perceive a sheet of water; whereas deep down are the pearl-treasuresthe gems of great price. Dost thou well
To challenge the designs of the All-wise;
Or carp at projects which thou mayst but scan
With sight defective: typal contrivances
Of peerless skill and of unequalled art,
Framed by divinest wisdom to subserve
The subtle processes of grace?
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Representation! Gen. 9:1.
(1). In the earliest fauna and flora of the earth, one class stood for many. The earliest families combined the character of several families afterwards separately introduced. This is true, for instance, of ferns, which belong to the oldest races of vegetation. Of them it has been well said that there is hardly a single feature or quality possessed by flowering plants, of which we do not find a hint or prefiguration in ferns. It is thus most interesting to notice in the earliest productions of our earth, the same laws and processes which we observe in the latest and most highly developed flowers and trees.
(2) At the successive periods of the unfolding of Gods great promise, we find one individual representing the history of the race, and foreshadowing in brief the essential character of large phases and long periods of human development. Hence it is that here Noah becomes the representative of the patriarchal families in covenant with God. He is the individual with whom God enters into covenant, in relation to the successive generations of the human race.
(3) And in this respect Noah is a retrospective type of Him who, in the eternal ages, consented to be the representative of redeemed humanity, and with whom the Father made an everlasting covenant; and a prospective type of that same Representative who, in the fulness of time received the Divine assurance that in Him should all nations of the earth be blessed, when, as the Prince of Peace, He
Leads forth His armies with triumphal palms,
And hymning hallelujahs, while his foes
Are crushed before Him, and Himself assumes
The sceptre of His rightful universe.
Bible Revision! Gen. 9:1. etc.
(1) The last four verses of Genesis 8 properly belong to Genesis 9. In any future revision, these 4 verses, along with the first 17 verses of Genesis 9, should be united in one chapter. The sweet-smelling savour is intimately connected with the Divine declaration of mans future. As we link the blessings of humanity for the last 2000 years with the sweet-smelling sacrifice of Calvary, so should we join the future of man (as in Gen. 9:1-17) with the Noachic sacrifice so acceptable to God.
(2) And as the ark cast upon the stormy floods was divinely designed to be a type of that other and better ark, sheltering man from the wrath divine; so that sweet and odorous offering, with its succeeding stream of divine benediction, was a divinely-appointed symbol of the nobler victim on a holier mount,
The fragrance of whose perfect sacrifice
Breathes infinite beatitude, and spans
The clouds of judgment with eternal light.
Mans Lordship! Gen. 9:2. In India, a man-eating tiger sprang upon a group of men resting in the shade. Grasping with his teeth one of the group, he sprang off into the jungle, while the rest of the natives scattered hither and thither. The following day, a maiden, returning from the fountain, met the same tiger. Fastening her eye firmly upon that of the tiger, she boldly advanced to the beast, which suddenly turned and fled into the thickets. God thus shows what sin has done in destroying mans lordship over the creature. No doubt, had man under the Noachic covenant walked with God, the fear of man and the dread of man would have been upon every beast of the field, and upon every fowl of the air. It was the same lion, which seized the soldier by the camp-fire, which next day fled precipitately from the form of a little child, as it stood staring with childish wonderment at the strange creature that stepped across the path leading to the Missionarys compound. In that retreating monarch of the wild from the shining eye of childhood, we have a relic, not of mans Adamic, but of mans Noachic dominion over the beasts of the forest, who slunk away
With muttered growls, and sought their lonesome dens,
Gliding, like cowering ghosts with baffled mien,
Into the dark, deep forest.Collingwood.
Blood for Blood! Gen. 9:6. An English tourist came upon an Indian village, in centre of which a number of youths were playing. Provoked in play, one lost his temper, and, suddenly seizing a knife, struck his opponent in the neck. The wound, though not dangerous, bled profusely, and a cry was immediately raised. A young chief came forth from his hutinquired the causeand, having ascertained the culprit, started in pursuit of him. Soon overtaken, the guilty youth was dragged to where the wounded one lay. After carefully examining the depth, extent etc. of the wound, the young chief took a knife and made precisely the same incision in the offenders neck. The one was a papyrographic fac-simile of the other. Both were then taken to their huts. This Indian chief was the Goel; i.e., the avenger of the injured;
Poising the cause in justice equal scales,
Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.Shakespeare.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
5. The Beginning of the Beginning Again (Gen. 9:1-7): The New World-Order. (This last felicitous phrase is borrowed from Skinner, ICCG, 169).
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; with all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered. 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5 And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it: and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every mans brother, will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man. 7 And you, be fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
(1) The Divine blessing bestowed on Noah and his sons is an almost verbal repetition of the primeval blessing bestowed upon mankind (Gen. 1:28). It is conferred on Noah and his sons (and not upon their wives directly) as the new heads of the race. It is significant also that here (in contrast to Gen. 1:22) animals are not included in the Divine benediction. Mans dominion over the animals is reaffirmed, but now in the form of fear and dread on their part; into your hand are they delivered, that is, the power of life and death over the subhuman orders is reestablished in man as lord tenant of the earth. (JB, 25, n.): The laws of nature are stabilized again. Aware of mans continuing malice God nevertheless preserves what he himself has made and, in spite of man, will lead it to the goal that he has determined. In the beginning man was blessed and was consecrated lord of creation; he is now blessed and consecrated anew, but his rule is tranquil no longer. In this new age man will be at war with the beasts and with his fellows, The peace of Paradise will not return until the latter days, Isa. 11:6.
(2) The central injunction here is the authorization of the eating of animal flesh for food: every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you (thus excluding such as had died of themselves or been slain by other beasts: cf. Exo. 22:31, Lev. 22:8). We see no reason for assuming, as some commentators do, that man had been permitted only a vegetarian diet prior to the Flood: Skinner, for instance, speaks of the central injunction here as the removal of the prohibition of animal food. Where is any such prohibition to be found in previous chapters of Genesis? Certainly Gen. 1:29-30, while expressly authorizing vegetarian food, does not in itself exclude the eating of meat, (But what about the expression, Gen. 9:3, as the green herb I have given you all? The JB renders it: Every living and crawling thing shall provide food for you, no less than the foliage of plants. This makes sense). The view that animal food was permitted prior to the Flood is supported by the following matters. (a) the distinction between clean and unclean animals (this certainly implies some correlation between the more hygienic kinds of animal flesh and the use of it for food); (b) the language of Gen. 1:29 does not explicitly forbid the use of animal flesh for food; (c) shortly after the Fall, animals by Divine direction were slain for sacrifice, and hence probably for food also (by no means an unwarrantable inference from Gen. 4:4); (d) the sufficient reason for emphasis on the authorization of animal food in Gen. 9:3 is that it is subjoined with the restrictions which follows (Gen. 9:4); however, it affords no ground for assuming the existence of previous limitations; (e) if the eating of animal flesh was supposed to heighten human sensuality (carnality), certainly vegetarianism thought to have been practised exclusively before the Flood, was no less productive of the same effect, as evident from the licentiousness and violence of the Line of Cain. We find no reason, therefore, for assuming that the human race was by Divine ordination or by any other authority restricted to a vegetarian diet before the Flood or after that event.
(3) The Law Prohibiting the Eating of Blood (Gen. 9:4), that is, the eating of flesh from which the blood has not been properly drained. This prohibition, supposed to have been enjoined on all peoples through Noah who preceded Abraham by some ten generations (hence as universal in scope as the Rainbow Covenant), was later incorporated in the Mosaic legislation (Lev. 3:17; Lev. 7:26-27; Lev. 17:10-14; Lev. 19:26; Deu. 12:16; Deu. 12:23-24; Deu. 15:23), and subsequently was imposed upon Gentile converts to Christianity by the authority of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles (Act. 15:21; Act. 15:28-29). Among the reasons for the original promulgation of this law undoubtedly were the following: (a) the desire to guard against cruelty to animals; (b) the design to protect human life by demonstrating the inviolability which attaches in Gods sight even to the lives of lower animals; (c) the intention to emphasize the sanctity of all life as Gods most precious gift; (d) the design to point up the intimate connection between the blood and the life which subsists even in the animal world (cf. Lev. 17:10-13); (e) the design to emphasize especially its symbolic use in relation to atonement for sin (Heb. 9:22). Is not this law intended to enforce the truth in a special way that all life is sacred and must be restored to God before the flesh can be eaten? (W. Robertson Smith (RSFI, 338) suggests that this law originally may have been directed, at least in part, against the superstition that by eating the blood in which is the life of the totem animal, the worshiper appropriated the life and shared the attributes of the god thus worshiped.)
(4) The Law against Murder (Gen. 9:5-7). (Murder is rightly defined as the taking of another mans life on ones own authority and with malice aforethought), (a) Whoso sheddeth, i.e., wilfully and unwarrantedly, and not simply accidentally (manslaughter, Num. 35:11), or judicially, for that is ordained here by the wording of the law itself. (Mans blood, literally the blood of man). By man shall his blood be shed: Whitelaw (PCG, 141): Not openly and directly by God, but by man himself, acting of course as Gods instrument and agentan instruction which involved the setting up of the magisterial office by whom the sword might be borne. (The law here certainly harks back to the principle of blood revenge which had existed from the beginning [as implicit in the words of Cain, Gen. 4:14-15] and has continued to be practised for many centuries among primitive peoples, although in the verse before us the manner of execution is not specified. According to this procedure, when a murder was committed, the victims relatives, usually by direction of the elders of the tribe, were bound to retaliate by taking the life of the murderer. This was earliest mans only means of preventing wholesale murder. He who took from his victim Gods greatest gift and mans greatest possession, life itself, must needs forfeit his own life as the only penalty sufficient to restore the balance of justice.) (JB, 25 n.): The blood of every creature belongs to God, cf. Lev. l:5f., but mans in particular because man was made to Gods likeness. God will avenge human blood, cf. Gen. 4:10, and delegates this office to man himself to be exercised through the state, or, Num. 35:19 f., through the individual avenger of blood. Murder has never been tolerated by any ethnic group because the right to life is mans fundamental right, and it is so because he was made in the image of God (Gen. 9:6). Whitelaw (PCG, 141): Shall. Not merely a permissive legalising, but an imperative command enjoining, capital punishment, the reason for which follows: for in the image of God made he man. Some expositors have found nothing in this law but an ordinary prophecy that the shedding of blood would always bring reprisal in civil law (in the form of capital punishment). It is plain, however, that the law against murder was a positive Divine enactment, and not a prophecy in any sense, as well as the penalty for its violation. Whether Christ, in any of his teaching, has given us the right to believe that the penalty has been removed, is yet an open question. Given to Noah, this statute, however, was designed for the universal family of man, until repealed by the Authority who ordained it. Not having been exclusively a Jewish statute, the abrogation of the Mosaic economy does not affect its stability. Christ, not having come to destroy the fundamental laws of Heaven, may fairly be presumed to have left this standing. Inferences from the spirit of Christianity have no validity against an express Divine commandment. The principle of Atonement, operating between Heaven and earth, seems always to have been life for life. (It should be noted too that a beast which might kill a human being was to forfeit its life, just as any human murderer must do: cf. Gen. 9:5, Exo. 21:28-29). To summarize the precepts given here: animals could be killed for food, but the blood must not be eaten; though the life of animals might be taken, human life was to be held sacred. Some would hold that we have in addition to the law of abstinence from blood, and the law prohibiting murder, the recognition of civil authority (cf. Rom. 13:4).
REVIEW QUESTIONS
See Gen. 9:28-29.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
IX.
(1) God blessed Noah.The blessing bestowed upon Noah, the second father of mankind, is exactly parallel to that given to our first father in Gen. 1:28-29; Gen. 2:16-17, with a significant addition growing out of the history of the past. There is the same command to fill the world with human life, and the same promise that the fear of man shall rest upon the whole animated creation; but this grant of dominion is so extended that the animals are now given to man for his food. But just as there was a restriction as regards Adams food, the fruit of the tree of knowledge being refused him, so now there is a prohibition against the eating of blood. The addition is the sanctity given to human life, with the evident object of guarding against such a disruption of the human race as was the result of Cains murder of Abel. Thus, then, man starts afresh upon his task of subjugating the earth, with increased empire over the animal world, and with his own life more solemnly guarded and made secure.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE COVENANT WITH NOAH, Gen 1:1-17.
1. God blessed Noah Noah, as the second founder of the race, receives a renewal of the blessing and the promise given to Adam, (Gen 1:28-29,) but modified by the altered relations which had been introduced by sin. Had man never fallen, the beasts of the field would willingly and naturally have owned his dominion; but the fallen king must struggle for his sceptre, and can govern only by fear and dread. Gen 9:2.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Generations of Noah, Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29.
Note here, again, how the history doubles back upon itself. Noah has been already introduced, (Gen 5:29; Gen 5:32,) but now the divine record of beginnings and developments takes a new departure . Compare note at beginning of chap . v, and Introd . , pp . 49, 50 .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
God’s Detailed Instruction to Noah and His Sons ( Gen 9:1-7 )
In this whole passage God is Elohim, the Creator, for He is as it were beginning again, and reinstating man as His representatives on earth. Here God includes Noah’s sons in His instructions. This is different from Gen 8:21 and previously, demonstrating that this is His official dealings with the whole of mankind. So God gives instructions to Noah, and to ‘his sons with him’. These instructions are important. The destruction of man might have been seen as annulling his position as God’s representative. Thus God as Creator renews the commission He first gave to man:
1). Man is commanded to be fruitful and repopulate the world (Gen 9:1 compare Gen 1:28 a)
2). Man is to have authority over creation (Gen 9:2 compare Gen 1:28 b)
3). Man is given the right to eat of the flesh of living creatures and of plants but not of their blood (Gen 9:3-4 compare and contrast Gen 1:29)
4). Man’s life is sacred because he is made in the image of God, and to take that life is to merit death (Gen 9:5-6)
5). The further command to repopulate the world (the double mention stressing that this is the vital instruction to which the others are secondary).
Gen 9:1
‘And God (elohim) blessed Noah and his sons with him and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” ’
We note that now the sons of Noah are included in God’s words for the first time. This is a step forward and demonstrates that God now sees them as part of what is to be. They share his relationship with, and responsibility before, God. They represent the whole of mankind.
God is here speaking as the Creator (elohim) as in Gen 1:28, and repeats the words there spoken to man. Again man is ‘blessed’. He again has the seal of God’s approval on him. Yet the females are excluded, unlike in Genesis 1. This was, of course, the result of the Fall and the subsequent subjection of the woman. So this is written with an awareness of the material found in Genesis 2-3.
Gen 9:2-5
‘And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every animal on the earth and every bird of the air, along with everything with which creeps on the ground, and all the fishes of the sea, all are delivered into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat the flesh with its life, that is, its blood.’
Man’s authority over the animals is again stressed and he is now given express permission to eat them as food. This is almost certainly a confirmation of what man has already been doing as we have seen.
But one thing is forbidden, the eating of the blood. That is because the blood is the life. Man must recognise that what he eats, he eats as a gift from God. But he must still recognise God’s overlordship. Part therefore is forbidden him, the part that symbolises the life God gave them, the life which He created on top of the initial creation, which belongs to God. The blood replaces the tree of knowing good and evil as the test of man’s obedience. He is not to eat the blood, whether it is in order to try to absorb the soul of the animal or its ‘power’, to share in its life, or simply through careless disregard. Rather the animal’s flesh alone is to be for food.
Here God is stressing that man and animal are distinct. They are not to be intermingled. Man is not like the beast, he is different, for he shares the nature of the heavenly. Thus he should look to Heaven for his ‘power’ and for his ‘life’. Properly observed this prohibition against eating the blood would have saved mankind from many diseases.
Gen 9:6
‘For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning, of every creature I will require it, and at the hand of every man, and at the hand of every man’s brother I will require it. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.’
Man stands on earth as God’s representative and shares something of the heavenly, therefore to take man’s life is to rebel against the Creator. Whoever therefore takes that life shall have his own life forfeit. Man’s life is sacred to God.
The reference to every man’s brother has in mind Cain and Abel, and the thought there that every man is his ‘brother’s’ guardian. This sacredness again stresses the distinction between man and animal on the very grounds that man is made in the image of the heavenly. But the forfeiture of the murderer’s life is, under God, in the hands of man. Here then God is stressing again man’s sovereignty over the world He has given him. It is man who must carry out this jurisdiction. Man must take responsibility to act as judge under God’s instruction. It is an awesome task that He requires of man.
Gen 9:7
‘And as for you, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply in it.’
This repeats the charge in verse 1 in order to stress its importance. Man has the responsibility and privilege of peopling the earth so that he can carry out his task of controlling and watching over it, and this is his first responsibility.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
“The Histories of the Sons of Noah” – The Flood ( Gen 6:9 b – Gen 10:1 a) – TABLET IV
It has been common practise among a large number of scholars to seek to split the flood narrative into different so-called ‘documents’. This has partly resulted from not comparing them closely enough with ancient writings as a whole and partly from over-enthusiasm for a theory. There is little real justification for it. Repetitiveness was endemic among ancient writings, and is therefore not a hint of combined narratives, and the intermixture of statistical material, such as dating, with story type is known elsewhere. The interchanging of the divine names Yahweh and Elohim has already been noted as occurring for good reasons (Gen 4:25-26; Gen 5:29).
The whole account is a clear unity, and is formulated on a 7 day – 40 day – 150 day – 150 day – 40 day – 7 day pattern (the numbers partly inclusive), taking us from when God commanded Noah to enter the ark to the return of the dove with the olive leaf which showed the Flood was over. The causes of, and purposes for, the Flood are consistent throughout, as are its final aims. There is certainly expansion in thought, but there is no contradiction. (Alternately we may see it as a 7 – 40 – 150 – 40 – 7 pattern depending on how we read Gen 8:3).
The Flood
The word for flood is ‘mabbul’ which only occurs outside Genesis 6-11 in Psa 29:10, where its meaning is disputed. In Psalms 29 its use follows the description of an extremely devastating storm ‘caused’ by Yahweh which strips the trees bare, and ‘Yahweh sits enthroned over the flood’ may well therefore mean that He causes, and takes responsibility for, even the subsequent cataclysmic flood. But it may alternatively mean that ‘Yahweh sits enthroned over the cataclysm’, the storm we have just read about. (The writer sees all natural phenomena as under God’s control and is using a massive storm and cataclysm as a picture of Jahweh’s great power. If the word does mean flood he may well have had Noah’s flood in mind). In the New Testament and in the Septuagint mabbul is ‘translated’ as kataklysmos (Mat 24:38-39; Luk 17:27; 2Pe 2:5). It therefore can be taken with some confidence as meaning in this context a ‘cataclysmic flood’ with the emphasis on the cataclysm.
The basis of the account consistently throughout is that man will be destroyed because of his extreme sinfulness (Gen 6:5-7; Gen 6:11-13; Gen 7:4; Gen 7:21-23; Gen 8:21). This contrasts strongly with Mesopotamian flood myths where the innocent admittedly die with the guilty, and the flood is the consequence of the anger of gods over some particular thing which annoys them.
How Extensive Was the Flood?
The question must again be raised as to what the writer is describing. There is no question but that it is a huge flood of a type never known before or since, but how far did it in fact reach?
In Hebrew the word translated ‘earth’ (eretz) even more often means ‘land’. This latter fact derived from the fact that ‘the earth’ (our world) as compared with the heavens (Gen 1:1), became ‘the earth’ (dry land) as opposed to the sea (Gen 1:10), became ‘the earth’ (their land) on which men lived (Gen 12:1). It is thus quite in accordance with the Hebrew that what is described in this passage occurred in just one part of what we would call the earth, occurring in ‘Noah’s earth’ where Noah was living with his family.
This is not just a matter of choosing between two alternative translations. The reason eretz could be so used was because of how the ancients saw things and applied language to them. To them there was their known ‘earth’, their land, and then their land with the surrounding peoples, and then the rather hazy world on the fringes and then beyond that who knew what? Thus to them ‘the earth’ could mean different things in different contexts.
Even in its wider meaning it meant what was indeed a reasonably large area, and yet from our point of view would be seen as a fairly localised area, and ‘the whole earth’ to them was what to us would still be limited horizons. We can compare Gen 41:57 where ‘the whole earth’ come to Egypt to buy food and 1Ki 10:24 where ‘the whole earth’ come to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Compare also how the Roman world and its fringes were ‘the world’ in the New Testament (Luk 2:1; Act 24:5; Rom 1:8; Col 1:6).
Thus there are three possible answers to the question as to how far the flood stretched, looking at it from the writer’s point of view.
1). That all mankind was involved and that the Flood was global. However, it could not strictly mean this to the writer, or to Noah, for both were unaware of such a concept. All they could think of was ‘the world’ according to their conception of it. What the writer could have meant was ‘all that there is’. But was he not rather concerned with the world of man?
2). That all mankind was involved, but that they were still living within a certain limited area and were therefore all destroyed in a huge flood, which was not, however, global, as it would not need to involve lands which were uninhabited.
The fact of the worldwide prevalence of Flood myths might be seen as supporting one of these two views. So also might the argument that had the area been too limited Noah could have been instructed to move with his family outside the area, however large. Against this latter, however, it could be argued that God was seen as having a lesson to teach to future generations, and that He had in view the preservation of animal life as part of Noah’s environment.
3). That it was only mankind in the large area affected by the demonic activity (Noah’s ‘earth’ or ‘world’) that were to be destroyed, and that the Flood was therefore vast, but not necessarily destroying those of mankind unaffected by the situation described.
What cannot be avoided is the idea that the Flood was huge beyond anything known since. It was remembered in Mesopotamia, an area which had known great floods, as ‘the Flood’which divided all that came before it from all that followed (see, for example, the Sumerian king lists) . They too had a memory of how their king Zius-udra survived the Flood by entering a boat and living through it, although in his case others, apart from his family, were seen as surviving with him in the boat. Alternative suggestions offered have been the consequences of the ice age ceasing, raising water levels and causing huge floods, or the falling of a huge asteroid into the sea.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Be Fruitful and Multiply After the Flood, God reinstated the command that He had first given to man in Gen 1:28-29, which was to be fruitful and multiple and take dominion over the earth.
Gen 1:28, “And God gave them his blessing and said to them, Be fertile and have increase, and make the earth full and be masters of it; be rulers over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing moving on the earth.”
After the flood, God also allows man to eat meat from the animal kingdom. In the beginning God allowed man to eat only from the plant kingdom. Now he is allowed to each any animal of the as long as its blood was not still in its flesh. One possible reason is that disease is easily passed from an animal to a person through the blood and other body fluids. So, God was giving man a standard of hygiene.
Gen 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Gen 9:2 Gen 9:2
This instinctive fear of man that will now become a part of the animals’ character raises the issue of how God directs the natural world in which we live. For example, God’s intimate involvement in nature is described in Job 38-41, which says the Lord gives animals wisdom and commands (Job 39:26-27).
Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Gen 9:3
Gen 1:29, “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”
Man is now allowed to eat meat, but man cannot eat the blood, or raw flesh with the blood, still in the meat. Up until the time of this passage, mankind had been commanded to eat a vegetarian diet, based on Gen 1:29.
This is the first place in the Bible where man is allowed to eat meat. In Lev 11:1-47 God lists the clean and unclean animals that man is allowed to eat. This occurs fifteen hundred years after the time of Noah. The Scriptures tell us that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every matter is confirmed (Deu 17:6; Deu 19:15, Mat 18:16, 2Co 13:1). Thus, we have confirmation that man needs to eat meat as part of a balanced and healthy diet.
Gen 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Gen 9:4
Gen 9:5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
Gen 9:5
1. Noah has just shed the blood of clean beast and clean fowl with a sacrifice to God in Gen 8:20, “And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”
2. Also, in Gen 9:3, God has just said that man can eat every moving thing that lives. But he cautioned in verse four, “ Only flesh with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat” ( NAB).
3. In addition, in the rest of the book of Genesis, the patriarchs continually ate animals and made animal sacrifices.
Thus, God is really saying here that he will require a reckoning when a man is killed. He will require it if a beast kills a man, or if another man kills his brother. Note other modern English translations:
NKJV, “Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.” (Gen 9:5)
YLT, “And only your blood for your lives do I require; from the hand of every living thing I require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every man’s brother I require the life of man.” (Gen 9:5)
Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Gen 9:6
Gen 9:7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
Gen 9:5-7
Prior to this command of life for life, God had not been requiring it. For example, when Cain killed Abel, God did not require the life of Cain, but rather placed a curse upon him (Gen 4:11-12). Also, Lamech killed a man in Gen 4:23, and God did not require his life. Now God is establishing law and order into a fallen race.
Gen 4:11-12, “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”
Gen 4:23, “And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Ten Genealogies (Calling) – The Genealogies of Righteous Men and their Divine Callings (To Be Fruitful and Multiply) – The ten genealogies found within the book of Genesis are structured in a way that traces the seed of righteousness from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and the seventy souls that followed him down into Egypt. The book of Genesis closes with the story of the preservation of these seventy souls, leading us into the book of Exodus where we see the creation of the nation of Israel while in Egyptian bondage, which nation of righteousness God will use to be a witness to all nations on earth in His plan of redemption. Thus, we see how the book of Genesis concludes with the origin of the nation of Israel while its first eleven chapters reveal that the God of Israel is in fact that God of all nations and all creation.
The genealogies of the six righteous men in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are the emphasis in this first book of the Old Testament, with each of their narrative stories opening with a divine commission from God to these men, and closing with the fulfillment of prophetic words concerning the divine commissions. This structure suggests that the author of the book of Genesis wrote under the office of the prophet in that a prophecy is given and fulfilled within each of the genealogies of these six primary patriarchs. Furthermore, all the books of the Old Testament were written by men of God who moved in the office of the prophet, which includes the book of Genesis. We find a reference to the fulfillment of these divine commissions by the patriarchs in Heb 11:1-40. The underlying theme of the Holy Scriptures is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Thus, the book of Genesis places emphasis upon these men of righteousness because of the role that they play in this divine plan as they fulfilled their divine commissions. This explains why the genealogies of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-18) and of Esau (Gen 36:1-43) are relatively brief, because God does not discuss the destinies of these two men in the book of Genesis. These two men were not men of righteousness, for they missed their destinies because of sin. Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Esau sold his birthright. However, it helps us to understand that God has blessed Ishmael and Esau because of Abraham although the seed of the Messiah and our redemption does not pass through their lineage. Prophecies were given to Ishmael and Esau by their fathers, and their genealogies testify to the fulfillment of these prophecies. There were six righteous men did fulfill their destinies in order to preserve a righteous seed so that God could create a righteous nation from the fruit of their loins. Illustration As a young schoolchild learning to read, I would check out biographies of famous men from the library, take them home and read them as a part of class assignments. The lives of these men stirred me up and placed a desire within me to accomplish something great for mankind as did these men. In like manner, the patriarchs of the genealogies in Genesis are designed to stir up our faith in God and encourage us to walk in their footsteps in obedience to God.
The first five genealogies in the book of Genesis bring redemptive history to the place of identifying seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations. The next five genealogies focus upon the origin of the nation of Israel and its patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
There is much more history and events that took place surrounding these individuals emphasized in the book of Genesis, which can be found in other ancient Jewish writings, such as The Book of Jubilees. However, the Holy Scriptures and the book of Genesis focus upon the particular events that shaped God’s plan of redemption through the procreation of men of righteousness. Thus, it was unnecessary to include many of these historical events that were irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption.
In addition, if we see that the ten genealogies contained within the book of Genesis show to us the seed of righteousness that God has preserved in order to fulfill His promise that the “seed of woman” would bruise the serpent’s head in Gen 3:15, then we must understand that each of these men of righteousness had a particular calling, destiny, and purpose for their lives. We can find within each of these genealogies the destiny of each of these men of God, for each one of them fulfilled their destiny. These individual destinies are mentioned at the beginning of each of their genealogies.
It is important for us to search these passages of Scripture and learn how each of these men fulfilled their destiny in order that we can better understand that God has a destiny and a purpose for each of His children as He continues to work out His divine plan of redemption among the children of men. This means that He has a destiny for you and me. Thus, these stories will show us how other men fulfilled their destinies and help us learn how to fulfill our destiny. The fact that there are ten callings in the book of Genesis, and since the number “10” represents the concept of countless, many, or numerous, we should understand that God calls out men in each subsequent generation until God’s plan of redemption is complete.
We can even examine the meanings of each of their names in order to determine their destiny, which was determined for them from a child. Adam’s name means “ruddy, i.e. a human being” ( Strong), for it was his destiny to begin the human race. Noah’s name means, “rest” ( Strong). His destiny was to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning, “father of a multitude” ( Strong), because his destiny was to live in the land of Canaan and believe God for a son of promise so that his seed would become fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth. Isaac’s name means, “laughter” ( Strong) because he was the child of promise. His destiny was to father two nations, believing that the elder would serve the younger. Isaac overcame the obstacles that hindered the possession of the land, such as barrenness and the threat of his enemies in order to father two nations, Israel and Esau. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means “he will rule as God” ( Strong), because of his ability to prevail over his brother Esau and receive his father’s blessings, and because he prevailed over the angel in order to preserve his posterity, which was the procreation of twelve sons who later multiplied into the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus, his ability to prevail against all odds and father twelve righteous seeds earned him his name as one who prevailed with God’s plan of being fruitful and multiplying seeds of righteousness.
In order for God’s plan to be fulfilled in each of the lives of these patriarchs, they were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s plan that the fruit of each man was to be a godly seed, a seed of righteousness. It was because of the Fall that unrighteous seed was produced. This ungodly offspring was not then nor is it today God’s plan for mankind.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Generation of the Heavens and the Earth Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26
a) The Creation of Man Gen 2:4-25
b) The Fall Gen 3:1-24
c) Cain and Abel Gen 4:1-26
2. The Generation of Adam Gen 5:1 to Gen 6:8
3. The Generation of Noah Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29
4. The Generation of the Sons of Noah Gen 10:1 to Gen 11:9
5. The Generation of Shem Gen 11:10-26
6. The Generation of Terah (& Abraham) Gen 11:27 to Gen 25:11
7. The Generation Ishmael Gen 25:12-18
8. The Generation of Isaac Gen 25:19 to Gen 35:29
9. The Generation of Esau Gen 36:1-43
10. The Generation of Jacob Gen 37:1 to Gen 50:26
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Genealogy of Noah The third genealogy in the book of Genesis is entitled “The Genealogy of Noah” (Gen 6:9 to Gen 9:29), which gives us the account of the Noah’s fulfillment of the divine commission to be fruitful and multiply. Heb 11:7 reveals the central message in this genealogy that stirs our faith in God when it describes Noah’s obedience to God in building the ark. Noah’s destiny, whose name means “rest,” was to be fruitful and bear a righteous offspring. His genealogy opens with a divine commission to build the ark and save a remnant of mankind so that God could restore peace and rest to the fallen human race. Immediately after the Flood, Noah built an altar and God spoke to him and commanded him to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen 9:1). Heb 11:7 tells us how Noah fulfilled his divine commission by building the ark and saving his household.
Heb 11:7, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Lord Commands Noah Gen 6:9-22
2. The Destruction of the Flood Gen 7:1-24
3. Noah and His Family Leave the Ark Gen 8:1-22
4. Be Fruitful and Multiply Gen 9:1-7
5. God’s Covenant with Noah Gen 9:8-17
6. Noah Curses Canaan Gen 9:18-27
7. Conclusion to the Genealogy of Noah Gen 9:28-29
The Story of the Flood Within the genealogy of Noah we find the lengthy story of the Flood, by which God destroyed the earth. Jesus tells us that the story of the Flood reveals parallel events that will take place in the end times (Mat 24:37-39).
Mat 24:37-39, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
The rapture of Enoch (Gen 5:24) could parallel the rapture of the spirit-filled saints, which takes place immediately before the Great Tribulation. The building of the ark could parallel the propitiation of Christ Jesus and His office of the High Priest, which will deliver many during the time of the Great Tribulation. ( Strong says that the Hebrew word “pitch” ( ) (H3722) in Gen 6:14 means, “to cover, purge, make an atonement, make reconciliation, [cover over with] pitch.”) Also, in the Scripture forty days represents a time of tribulation. Thus, the forty days of rain could represent the seven-year Tribulation Period. The one-year that Noah rested in the ark could represent the thousand-year Millennial Reign of Christ on earth (compare Gen 7:11 to Gen 8:13). Noah’s disembarkment from the ark and God’s renewal of His covenant with Noah and the earth could represent our entrance into eternity with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth under a similar renewal of covenant.
The story of Noah’s Flood refers to three dates in the life of Noah. It refers to his age of five hundred (500) years old when he bore his three sons (Gen 5:32), his age of six hundred (600) years old when he entered the ark (Gen 7:11) and his age of six hundred and one (601) years old when he disembarked from the ark (Gen 8:13). and of Jesus’ prophecies in Matthew 24-25 have a time of warning of God’s impending judgment, a time of judgment and the start of a new age. At the age of 500 he was a “preacher of righteous” warning others of God’s coming judgment. At the age of six hundred (600) the judgment of God came upon the earth. At the age of six hundred and one (601) the earth ended one age and entered into a new age for mankind. In a similar way, the disciples asked Jesus in Mat 24:3 three questions regarding warning signs, judgment and restoration. They wanted to know the warning signs of the end of the age, the time when judgment comes and the time when Jesus comes to usher us into a new age.
Many scholars suggest that the statement in Mat 24:34, which says, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled,” means that all of the events that Jesus predicted in Matthew 24-25 will take place within a man’s lifetime. If we find a parallel to this time frame in the story of Noah and the Flood, we know that he was “a preacher of righteousness” for one hundred and twenty (120) years according to Jewish tradition. Thus, it is possible that the signs and events of the end- times will last about one hundred and twenty (120) years and end with the Second Coming of Christ.
When God shut the door to the ark Noah did not know the day and hour that the flood would come. Noah knew the season of the coming of the Flood, but not the exact time. He was just being obedient. In the same way Jesus said, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” (Mat 25:13)
Historical Evidence of the Flood Literally hundreds of accounts of a flood have been documented from every corner of the world. From North, Central and South America, Africa, Europe, the Near East as well as the Far East, historians have discovered some version of a flood in most of these societies. [122]
[122] Howard F. Vos, “Flood (Genesis),” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 316-321; Mark Isaak, Flood Stores from Around the World, c1996-2002 [on-line]; accessed 14 March 2009; available from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html; Internet.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
God blesses Noah and His Sons
v. 1. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. v. 2. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. v. 3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. v. 4. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. v. 5. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
v. 6. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man. v. 7. And you, be ye fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Gen 9:1
And GodElohim, not because belonging to the Elohistic document (Block, Tuch, Colcnso); but rather because throughout this section the Deity is exhibited in his relations to his creaturesblesseda repetition of the primal blessing rendered necessary by the devastation of the Flood (cf. Gen 1:28)Noah and his sons,as the new heads of the race,and said unto them,audibly, in contrast to Gen 8:21, Gen 8:22, which was not addressed to the patriarch, but spoken by God to himself in his heart, as if internally resolving on his subsequent course of action,Be fruitful, and multiply. A favorite expression of the Elohist (cf. Gen 1:28; Gen 8:17; Gen 9:1, Gen 9:7; Gen 17:20; Gen 28:3; Gen 35:11; Gen 47:27; Gen 48:14), (Tuch); but
(1) the apparently great number of passages melts away when we observe the verbally exact reference of Gen 8:17; Gen 9:1, Gen 9:7 to Gen 1:28; and of Gen 48:4 to Gen 35:11;
(2) the Elohist does not always employ his “favorite expression” where he might have done so, as, e.g; not in Gen 1:22; Gen 17:6; Gen 28:14;
(3) the Jehovist does not avoid it where the course of thought necessarily calls for it (vide Le Gen 26:9), (Keil).
And replenish the earth. The words, “and subdue it, which had a place in the Adamic blessing, and which the LXX. insert here in the Noachic ( ), are omitted for the obvious reason that the world dominion originally assigned to man in Adam had been forfeited by sin, and could only be restored through the ideal Man, the woman’s seed, to whom it had been transferred at the fail Hence says Paul, speaking of Christ: ” (Eph 1:22); and the writer to the Hebrews: (i.e. man) , (i.e. the world dominion which David, Psa 8:6, recognized as belonging to God’s ideal man) (Gen 2:8, Gen 2:9). The original relationship which God had established between man and the lower creatures having been disturbed by sin, the inferior animals, as it were, gradually broke loose from their condition of subjection. As corruption deepened in the human race it was only natural to anticipate that man’s lordship over the animal creation would become feebler and feebler. Nor, perhaps, is it an altogether violent hypothesis that, had the Deluge not intervened, in the course of time the beast would have become the master and man the slave. To prevent any such apprehensions in the future, as there was to be no second deluge, the relations of man and the lower creatures were to be placed on a new footing. Ultimately, in the palingenesia, they would be completely restored (cf. Isa 11:6); in the mean time, till that glorious consummation should arrive, the otherwise inevitable encroachments of the creatures upon the human family in its sin-created weakness should be restrained by a principle of fear. That was the first important modification made upon the original Adamic blessing.
Gen 9:2
And the fear of you and the dread of you. Not simply of Noah and his sons, but of man in general. Shall be. Not for the first time, as it could not fail to be evoked by the sin of man during the previous generations, but, having already been developed, it was henceforth to be turned back upon the creature rather than directed against man. Upon. The verb to be is first construed with , and afterwards with . The LXX. render both by , though perhaps the latter should be taken as equivalent to , in which case the three clauses of the verse will express a gradation. The dread of man shall first overhang the beasts, then it shall enter into and take possession of them, and finally under its influence they shall fall into man’s hand. Every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon (literally, in; vide supra. Murphy translates with) all that moveth upon the earth, and upon (literally, in) all the fishes of the sea. This does not imply that the animals may not sometimes rise against man and destroy him (cf. Exo 8:6, Exo 8:17, Exo 8:24; Le Exo 26:22; 1Ki 13:24, 1Ki 13:25; 1Ki 20:36; 2Ki 2:24; Eze 14:15; Act 12:23, for instances in which the creatures were made ministers of Divine justice), but simply that the normal condition of the lower creatures will be one of instinctive dread of man, causing them rather to avoid than to seek his presencea Statement sufficiently confirmed by the facts that wherever human civilization penetrates, there the dominion of the beasts retires; that even ferocious animals, such as lions, tigers, and other beasts of prey, unless provoked, usually flee from man rather than assail him. Into your hand are they delivered. Attested by
(1) man’s actual dominion over such of the creatures as are either immediately needful for or helpful to him, such as the horse, the ox, the sheep, &c.; and
(2) by man’s capability of taming and so reducing to subjection every kind of wild beastlions, tigers, &c.
Gen 9:3
Everyobviously admitting of “exceptions to be gathered both from the nature of the case and from the distinction of clean and unclean beasts mentioned before and afterwards” (Poole)moving thing that livethclearly excluding such as had died of themselves or been slain by other beasts (cf. Exo 22:31; Le Exo 22:8)shall be meat for you. Literally, to you it shall be for meat. Though the distinction between unclean and clean animals as to food, afterwards laid clown in the Mosaic code (Le Gen 11:1-31), is not mentioned here, it does not follow that it was either unknown to the writer or unpracticed by the men before the Flood. Even as the green herb have I given you all things. An allusion to Gen 1:29 (Rosenmller, Bush); but vide infra. The relation of this verse to the former has been understood as signifying
1. That animal food was expressly prohibited before the Flood, and now for the first time permitted (Mercerus, Rosenmller, Candlish, Clarke, Murphy, Jamieson, Wordsworth, Kalisch)the ground being that such appears the obvious import of the sacred writer’s language.
2. That, though permitted from the first, it was not used till postdiluvian times, when men were explicitly directed to partake of it by God (Theodoret, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Pererius)the reason being that prior to the Flood the fruits of the earth were more nutritious and better adapted for the sustenance of man’s physical frame, propter excellentem terrae bonitatem praestantemque vim alimenti quod fructus terrae suppeditabant homini, while after it such a change passed upon the vegetable productions of the ground as to render them less capable of supporting the growing feebleness of the body, invalidam ad bene alendum hominem (Petetins).
3. That whether permitted or not prior to the Flood, it was used, and is here for the first time formally allowed (Keil, Alford, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’); in support of which opinion it may be urged that the general tendency of subsequent Divine legislation, until the fullness of the times, was ever in the direction of concession to the infirmities or necessities of human nature (cf. Mat 19:8). The opinion, however, which appears to be the best supported is
4. That animal food was permitted before the fall, and that the grant is h ere expressly renewed. The grounds for this opinion are
(1) That the language of Gen 1:29 does not explicitly forbid the use of animal food.
(2) That science demonstrates the existence of carnivorous animals prior to the appearance of man, and yet vegetable products alone were assigned for their food.’
(3) That shortly after the fall animals were slain by Divine direction for sacrifice, and probably also for foodat least this latter supposition is by no means an unwarrantable inference from Gen 4:4 (q.v.).
(4) That the words, “as the green herb,” even if they implied the existence of a previous restriction, do not refer to Gen 1:29, but to Gen 1:30, the green herb in the latter verse being contrasted with the food of man in Gen 1:29. Solomon Glass thus correctly indicates the connection and the sense: “ut viridem herbam (illis), sic illa omnia dedi vobis” (‘Sacr. Phil,’ lib. 3. tr. 2, c. Gen 22:2).
(5) That a sufficient reason for mentioning the grant of animal food in this connection may be found in the subjoined restriction, without assuming the existence of any previous limitation.
Gen 9:4
But, an adverb of limitation or exception, as in Le Gen 11:4, introducing a restriction on the foregoing preceptflesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof. Literally, with its soul, its blood; the blood being regarded as the seat of the soul, or life principle (Le Gen 17:11), and even as the soul itself (Le Gen 17:14). The idea of the unity of the soul and the blood, on which the prohibition of blood is based, comes to light everywhere in Scripture. In the blood of one mortally wounded his soul flows forth (Lam 2:12), and he who voluntarily sacrifices himself pours out his soul unto death (Isa 53:12). The murderer of the innocent slays the soul of the blood of the innocent ( , Deu 27:25), which also cleaves to his (the murderer’s) skirts (Jer 2:34; cf. Pro 28:17, blood of a soul; cf. Gen 4:10 with Heb 12:24; Job 24:12 with Rev 6:9; vide also Psa 94:21; Mat 23:35). Nor can it be said to be exclusively peculiar to Holy Scripture. In ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics the hawk, which feeds on bloods, represents the soul. Virgil says of a dying person, “purpuream vomit ille animam” (‘AEneid,’ 9.349). The Greek philosophers taught that the blood was either the soul (Critias), or the soul’s food (Pythagoras), or the soul’s seat (Empedocles), or the soul’s producing cause (the Stoics); but only Scripture reveals the true relation between them both when it declares the blood to be not the soul absolutely, but the means of its self-attestation (vide Delitzsch’s ‘ Bib. Psychology,’ div. 4. sec. 11.). Shall ye not eat. Not referring to, although certainly forbidding, the eating of flesh taken from a living animal (Raschi, Cajetan, Delitzsch, Luther, Poole, Jamieson)a fiendish custom which may have been practiced among the antediluvians, as, according to travelers, it is, or was, among modern Abyssinians; rather interdicting the flesh of slaughtered animals from which the blood has not been properly drained (Calvin, Keil, Kalisch, Murphy, Wordsworth). The same prohibition was afterwards incorporated in the Mosaic legislation (cf. Le Gen 3:17; Gen 7:1-24 :26, 27; Gen 17:10-14; Gen 19:26; Deu 12:16, Deu 12:23, Deu 12:24; Deu 15:23), and subsequently imposed upon the Gentile converts in the Christian Church by the authority of the Holy Ghost and the apostles (Act 15:28, Act 15:29). Among other reasons, doubtless, for the original promulgation of this law were these:
1. A desire to guard against the practice of cruelty to animals (Chrysostom, Calvin, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’).
2. A design to hedge about human life by showing the inviolability which in God’s eye attached to even the lives of the lower creatures (Calvin, Willet, Poole, Kalisch, Murphy).
3. The intimate connection which even in the animal creation subsisted between the blood and the life (Kurtz, ‘Sacr. Worship,’ I. A.V.).
4. Its symbolic use as an atonement for sin (Poole, Delitzsch, ‘ Bib. Psy.’ Gen 4:11; Keil, Wordsworth, Murphy). That the restriction continues to the present day may perhaps be argued from its having been given to Noah, but cannot legitimately be inferred from having been imposed on the Gentile converts to Christianity as one , from the burden of which they could not be excused (Clarke), as then, by parity of reasoning, meat offered to idols would be equally forbidden, which it is not, except when the consciences of the weak and ignorant are endangered (Calvin).
Gen 9:5
And surely. Again the conjunction introduces a restriction. The blood of beasts might without fear be shed for necessary uses, but the blood of man was holy and inviolable. Following the LXX. ( ), Jerome, Pererius, Mercerus, Calvin, Poole, Willet give a causal sense to the conjunction, as if it supplied the reason of’ the foregoing restrictiona sense which, according to Furst (‘Hebrews Lex.,’ sub nom.) it sometimes, though rarely, has; as in 2Ki 24:3; Psa 39:12; Psa 68:22; but in each case is better rendered “surely.” Your blood of your lives.
(1) For your souls, i.e. in requital for themlex talionis, blood for blood, life for life (Kalisch, Wordsworth, Bush);
(2) for your souls, i.e. for their protection (Gesenins, Miehaelis, Schumann, Tuch);
(3) from your soulsa prohibition against suicide (Suma-tan);
(4) with reference to your souls, = quoad,as if specifying the particular blood for which exaction would be made (Keil);
(5) of your souls, belonging to them, or residing in them (LXX; Syriac, Vulgate, A.V; Calvin, Rosenmller (qui ad animas vestras perti net), Murphy, ‘Speaker’s Commentary’) although, according to Kalisch, cannot have the force of a genitive after , a substantive with a suffix; but vide Le Psa 18:20, Psa 18:23; cf. Ewald, ‘Hebrews Syn.,’ p. 113. Perhaps the force of may be brought out by rendering, “your blood to the extent of your lives; ‘ i.e. not all blood-letting, but that which proceeds to the extent of taking life (cf. verse 15: “There shall no more be waters to the extent of a flood”). Will I require. Literally, search after, with a view to punishment; hence avenge (cf. Gen 42:22; Eze 33:6; Psa 9:13). At (literally, from) the hand of every beast will I require it. Not “an awful warning against cruelty to the brute creation!” (Clarke), but a solemn proclamation of the sanctity of human life, since it enacted that that beast should be destroyed which slew a mana statute afterwards incorporated in the Mosaic legislation (Exo 21:28-32), and practiced even in Christian times; “not for any punishment to the beast, which, being under no law, is capable of neither sin nor punishment, but for caution to men” (Poole). If this practice appears absurd to some moderns, it was not so to Solon and Draco, in whose enactments there was a similar provision (Delitzsch, Lunge). And at (from) the hand of man; at (or from) the hand of every man’s brother. Either
(1) two persons are here described
(a) the individual man himself, and
(b) his brother,
i.e. the suicide and the murderer (Maimonides, Wordsworth, Murphy), or the murderer and his brother man, i.e. kinsman, or goel (Michaelis, Bohlen, Baumgarten, Kalisch, Bush), or the ordinary civil authorities (Kalisch, Candlish, Jamieson)or
(2) one, viz; the murderer, who is first generically distinguished from the beast, and then characterized as his victim’s brother; as thus” at” or from “the hand of man,” as well as beast; “from the hand of the individual man, or every man (cf. Gen 42:25; Num 17:1-13 :17 for this distributive use of ) his brother,” supplying a new argument against homicide (Calvin, Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil, Lunge). The principal objection to discovering Goelism in the phraseology is that it requires to be understood in two different senses, and the circumstance, that the institution of the magistracy appears to be hinted at in the next verse, renders it unnecessary to detect it in this. Will I require the life (or soul) of man. The specific manner in which this inquisition after Blood should be carried out is indicated in the words that follow.
Gen 9:6
Whoso sheddeth. Literally, he shedding, i.e. willfully and unwarrantably; and not simply accidentally, for which kind of manslaughter the law afterwards provided (vide Num 35:11); or judicially, for that is commanded by the present statute. Man’s blood. Literally, blood of the man, human blood. By man. Not openly and directly by God, but by man himself, acting of course as God’s instrument and agentan instruction which involved the setting up of the magisterial office, by whom the sword might be borne (“Hic igitur fens est, ex quo manat totum jus civile etjus gentium.”Luther. Cf. Num 35:29-31; Rom 13:4), and equally laid a basis for the law of the goel subsequently established in Israel (Deu 19:6; Jos 20:3). The Chaldee paraphrases, “with witnesses by sentence of the judges.” The LXX. substitutes for “by man” an interpretation followed by Professor Lewis, who quotes Jona ben Gannach in its support, Shall. Not merely a permission legalizing, but an imperative command enjoining, capital punishment, the reason for which follows. For in the image of God made he man. To apply this to the magistracy (Bush, Murphy, Keil), who are sometimes in Scripture styled Elohim (Psa 82:6), and the ministers of God (Rom 13:4), and who may be said to have been made in the Divine image in the sense of being endowed with the capacity of ruling and judging, seems forced and unnatural; the clause obviously assigns the original dignity of man (cf. Gen 1:28) as the reason why the murderer cannot be suffered to escape (Calvin, Poole, Alford, ‘Speaker’s Commentary,’ Candlish, Lange)
Gen 9:7
And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. Vide on Gen 9:1.
HOMILETICS
Gen 9:1-7
New arrangements for a new era.
I. PROVISION FOR THE INCREASE OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
1. The procreate instrumentalitythe ordinance of marriage (Gen 9:1, Gen 9:7), which was –
(1) A Divine institution appointed by God in Eden (cf. Gen 2:22, and Mat 19:5).
(2) A sacred institution. Every ordinance of God’s appointment, it may be said, is in a manner holy; but a special sanctity attaches to that of marriage. God attested the estimation in which he held it by visiting the world’s corruption, which had principally come through its desecration, with the waters of a flood.
(3) A permanent institution, being the same in its nature, uses, and ends that it had been from the beginning, only modified to suit the changing circumstances of man’s condition. Prior to the fall it was exempt from any of those imperfections which in human experience have clung to it ever since. Subsequent to the melancholy entrance of sin, there was superadded to the lot of woman an element of pain and sorrow from which she had been previously free; and though anterior to the Flood it had been grossly abused by man’s licentiousness, after it, we cannot doubt, it was restored in all its original purity, though still with the curse of sorrow unremoved.
2. The originating causethe Divine blessing (Gen 9:1, Gen 9:7), without which
(1) The marriage bed would not be fruitful (Psa 127:3). Cf. the case of Rachel (Gen 30:2), of Hannah (1Sa 1:11), of Ruth (Rth 4:13).
(2) The married life would not be holy. What marriage is and leads to when dissociated from the fear of God had already been significantly displayed upon the theatre of the antediluvian world, and is abundantly declared in Scripture, both by precept (Gen 24:3; Gen 28:1; Exo 34:16; Deu 7:3, Deu 7:4; Jos 23:12, Jos 23:13; 2Co 6:14) and example; e.g; the Israelites (Jdg 3:6, Jdg 3:7), Samson (Jdg 14:1-16), Solomon (1Ki 3:1), Jews (Ezr 9:1-12).
(3) The marriage tie would not be sure. As ungodliness tends to violate the marriage law by sins of polygamy, so, without the fear of God, there is no absolute security that the bond may not be broken by adultery and divorce.
II. PROVISION FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
1. Against the world of animals.
(1) In Eden such protection was not required, man having been constituted lord of the inferior creation, and the beasts of the field never rising to dispute his authority, his rule being characterized by gentleness and love (Genesis if. 20).
(2) After the fall such protection was incomplete. A change having passed upon the master, there is reason to suppose that a corresponding change transpired upon the servant. The moral order of the world having been dislocated, a like instability would doubtless invade those economical arrangements that depended on man for their successful administration. As man sank deeper into the mire of corruption, his supremacy over the beasts of the field would appear to have been more frequently and fiercely disputed (Gen 6:11). But now, the Flood having washed away the sinning race,
(3) such protection was henceforth to be rendered secure by imbuing the brute nature with an instinctive dread of man which would lead the animals to acknowledge his supremacy, and rather flee from his presence than assail his dominion. The operation of this law is proved today by the facts that man retains unquestioned his lordship over all those domesticated animals that are useful to him; that there is no creature, however wild and ferocious, that he cannot tame; and that wherever man appears with his civilizing agencies the wild beast instinctively retires.
2. Against the world of men. Ever since the fall man has required to be protected against himself. Prior to the Flood it does not appear that even crimes of murder and bloodshed were publicly avenged. Now, however, the previous laxness, if it was such, and not rather Divine clemency, was to cease, and an entirely new arrangement to come into operation.
(1) The law was henceforth to inflict CAPITAL PUNISHMENT on its murderers; not the law of man simply, but the law of God. Given to Noah, this statute was designed for the universal family of man until repealed by the Authority that imposed it. Not having been exclusively a Jewish statute, the abrogation of the Mosaic economy does not affect its stability. Christ, having come not to destroy the fundamental laws of Heaven, may be fairly presumed to have left this standing. Inferences from the spirit of Christianity have no validity as against an express Divine commandment.
(2) The reasons for the law were to be the essential dignity of man’s nature (verse 6; cf. homily on the greatness of man, Gen 1:26) and the fundamental brotherhood of the race (verse 5), a point which appears not to have received sufficient prominence in prediluvian times (cf. Act 17:26).
(3) The execution of the law was neither to be retained in the Divine hand for miraculous administration, nor to be left in that of the private individual (the kinsman) to gratify revenge, but to be entrusted to society for enforcement by means or a properly-constituted tribunal. This was the commencement of social government among men, and the institution of the magisterial office, or the power of the sword (vide Rom 13:1-5).
III. PROVISION FOR THE SUSTENANCE OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
1. The rule. It is not certain that animal food was interdicted in Eden; it is almost certain that it was in use between the fall and the Flood. At the commencement of the new era it was expressly sanctioned.
2. The restriction. While the flesh of animals might be used as food, they were not to be mutilated while alive, nor was the blood to be eaten with the flesh. Note the bearing of the first of these on the question of vivisection, which the Divine law appears explicitly to forbid, except it can be proved to be indispensable for the advancement of medical knowledge with a view to the healing of disease, and, in the case of extending a permission, imperatively requires to be carried on with the least possible infliction of pain upon the unresisting creature whose life is thus sacrificed for the good of man; and of the second of these, on the lawfulness of eating blood under the Christian dispensation, see Expos. on verse 4.
3. The reason.
(1) For the rule, which, though not stated, may be judged to have been
(a) a concession to the moral weakness of man’s soul, and
(b) a provision for the physical infirmity of man’s body.
(2) For the restriction
(a) to prevent cruelty to animals;
(b) to fence about man’s life by showing the criminality of destroying that of the beast;
(c) to assert God’s lordship over all life;
(d) because of its symbolic value as the sign of atoning blood.
Lessons:
1. God’s clemency towards man.
2. God’s care for man.
3. God’s goodness to man.
4. God’s estimate of man.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Gen 9:1-7
The new life of man on the earth
under a new revelation of the Divine favor. The chief points are
I. UNLIMITED POSSESSION OF THE EARTH, and use of its inhabitants and products, whether for food or otherwise; thus supplying
1. The scope of life.
2. The enjoy-meat of life.
3. The development of life.
II. Absolute RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE, and preservation of the gentler feelings (the blood being forbidden as injurious to man in this case), promoting
1. The supremacy of the higher nature over the lower.
2. The revelation of the ethical law.
3. The preparation of the heart for Divine communications.
III. Man living in BROTHERHOOD,
(1) revealing the image of God,
(2) observing God’s law,
(3) rejoicing in his blessing, he shall multiply and fill the earth.
The earth waits for such inhabitants; already by Divine judgments prepared for them.R.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Gen 9:1. God blessed Noah, &c. The primitive benediction upon Adam is here renewed, Be fruitful, &c. as well as the dominion conferred over all creatures; while a larger grant is given to Noah than to the former, namely, of animal food. For (according to our interpretation, see ch. Gen 1:29.) it was not allowed before the deluge. In this grant, the eating of the blood is forbidden; a restraint which, I conceive, has never been taken off. See Act 15:20; Act 15:41.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
FOURTH PART
THE GENESIS OF THE NEW, WORLD-HISTORICAL, HUMAN RACE; OF THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE FORM OF SIN THAT NOW COMES IN, AND OF THE NEW FORM OF PIETY; OF THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE BLESSING OF SHEM (CULTUS, THEOCRACY) AND THE BLESSING OF JAPHETH (CULTURE, HUMANISM); OF TEE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE DISPERSION OF THE NATIONS, AND THE BABYLONIAN COMBINING OF THE NATIONS; BETWEEN THE BABYLONIAN DISPERSION, OR THE MYTHICAL HEATHENISM, AND THE INDIVIDUAL SYMBOLIC FAITH IN GOD OF THE PATRIARCHS, THE FIRST TYPICAL COVENANT. Gen 8:20 to Gen 11:32
FIRST SECTION
The First Typical Covenant. The Primitive Precepts (Noachian Laws). The Symbol of the Rainbow
Gen 8:20 to Gen 9:17
20And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every20 clean beast and of every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21And the Lord smelled a sweet savour,21 and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for mans sake: for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth [here, excusing]; neither will I again smite any more everything living as I have done. 22While the earth remaineth [all the days of the earth] seedtime and harvest [the order of nature], and cold and heat, and summer and winter,22 and day and night, shall not cease.
Gen 9:1 And God [Elohim] blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth. 2And the fear of you and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hands are they delivered. 3Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green 4herb have I given you all things. But flesh which is the life thereof [its soul, its animation], which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5And surely your blood of your lives1 [of each single life] will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it [take vengeance for it], and at the hand of man; at the hand of every mans brother will I require the life of Man 1:6 Whoso sheddeth mans blood, by Man 1:2 shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he Man 1:7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth 8abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. And God [Elohim] spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying [], 9And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth [that shall proceed from them in the future]. 11And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off anymore by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 12And God [Elohim] said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13I do set my bow3 in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:4 15And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more 16become a flood to destroy all flesh. And my bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every 17living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God [Elohim] said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Gen 8:20-22. The offering of Noah and the acceptance and promise of Jehovah. The offering of Noah is not, as has been maintained, to be referred back from the later time of the law, to the primitive history. It reflects itself, moreover, in the mythological stories of the flood (Delitzsch, p. 268). An altar to the Lord. The altar is called , place of slaying the victim, from , as from . That the sons of Adam offered without an altar is a mere supposition. According to Keil there was no need of an altar, because God was still present in paradise to men. In the judgment of the flood was paradise destroyed; the place of his presence was withdrawn, and he had taken his throne in the heaven, that from thence, hereafter he might reveal himself to men. (Comp. Gen 2:5; Gen 2:7). Towards heaven must now the hearts of the pious lift up themselves; their offerings and their prayers must go up on high, if they would reach Gods throne. In order to give the offerings this upward direction, elevated places were fixed upon, from which they might ascend heavenwards in fire. Hence the offerings derived their name of , from , the ascending, not so much because the animal offered was laid upon the altar, or made to ascend the altar, but rather because of the ascending (of the flame and smoke) from the altar towards heaven. (Comp. Jdg 20:40; Jer 48:15; Amo 4:10). In like manner Delitzsch in relation to Psa 29:10; (according to Hofmann: Prophecy and Fulfilment, pp. 80, 88). If by this is meant that the religious consciousness, which once received God as present in paradise, must now, through its darkness by sin, revere him as the Holy One, far off, dwelling on high, and only occasionally revealing himself from heaven, there would be nothing to say against it; but if it is meant as a literal transfer of the place of the divine dwelling and of the divine throne, it becomes a mythologizing darkening of the divine idea (see Psalms 139). Christ was greater than the paradisaical Adam; notwithstanding, in prayer, he lifted up his eyes to heaven (Joh 11:41); and already is it intimated, Gen 1:1, that from the beginning, the heaven, as the symbolical sign of Gods exceeding highness, had precedence of the earth. That, however, the word may have some relation, at least, to the ascendency of the victim upon the altar is shown by the expression in the Hiphil. The altar was erected to Jehovah, whose worship had already, at an earlier period, commenced (Gen 4:4). Everywhere when Elohim had revealed himself in his first announcements, and had thus given assurance of himself as the trusted and the constant, there is Jehovah, the God amen, in ever fuller distinctness. As Jehovah must he especially appear to the saved Noah, as the one to whom he had fulfilled his word of promise in the wonderful relation he bore to him.Of every clean beast.According to Rosenmuller and others, we must regard this as referring to the five kinds of offerings under the law, namely, bullock, sheep, goats, doves, turtle doves. This, however, is doing violence to the text; there appears rather to have been appointed for offering the seventh surplus example which he had taken, over and above the three pairs, in each case, of clean beasts.And offered it as a burnt offering.We are not to think here of the classification of offerings as determined in the levitical law. The burnt offering forms the middle point, and the root of the different offerings (comp. Gen 22:13); and the undivided unity is here to be kept in view. There is, at all events, contained here the idea of the thank offering, although there is nothing said of any participation, or eating, of the victim offered. The extreme left side of the offering here, as an offering for sin and guilt, was the Herem or pollution of the carcases exposed in the flood (like the lamb of the sacrifice of Moses as compared with the slain first-born of the Egyptians); the extreme right side lay in that consecrated partaking of flesh by Noah which now commenced.And the Lord (Jehovah) smelled a sweet savor.The savor of satisfaction. An anthropomorphic expression for the satisfied acceptance of the offering presented, as a true offering of the spirit of the one presenting it.5And said in his heart.Not merely he said to himself or he thought with himself; it means rather, he took counsel with, his heart and executed a purpose proceeding from, the emotion of his divine love.I will not again curse.In words had he done this, Gen 3:17, but actually and in a higher measure, in the decree of destruction Gen 6:7; Gen 6:13. With the last, therefore, is the first curse retracted, in as far as the first preliminary lustration of the earth is admitted to be a baptism of the earth. According to Knobel, the pleasing fragrance of the offering is not the moving ground, but merely the occasion for this gracious resolve, But what does the occasion mean here? In so far as the saving grace of God was the first moving ground for Noahs thank offering, was this latter also a second moving ground (symbolically, causa meritoria) for the purpose of God as afterwards determined.For the imaginations of mans heart.The ground here given for Gods forbearance and compassion seems remarkable. Calvin: Hic inconstanti videtur deus accusari posse. Supra puniturus hominem, causam consilii dicit, quia figmentum cordis humani malum est. Hic promissurus homini gratiam, quod posthac tali ira uti nolit, eandem causam allegat. Between this passage, however, and the one Gen 6:6, there is a twofold difference. In the latter there precedes the sentence: Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth; in connection with this corruption of actual sin, the evil imagining of the human heart itself, is reckoned for evil, as being its fountain. Here, however, the burnt offering of Noah goes before. In connection with tills sacrificial service, expressing the feeling of guilt and the want of forgiveness, the evil imagination of the human heart appears as a sufferer of temptation. The innate sinfulness is not disease merely, but as it stands in organic connection with the actual sin, is also guilt. It is, however, disease too; and precisely in its connection with the disposition for pardon, and the better desire of man, is it regarded as disease by God, and as being, therefore, an object of his compassion. Moreover it is called here simply , the involuntary unconscious sense and imagination, but there (Gen 6:6), it was the imagination of the thoughts (the purposes) of his heart, and, therefore, a matter of consciousness; here it is wickedness from his youth up, there, it is only wickedness, nothing else but wickedness, wickedness throughout and continually. In the effect of the flood, and in the light of the sacrificial offering, which Noah offers not only in his own name, but in that of his family and race, the guilt of the innate sinfulness of the human race appears typically weakened in the same way as in the evangelical church-doctrine, the condemnation of hereditary sin is taken away by baptism, of which the flood is a type.6 Knobel lays stress on the fact that it is said from his youth up, not from his mothers womb; but the word evidently means that just as soon as the heart comes to its peculiar imagining, or the sensual imagining that is appropriate to it, then immediately appears the innate sinfulness.Whilst the earth remaineth.The three first pairs of words do not denote, as the Jewish interpreters (see Raschi) explain it, six times of the year reckoned by two months each (a division found in the Vedas and the Avesta), but they divide the year into two halves each, as the old Greeks did into and (in Hesiod it is and ), namely the summer (including the autumn), beginning with the early rising of the Pleiades, and the winter (including the spring, see Job 29:4) beginning with the early setting (Ideler, Chron. 1, p. 241). Delitzsch. And yet the antitheses are not tautological. Seed-time and harvest denote the year according to its most obvious significance for man. Cold and heat are according to the equilibrium of the year, lying at the ground of seed-time and harvest, and conditioned by the regular change of temperature. Summer and winter present the constant appearance of this change, the order of which is imaged in the small and ordinary changes of day and night that belong to the general course of nature. Delitzsch supposes that this new course of nature, consisting in interchanges of temperature, is opposed to a serene or uninterrupted warmth that prevailed before the flood. That the earth in the primitive period had an even temperature may be regarded as very probable; but not that the flood, in this respect, made any sudden turning point, although such an epoch in the earths life must, at the same time, denote the beginning of a change. At all events, the new order of nature is not denoted as a mere imperfect earth, for this purified earth will God never again cover with a flood. Delitzsch admirably remarks: they are Gods thoughts of peace which he gives to Noahs inner perception as an answer to his offering; as even now every one who prays in faith gets from the heart of God an inward perception that his prayer is answered. The doubled form, , has as in Isa 54:9, the power of an oath. As an establishment of the new order of nature, this promise corresponds to the creative words Genesis 1.
2. The blessing of God on the new humanity, its dominion, its freedom and its laws (Gen 9:1-7). The benediction of Noah and his sons, Gen 9:1, corresponds to the blessing of Adam and Eve, Gen 1:28. In like manner, the grant of dominion over the animal world corresponds to the appointment there expressed. The distinct license here given for the slaying of the beasts corresponds to Gen 1:29, and Gen 2:16. The prohibition of eating blood corresponds to the prohibition of the tree of knowledge. Finally, the command against murder has relation, without doubt, to the murder committed by Cain (Genesis 4). Delitzsch: After that the general relations of nature, in view of such a ruin as has happened in the flood, are made secure by promise, there are given to men new physical, ethical, and legal foundations.And the fear of you.Your fear, as the effect, . The exciting of fear and terror are to be the means of mans dominion over the animals. Delitzsch remarks: It is because the original harmony that once existed between man and nature has been taken away by the fall and its consequences. According to the will of God, man is still the lord of nature, but of nature now as an unwilling servant, to be restrained by effort, to be subjugated by force. Not throughout, however, is nature thus antagonistic to man; it is not the case with a portion of the animal world, namely, the domestic animals. It is true, there has come in a breach of the original harmony, but it is not now for the first time, and the most peculiar striving of the creature is against its doom of perishability (Rom 8:20). Moreover, it is certainly the case, that, the influence of the fear of man upon the animals is fundamentally a normal paradisaical relation. But a severer intensity of this is indicated by the word dread. Knobel explains it from the fact, that hence-forth the animal is threatened in its life, and is now exposed to be slain. Since the loss of the harmonic relation between man and the animals (in which the human majesty had a magical power over the beast), the contrast between the tame and the wild, between the friendly innocence and the hostile dread of the wilder species, had increased more and more, unto the time of the flood. Now is it formally and legally presented in the language we are considering. Man is henceforth legally authorized to exercise a forcible dominion over the beasts, since he can no longer rule them through the sympathy of a spiritual power. Also the eating of flesh, which had doubtless existed before, is now formally legalized; by which fact it is, at the same time, commended. A limitation of the pure kinds is not yet expressed. When, however, there is added, by way of appendix, all that liveth (that is, is alive), the dead carcase, or that which hath died of itself, is excluded, and with it all that is offensive generally. There is, however, a distinct restriction upon this flesh-eating, in the prohibition of the blood: But flesh with the life thereof.Delitzsch explains it as meaning, that there was forbidden the eating of the flesh when the animal was yet alive, unslain, and whose blood had not been poured out,namely, pieces cut out, according to a cruel custom of antiquity, and still existing in Abyssynia. Accordingly there was forbidden, generally, the eating of flesh in which the blood still remained. It is, however, more to the purpose to explain this text according to Lev 17:11; Lev 17:14, than by the savage practices of a later barbarous heathenism, or by Rabbinical tradition. With its life, therefore, means with its soul, or animating principle, and this is explained by its blood, according to the passage cited (Deu 12:23); since the blood is the basis, the element of the nerve-life, and in this sense, the soul. The blood is the fluid-nerve, the nerve is the constructed blood. The prohibition of blood-eating, the first of the so-called Noachian commands (see below), is, indeed, connected with the moral reprobation of cruelty to animals, as it may proceed to the mutilation of the living; it is, therefore, also connected with the avoidance of raw flesh ( , or living flesh, 1Sa 2:15. Knobel). The blood is regarded as the seat of the soul, or the life, and is even denoted as , or the soul itself (Lev 1:5), as the anima purpurea of Virgil, n. ix. 348; even as here is explained by the apposition . But the life belongs to God, the Lord of all life, and must, therefore, be brought to him, upon his altar (Deu 12:27), and not be consumed by man. Knobel. This is, therefore, the second idea in the prohibition of the blood. As life, must the life of the beast go back to God its creator; or, as life in the victim offered in sacrifice, it must become a symbol that the soul of man belongs to God, though man may partake of the animal materiality, that is, the flesh. Still stronger is the restriction that follows: And surely your blood of your lives.The soul of the beast, in the blood of the beast, is to be avoided, and the soul of man, in the blood of man, is not to be violated. Delitzsch. At the ground of this contrast, however, lies the more general one, that the slaying of the beast is allowed whilst the slaying of man is forbidden.Will I require; that is, the corresponding, proportionate expiation or punishment will I impose upon the slayer. The expression , Knobel explains as meaning for your souls, for the best of your life (comp. Lev 26:45; Deu 4:15; Job 13:7). According to Delitzsch and Keil expresses the regard had for the individual. And this appears to be near the truth. The blood of man is individually reckoned and valued, according to the individual souls.At the hand of every beast.The more particular legal regulation is found in Exo 21:28. Here, then, is first given a legal ground for the pursuit and destruction of human murderous and hurtful beasts. Still there is expressed, moreover, the slaying of the single beast that hath killed a man. In the enactments of Solon and Draco, and even in Plato, there is a similar provision. Delitzsch.And at the hand of man. , brother man, that is, kinsman; comp. Gen 13:5; so, , a priest-man, etc. By the words is not to be understood the next of kin to the murdered man, whose duty it was to execute the blood-vengeance (Von Bohlen, Tuch, Baumgarten), as the one from whom God required the blood that was shed, but the murderer himself. In order to indicate the unnaturalness of murder, and its deep desert of penalty, God denotes him (the murderer) as in a special sense the brother of the murdered. Knobel. Besides this, moreover, there is formed from the expression every man (Delitzsch, Keil). Every man, brother man.The life of man.Man is emphasized. Therefore follows, emphatically, the formula: Whosoever sheddeth mans blood, and at the close again there is once more man () prominently presented.By man shall his blood be shed: namely, by the next of kin to the murdered, whose right and duty both it was to pursue the murderer, and to slay him. He is called , the demander of the blood, or the blood-avenger. The Hebrew law imposed the penalty of death upon the homicide (Exo 21:12; Lev 24:17), which the blood avenger carried out (Num 35:19; Num 35:21); to him was the murderer delivered up by the congregation to be put to death (Deu 19:12). Among the old Hebrews, the blood-vengeance was the usual mode of punishing murder, and was also practised by many other nations. Delitzsch and Keil dispute the relation of this passage to the blood-vengeance. It is not to be misapprehended, 1. that here, in a wider sense, humanity itself, seeing it is always next of kin to the murdered, is appointed to be the avenger; and 2. that the appointment extends beyond the blood-vengeance, and becomes the root of the magisterial right of punishment. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that in the patriarchal relations of the olden time it was a fundamental principle that the next of kin were not only justified in the execution of the law of blood, but on account of the want of a legal tribunal, were under obligation to perform the office. This primitive, divinely-sanctioned custom, became, in its ideal and theocratic direction, the law of punishment as magisterially regulated in the Mosaic institutions (but which still kept in mind the blood-vengeance), whereas, in the direction of crude heathenism, which avenged the murder even upon the relations of the murderer, it became itself a murderous impulse. Delitzsch remarks, that God has now laid in the hands of men the penal force that belonged to him alone, because he has withdrawn his visible presence from the earth,according to the view, before cited, of his transfer of the divine throne to the heavens.For in the image of God made he man.This is the reason for the command against murder. In man there is assailed the image of God, the personality, that which constitutes the very aim of his existence, although the image itself, as such, is inviolable. In murder the crime is against the spirit, in which the divine kinsmanship reveals itself, and so is it a crime against the very appearing of God in the world in its most universal form, or as a prelude to that murder which was committed against the perfect form of man (or image of God in man), Zec 12:10; Joh 3:10; Joh 3:15).But be ye fruitful.The contrast to the preceding. The value of human life forbids its being wasted, and commands its orderly increase.Bring forth abundantly in the earthIn the spreading of men over, the earth, and out of its supplies of food (by which, as it were, the life of the earth is transformed into the life of man) are found the conditions for the multiplication of the human race. Thus regarded, there is only an apparent tautology in the verse, not an actual one.
3. Gen 9:8-17. The covenant of God with Noah, with his race, and with the whole earth.To Noah and to his sons with him.Solemn covenanting form. The sons are addressed together with Noah; for the covenant avails expressly for the whole human race.And I, behold I establish.The words, and I, () form a contrast to the claims of God on the new humanity as an introduction to the promise. According to Knobel, God had established no covenant with the antediluvians. Not, indeed, in the literal expressions here employed; since it was after men had had the experience of a destroying judgment. According to the same (Knobel), the Jehovist, in Gen 8:21 presented the matter in a way different from that of the Elohist here. Clearly, however, does the offering of Noah there mentioned, furnish the occasion for the entire transaction that follows in this place. The making of a covenant with Noah is already introduced, and announced Gen 6:13; it stands in a development conditioned on the preservation of Noahs faith, just as a similar development is still more evident in the life of Abraham (see Jam 2:20-23). Keil remarks that is not equivalent to , that is, it does not denote the formal concluding, but the establishing, confirming, of a covenant,in other words, the realization of the covenanting promise (comp. Genesis 22 with Genesis 17, 15). Delitzsch: There begins now the era of the divine (Rom 3:26) of which Paul preached in Lystria (Act 14:15). In its most special sense, this era begins with the origin of heathenism, that is, from the Babylonian dispersion. With a right fulness is the animal world also included in this covenant, for it is elohistic,universalistic; it keeps wholly predominant the characteristic of compassion for the creaturely life upon the earth, although man forms its ethical middle point, with which the animal world and the kosmos are connected. The covenant with the beasts subsists not for itself, and, in respect to its nature, is only to be taken symbolically.Shall not be cut off any more.This is the divine covenant promiseno new destruction,no end of the world again produced by a flood.My bow in the cloud, it shall be for a token.In every divine covenant there is a divine sign of the covenant; in this covenant it is said: my bow do I set. According to Knobel the rainbow is called Gods bow, because it belongs to the heaven, Gods dwelling place. It is a more correct interpretation to say, it is because God has made it to appear in the heaven, as the sign of his covenant. According to the same, the author of the account must have entertained the supposition that there had never been a rainbow before the time of the flood. Delitzsch is of the same opinion.7 It is, indeed, a phenomenon of refraction, which may be supposed of a fall of water, and sometimes, also, of a dew-distilling mist. But the far visible and overarching rainbow supposes the rain-cloud as its natural conditioning cause. We have already remarked that from the appointment of the rainbow, as the sign of the covenant, it by no means follows that it had not before existed as a phenomenon of nature (Genesis 2). The starry night, too, is made the sign of a promise for Abraham (Genesis 15). Keil is not willing to infer that hitherto it had not rained, but only presents the conjecture that at an earlier period the constitution of the atmosphere may have been different.And I will look upon it that I may remember.An anthropomorphising form of expression, but which like every other expression of the kind, ever gives us the tenor of the divine thought in a symbolical human form. Here it is the expression of the self-obligating, or of the conscious covenant truthfulness, as manifested in the constant sign. In his presence, too, have they power and most essential significance. (Von Gerlach).
[Note on the Appointment of the Rainbow as the Sign of the Covenant.In regard to this it may be well to give the views of some of the older Jewish commentators, if for no other purpose, to show that what is really the most easy and the most natural interpretation comes from no outside pressure of science, but is fairly deducible from the very letter of the passage. Thus reasons Maimonides respecting it: For the words are in past time, , my bow have I set (or did set) in the cloud, not, I am now setting, or about to set, which would be expressed by , according as he had said just before, , the covenant which I am now establishing. Moreover the form of the word my bow, shows that there was something to him so called from the beginning. And so the Scripture must be interpreted: the bow which I put () in the cloud in the day of creation, shall be, from this day, and henceforth, for a sign of the covenant between me and you, so that every time that it appears, I will look upon it and remember my covenant of peace. If it is asked then, what is meant by the bows being a sign, I answer that it is like what is said Gen 31:48, in the covenant between Jacob and Laban, , lo, this heap is a witness, etc., or Gen 31:52, , and this pillar shall be a witness, etc. And so also Gen 21:30, , seven lambs shalt thou take from my hand, for a witness. In like manner everything that appears as thus put before two, to cause them to remember something promised or covenanted, is called . And so of the circumcision; God says, it shall be a sign of the covenant, , between me and you. Thus the bow that is now visible, and the bow that was in nature () from the beginning, or from of old () are one in this, that the sign which is in them is one. He then proceeds to say that there are other and mystic interpretations made by some of the Rabbins, but this great critic is satisfied with the one that he has given. Aben Ezra says that the most celebrated of the Jewish Rabbins held the same opinion as Maimonides, namely, that the rainbow was in nature from the beginning, though he himself seems to dissent.
And I will look upon it to remember the , the covenant of eternity. Let us not be troubled about the anthropopathism, but receive the precious thought in all its inexpressible tenderness. Lange most beautifully characterizes such mutual remembrance as eye meeting eye. We all know that Gods memory takes in the total universe of space at every moment of time: but there are some things which he remembers as standing out from the great totality. He remembers the act of faith, and the sign of faith, as he remembers no other human act, no other finite phenomenon. May we not believe that there is the same mutual remembrance in the Eucharist? The remember me implies I will remember thee. The eye of the Redeemer looking into the eye of the believer, or both meeting in the same memorial: this is certainly a real presence, whatever else there may be of depth and mystery in that most fundamental Christian ritethe evangelical , or sign of the everlasting covenant.
The Hebrew is not used of miraculous signs, properly, given as proofs of mission or doctrine. It is not a counteraction of natural law, or the bringing a new thing into nature. Any fixed object may be used for a sign, and here the very covenant itself, or a most important part of it, being the stability of nature, there is a most striking consistency in the fact that the sign of such covenant is taken from nature itself. The rainbow, ever appearing in the sunshine after rain, is the very symbol of constancy. It is selected from all others, not only for its splendor and beauty, but for the regularity with which it cheers us, when we look out for it after the storm. Noah needed no witness of the supernatural. The great in nature, in that early age when all was wonderful, was regarded as manifesting God equally with the supernatural. Besides, in the flood itself there was a sufficient witness to the extraordinary. There was wanted, then, not a miracle strictly as an attestation of a message, or as a sign of belief, like the miracles in the New Testament (when there was a necessity for breaking up the lethargy of naturalism), but a vivid memorial for the conservation rather than the creation of faith. The Hebrew word for miracle is more properly , though it may be used simply for prodigy, like the Greek , in distinction from the New Testament , which is properly a proof or attestation of a miraculous kind. simply means anything wonderful, whether in nature or not. Superstition converts such appearances into portents, or signs of something impending, but in the Bible Gods people are expressly told not to be dismayed at the signs of the heavens as the heathen are. Jer 10:1. The word there used is this same in the plural, but accommodated to the heathen perversion. To the believing Israelites the signs of the heavens, even though strange and unusual, were to be regarded as tokens of their covenant God above nature yet ruling in nature, and ever regulating the order of its phenomena. There is a passage sometimes quoted from Homer, Il. xi. 27, Genesis 28 :
.
Like the rainbows which Zeus fixed in the cloud a sign to men of many tongues. But there has the sense of prodigy, or it may denote a wonderful and beautiful object. We cannot, therefore, certainly infer from this any traditional recognition of the great sign-appointing in Genesis. So Plato quotes from Hesiod the genealogy of Iris (the rainbow), as the daughter of or Wonder, as a sort of poetical argument that Wonder is the parent of philosophy, as though the rainbow were placed in the heavens to stimulate men in the pursuit of curious knowledge. But it is the religious use that is prominent in this as in all the Bible appeals to the observation of nature. It is for the support of faith in the God of nature, that we may look upon it and remember; and this is admirably expressed in a Rabbinical doxology to be found in the Talmudic Kidduschin, fol. 8, and which was to be recited at every appearance of the rainbow, , Blessed be thou Jehovah our God, King of eternity (or of the world), ever mindful of thy covenant, faithful in thy covenant, firm in thy word, comp. Psa 119:89, Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. The Targum of Oukelos translates Gen 9:13 : And it shall be a sign, , between my word and the earth.
It is not unreasonable to suppose some reference to this place in that difficult passage Hab 3:9, , most obscurely rendered in our English version, thy bow was made quite nakedthe oaths of the tribesthe word. Kimchi translates it revealed, made manifest. It is commonly thought that all that is said in that sublime chapter has reference to events that took place during the exodus, but there is good ground for giving it a wider range, so as to take in other divine wonders, in creation and in the patriarchal history.T. L.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. There are the most distinct indications that the flood, as the greatest epoch of the primitive time, made a turning point, not only in the spiritual life of humanity, but also in its physical relations,yea, in the very life of the earth itself. Only we may not, in the first place, regard this turning point as a sudden change of all relations; just as little as the fall (Genesis 3) suddenly brought in death, or as the confusion of tongues produced immediately the wide-spread diversities of language. And, in the second place, again, it must not be regarded as a change of all relations for the worse. There is supposed to have been a change of the atmosphere (concerning the rain and the rainbow, see above). At all events, the paradisaical harmony of the earth had departed at an earlier day. But, on the other hand, there comes in now a more constant order of the atmospherical relations (Gen 8:22). Again, some have called it a sudden change in the duration of human life. But to this is opposed the fact that the aged Noah lived 350 years after the flood. It is evident, however, that during the period of Noahs life the breaking through of death from the inner to the outer life had made a great advance. And to this the fear which the flood brought upon the children and grandchildren of Noah (not upon himself) may have well contributed. As far as relates to the increasing ferocity of the wild beasts towards men, the ground of their greater estrangement and savageness cannot be found in their deliverance in the ark. Already had the mysterious paradisaical peace between man and beast departed with the fall. Moreover, the words: all flesh had corrupted its way, (Gen 6:12) indicate that together with mens increasing wickedness the animal world had grown more ferocious. But if the mode of life as developed among men made the eating of flesh (and drinking of wine) a greater necessity for them than before, then along with the sanctioning of this new order of life, must there have been sanctioned also the chase. And so out of this there must have arisen a state of war between man and the animal world, which would have for its consequence an increased measure of customary fear among the animals that were peculiarly exposed to it.
2. Immediately after the flood, Noah built an altar to Jehovah, his covenant God, who had saved him. The living worship (cultus) was his first work, the culture of the vineyard was his second. The altar, in like manner, was the sign of the ancestral faith, as it had come down from paradise and had been transmitted through the ark. This faith was the seed-corn as well as sign of the future theocracy and the future church. It was an altar of faith, an altar of prayer, an altar of thanksgiving, for it was erected to Jehovah. But it was also an altar of confession, an acknowledgment that sin had not died in the flood, that Noah and his house was yet sinful and needed the symbolic sanctification. In this case, too, was the offering of an animal itself an expression of the greater alacrity in the sacrifice since Noah had preserved only a few specimens of the clean animals. This readiness in the offering was in that case an expression of his faith in salvation, wherein, along with his prayer for grace and compassion, there was inlaid a supplication for his house, for the new humanity, for the new world. His offering was a burnt-offering, a whole burnt-offering (Kalil) or an ascending in the flame (Olah), as an expression that he, Noah, did thereby devote himself with his whole house, his whole race, and with the whole new earth, to the service of God. The single kinds of offering were all included in this central offering. It was this sense of his offering which made the strong burnt odor of the burning flesh, a sweet savor for Jehovah in a metaphorical sense. The attestation of Jehovah makes it evident in what sense Noah offered it. It expresses 1. an averting of the curse from the ground, 2. the fact that the hereditary sinfulness of man was to be an object of the divine compassion. The sinful tendency in its connection with the act of sin is guilt, but in its connection with the need of salvation and salvation itself, it is an evil, the sorest of diseases and suffering (see above); 3. the promise that Jehovah would not again destroy every living thing; 4. the establishment of a constant order of nature; such as the prosperity of the new human race demanded. On this promise of sparing compassion for sinful men, and which God as Jehovah pronounces, there is grounded the renewed relation into which, as Elohim, he enters with all humanity, and the creature world connected with it. This relation is denoted by grants made by God to man, and demands which he makes of man, whereupon follows the establishment of the Elohistic covenant with Noah and all living. The Grants of God: 1. the repetition of the blessing upon Noah and upon all his house, as before upon the animals; 2. the renewed grant of dominion over the beasts; the sanction given to the eating of flesh. In contrast with these grants that guarantee the existence and well-being of the human race, stand the demands or claims made in respect to human conduct. The first is the avoidance of the eating of flesh with the blood, whereby there is together established the sanctification of the enjoyment, the avoidance of savageness as against nature, and of cruelty as against the beast. The second not only forbids the shedding of human blood, but commands also the punishment of murder; it ordains the magistracy with the sword of retribution. But it expresses, at the same time, that the humane civil organization of men must have a moral basis, namely the acknowledgment that all men are brothers ( every man, his brother man), and with this again, a religious basis, or the faith in a personal God, and that inviolability of the human personality which rests in its imaged kinsmanship with God. On this follows the establishment of the covenant. Still it is not made altogether dependent on the establishment of the preceding claims. It is a covenant of promise for the sparing of all living that reaches beyond this, because it is made not for individuals but for all, not merely for the morally accountable but for infants, not merely for men but also for the animal world. Notwithstanding, however, this transcending universality of the divine covenant, it is, in truth, made on the supposition that faith in the grace and compassion of Jehovah, piety in respect to the blessing, the name and the image of Elohim, shall correspond to the divine faithfulness, and that men shall find consolation and composure in the sign of the rainbow, only in as far as they preserve faith in Gods word of promise.
3. In the preceding Section we must distinguish between what God says in his heart, and what Elohim says to Noah and his sons. The first word, which doubtless was primarily comprehensible to Noah only, is the foundation of the second. For Gods grace is the central source of his goodness to a sinful world, as on the side of men the believing are the central ground for the preservation of the world, as they point to Christ the absolute centre, She worlds redeemer, having, however, his preserving life in those who are his own, as his word testifies: Ye are the salt of the earth. We must, then, again distinguish between the word of blessing, which embraced Noah and his sons, and with them humanity in general, and the word of the covenant which embraced all living (Gen 9:10).
4. The institutions of the new humanity: 1. At the head stands the altar with its burnt-offering as the middle point and commencing point of every offering, an expression of feeling that the life which God gave, which he graciously spares, which he wonderfully preserves, shall be consecrated to him, and consumed in his service. 2. The order of nature, and, what is very remarkable, as the ordinance of Jehovah, made dependent on the foregoing order of his kingdom of grace. 3. The institution of the marriage blessing, of the consecration of marriage, of the family, of the dispersion of men. 4. The dominion of man over the animal world, as it embraces the keeping of cattle, the chase, manifold use of the beasts. 5. The holding as sacred the bloodthe blood of the animal for the altar of God, the blood of man for the priestly service of God; the institution of the humanitat,8 of the humane culture and order, especially of the magistracy, of the penal and judicial office (including personal self-defence and defensive war). 6. The grounding of this humanitat on the religious acknowledgment of the spiritual personality, of the relation of kinsman that man bears to God, of the fraternal relation of men to each other, and, consequently, the grounding of the state on the basis of religion. 7. The appointment of the humanization of the earth (Gen 9:7) in the command to men to multiply on the earthproperly, upon it, and by means of it. As men must become divine through the image of God, so the earth must be humanized. 8. The appointment of the covenant of forbearance, which together with the security of the creature-world against a second physical flood, expresses also the security of the moral world against perishing in a deluge of anarchy, or in the floods of popular commotion (Psalms 93). 9. The appointment of the sign of the covenant, or of the rainbow as Gods bow of peace, whereby there is at the same time expressed, in the first place, the elevation of men above the deification of the creature (since the rainbow is not a divinity, but a sign of God, an appointment which even the idolatrous nations appear not to have wholly forgotten, when they denote it Gods bridge, or Gods messenger); in the second place, their introduction to the symbolic comprehension and interpretation of natural phenomena, even to the symbolizing of forms and colors; thirdly, that Gods compassion remembers men in their dangers, as indicated by the fact, that in the sign of the rainbow his eye meets their eye; fourthly, the setting up a sign of light and fire, which, along with its assurance that the earth will never again be drowned in water, indicates at the same time its future transformation and glorification through light and fire.
5. In the rainbow covenant all men, in their dealings with each other, and, at the same time, with all animals, have a common interest, namely, in the preservation of life, a common promise, or the assurance of the divine care for life, and a common duty in the sparing of life.
6. The offering as acceptable to God, and its prophetic significance.
7. The disputes concerning original sin have variously originated from not distinguishing its two opposing relations. These are, its relation to actual sin, Rom 5:12, and to the desire for deliverance, Rom 7:23-25.
8. The magical or direct power of man over the beasts is not taken away, but flawed, and thereupon repaired through his mediate power, derived from that superiority which he exercises as huntsman, fisher, fowler, etc. In regard to the first, compare Langes Miscellaneous Writings, vol. iv. p. 189.
9. The ordinance of the punishment of death for murder, involves, at the same time, the ordinance of the magistracy, of the judicial sentence, and of the penal infliction. But in the historical development of humanity, the death-penalty has been executed with fearful excess and false application (for example, to the crime of theft); since in this way, generally, all humane savageness and cruelty has mingled in the punitive office. From this is explained the prejudice of the modern humanitarianism against capital punishment. It is analogous to the prejudice against the excommunication, and similar institutes, which human ignorance and furious human zeal have so fearfully abused. Yet still, a divine ordinance may not be set aside by our prejudices. It needs only to be rightly understood according to its own limitation and idea. The fundamental principle for all time is this, that the murderer, through his own act and deed, has forfeited his right in human society, and incurred the doom of death. In Cain this principle was first realized, in that, by the curse of God, he was excommunicated, and driven, in self-banishment, to the land of Nod. This is a proof, that in the Christian humanitarian development, the principle may be realized in another form than through the literal, corporeal shedding of blood (see Langes treatise Gesetsliche Kirche als Sinnbild, p. 72). It must not, indeed, he overlooked, that the mention is not merely of putting to death, but also of blood-shedding, and that the latter is a terrific mode of speech, whose warnings the popular life widely needed, and, in many respects, still needs. Luther: There is the first command for the employment of the secular sword. In the words there is appointed the secular magistracy, and the right as derived from God, which puts the sword in its hands. Every act of murder, according to the Noachian law, appears as a fratricide, and, at the same time as malice against God.
10. To this passage: for in the image of God made he man, as also to the passage, Jam 3:9, has the appeal been made, to show that even after the fall there is no mention of any loss of the divine image, but only of a darkening and disorder of the same. Others, again, have cited the apparently opposing language, Coloss. Gen 3:10, and similar passages. But in this there has not always been kept in mind the distinction of the older dogmatics between the conception of the image in its wider sense (the spiritual nature of man) and the more restricted sense (the spiritual constitution of man). In like manner should there be made a further distinction between the disposition of Adam as conformed to the image (made in, or after the image) and the image itself as freely developed in Christ (the express image, Hebrews 13.), as also finally between the natural man considered in the abstract, in the consequences of his fall, and the natural man in the concrete, as he appears in the operation of the gratia prveniens. This perfect developed image Adam could not have lost, for he had not attained to it. Neither can men lose the ontological image as grounded in the spiritual nature, because it constitutes its being; but it may darken and distort it. The image of God, however, in the ethical sense, the divine mind ( ), this he actually lost to the point where the gratia prveniens laid hold on him, and made a point of opposition between his gradual restoration and the fall in abstracto. But to what degree this image of God in fallen man had become lost, is shown in this very law against murder, which expresses the inalienable, personal worth, that is, the worth that consists in the image as still belonging to man, and thus, in contrast with grace, must man become conscious of the full consequences of his sinful corruption according to the word: what would I have been without thee? what would I become without thee?
11. With this chapter has the Rabbinical tradition connected their doctrine of the seven Noachic precepts. (Buxtorf: Lexicon Talmudicum, article, Ger, ). They are: 1. De judiciis; 2. de benedictione Dei; 3. de idolatria fugienda; 4. de scortatione; 5. de effusione sanguinis; 6. de rapina; 7. de membro de animali vivo sc. non tollendo. The earlier supposition, that the Apostolical decree (Acts 15) had relation to this, and that, accordingly, in its appointments, it denominated the heathen Christians as proselytes of the gate (on whom the so-called Noachian laws were imposed) is disputed by Meyer, in his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (p. 278), though not on satisfactory grounds. The matter of chief interest is the recognition, that in the Israelitish consciousness there was a clear distinction between revealed patriarchal precepts and the Mosaic law. Such a distinction is also expressed by Christ, Joh 7:22-23. So, too, did the Levitical law make a distinction between such precepts as were binding upon aliens (proselytes of the gate) and such as were binding upon the Jews (Lev 17:14; see Bibelwerk, Acts of the Apostles, p. 215). It lies in the very nature of the case, that in Acts 15 the seventh precept of the tradition, according to its wider appointment, was divided into two (namely, abstinence from blood and from things strangled), and that, moreover, only those points came into the general view, in respect to which heathen Christians, as freer Christians, might be liable to fail. It was, in fact, a monotheistic patriarchal custom, which, as the expression of the patriarchal piety and humaneness, became the basis of the Mosaic law, and on this basis must the heathen Christians have come together in ethical association, if, in their freedom from the dogmas of the Mosaic law, they would not endanger even the churchly and social communion of the Jewish Christians (see Lange: Geschichte des Apostolischen Zeitalters, ii. p. 187). The prohibition of blood-eating has here no longer any dogmatic significance, but only an ethical. The Greek Church mistook this in its maintenance of the prohibition (Trullanic Council, 692), whereas, the Western Church, in the changed relations, let the temporary appointment become obsolete.
12. On the symbolical significance of the rainbow, see Delitzsch, p. 277, and Langes Miscellaneous Writings, i. p. 277, from which Delitzsch gives the following passage: The rainbow is the colored glance of the sun as it breaks forth from the night of clouds; it is its triumph over the floodsa solar beam, a glance of light burnt into the rain-cloud in sign of its submission, in sign of the protection of all living through the might of the sun, or rather the compassion of God. To this adds Delitzsch: As it lights up the dark ground that just before was discharging itself in flashes of lightning, it gives us an idea of the victory of Gods love over the black and fiery wrath; originating as it does from the effects of the sun upon the sable vault, it represents to the senses the readiness of the heavenly light to penetrate the earthly obscurity; spanned between heaven and earth, it announces peace between God and man; arching the horizon, it proclaims the all-embracing universality of the covenant of grace. He then cites some of the mythical designations of the rainbow. It is called by the Hindoos, the weapon of Indras; by the Greeks, Iris, the messenger of the gods; by the Germans, Bifrst (living way), and Asen-brcke, bridge of Asen; by the Samoeids, the seam or border of Gods robe. There are, besides, many significant popular sayings connected with its appearance. Knobel: The old Hebrews looked upon it as a great band joining heaven and earth, and binding them both together; as the Greek comes from , to tie or bind,9 they made it, therefore, the sign of a covenant, or of a relation of peace between God in heaven, and the creatures upon the earth. In a similar manner the heavenly ladder, Gen 28:12. On this, nevertheless, it must be remarked, that the Hebrews were conscious of the symbolic sense of the designation; not so, however, the Greeks, who were taken with the fable merely. In like manner, too, did the Hebrew view rest upon a divine revelation. How far the mere human interpretation may be wide of the truth, is shown by the fact, that classical antiquity regarded the rainbow as for the most part announcing rain, the wintry storm, and war.
[Note on the Ancient, the Universal, and the Unchanging Law of Homicide.The divine statute, recorded Gen 9:6, is commonly assailed on grounds that are no less an abuse of language, than they are a perversion of reason and Scripture. The taking the life of the murderer is called revengeno distinction being made between this word, which ever denotes something angry and personal, and vengeance, which is the requital of justice, holy, invisible, and free from passion. On this false ground there is an attempt to set the Old Testament in opposition to the New, notwithstanding the express words of Christ to the contrary. This perverse misnomer, and the argument grounded upon it, apply equally to all punishment, strictly suchto all retributive justice, or to any assertion of law that is not resolvable into the merest expediency, excluding altogether the idea of desert, and reducing the notion of crime simply to that of mischief, or inconvenience. It thus becomes itself revenge in the lowest and most personal sense of the term. Discarding the higher or abstract justice, giving it no place in human law, severing the earthly government wholly from the divine, the proceeding called punishment, or justice, is nothing more nor less than the setting the mere personal convenience of the majority, called society, against that of the smaller numbers whom such society calls criminals. This has all the personality of revenge, whether with passion, or without; whereas, the abstract justice, with its moral ground, and its idea of intrinsic desert, alone escapes the charge. Intimately connected with this is the question respecting the true idea and sanction of human government,whether it truly has a moral ground, or whether it is nothing higher than human wills, and human convenience, by whatever low and ever falling standard it may be estimated. If the murderer is punished with death simply because he deserves it, because God has commanded it, and the magistrate and the executioner are but carrying out that command, then all the opposite reasoning adverted to falls immediately to the ground. It has neither force nor relevancy.
The same, too, may be said in respect to much of the reasoning in favor of capital punishment, so far as it is grounded on mere expediency, and is not used as a collateral aid to that higher principle by which alone even a true expediency can be sustained. Should it even be conceded that this higher principle is, in itself, and for its own sake, above the range of human government, still must it be acknowledged in jurisprudence as something necessary to hold up that lower department of power and motive which is universally admitted to fall within it. Reformation and prevention will never be effected under a judicial system which studiously, and even hostilely (for there can be no neutrality here) shuts out all moral ideas. There may be a seeming reform in such case; but it has no ground in the conscience, because it is accompanied by no conviction of desert, to which such influences must be wholly alien. The deterring power, on the other hand, must constantly lose its vigor, as the terror of the invisible justice fades away in the ignoring of the law, and there takes its place in the community that idea of punishment which is but the warring of opposite conveniences, and the collision of stronger with weaker human wills.
Men are not merely permitted to take the life of the murderer, if the good of society require it, but they are commanded to do so unconditionally. In no other way can the community itself escape the awful responsibility. Blood rests upon it. Impunity makes the whole land guilty. A voice cries to heaven. Murder unavenged is a pollution. Num 35:33; Psa 106:38; Mic 4:11. Such is the strong language of the Scripture as we find it in Genesis, in the statute of the Pentateuchwhich is only a particular application of the general lawand in the Prophets. Such, too, is the expression of all antiquityso strong and clear that we can only regard it as an echo of this still more ancient voicethe , as schylus styles it in a passage before referred to, Note, p. 257. The Greek dramatic poetry, like the Scriptures, presents it as the crime inexpiable, for which no lesser satisfaction was to be received: Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of the murderer, who is guilty of death. Num 35:31.
,
Lavish all wealth for blood, for one mans blood
Tis all in vain. sch., Choph. 518.
And this gives the answer to another false argument: It was only a law for the Jews, it is said. The first refutation is found in this passage, which is certainly universal, if anything can be called such. It was just after that most fearful judgment which had been brought upon the earth by lust and murder. It is not a prediction, but a solemn statute made for all, and to all, who then constituted the human race. It has the strongest aspect of universality. The reason for it, namely, the assailing the image of God, not only embraces all earthly humanity, but carries us into the spiritual and supernatural world. The particular law afterwards made for the Jews refers back to this universality in that repeated declaration which makes it to differ from all other Jewish laws that do not contain it: This shall be a statute to you in all your places, in all generations. The language is universal, the reason is universal, the consequences of impunity are universal.
Such, too, was the sentiment of all antiquity, a thing we are not to despise in endeavoring to ascertain what is fundamental in the ideas of ethics and jurisprudence. The law for the capital punishment of homicide was everywhere. The very superstitions connected with it, as shown in the expiatory ceremonies, are evidence of the deep sense of the human mind, that this crime, above all others, must have its adequate atonement; and that this could only be, life for life, blood for blood
.
Even in the case of accidental homicide, an expiatory cleansing was demanded. These ideas appear sometimes in harsh and revolting forms. The language is occasionally terrific, especially as it appears in the ancient tragedy; but all this only shows the strength and universality of the feeling, together with the innate sense of justice on which it was grounded. Aristotle reckons the punishment of murder by death among the , the universal unwritten laws, as they are styled by Sophocles in the Antigone, 451, although, in the latter passage, the reference is to the rights of burial, and the sacredness of the human bodyideas closely connected with the primitive law against murder as a violation of the divine image in humanity. All of this class of ordinances are spoken of as very ancient. No man knew from whence they came, nor when they had their origin.
,
, .
Not now, nor yesterday, but evermore
Live these; no memory tracks their birth.
To the same effect does the philosopher quote the lines of Empedocles, , on the crime of taking life, or slaying that which has soul in it,
Very much in the language of the Hebrew phrase . Num 31:19. For this, he saysnamely, the punishment of homicide by deathis not the law in one place, and not in another,
.
See Aristotles Rhetorica, lib. i. ch. xiii. Comp. also Sophocles: Ajax, 1343, and the dipus Tyran. 867.
The blood revenge, or rather, the blood vengeance, as it should be called, Die Blutrache, has an odious sound, because pains have been taken to connect with it odious associations, but it is only a mode of denoting this strong innate idea of justice demanding retribution in language corresponding to the horror of the crime,the enormity of which, according to the Scripture, is not simply that it is productive of inconveniencepain and deprivation to the individual and loss to societybut that it is assailing the image of God, the distinguishing essence of humanity. So that it seems to justify the Rabbins in what might otherwise appear an extravagant saying, namely, that he who slays one man intentionally is as though he had slain all men. He has assailed humanity; as far as lies in his power, he has aimed at the destruction of the human race. The same thought, Koran, v. 35.
The crime of murder must be punished, the land must be cleansed; and so before organized human government had, or could have had existence, to a sufficient extent for prompt and methodical judicial processes, it was not merely permitted, but enjoined upon, those nearest the transaction, to execute the divine sentence. Those who were disobedient to this command were themselves stained with blood, or as long as it was unexecuted. Hence the phrase , which becomes the general name for the pursuer or prosecutor; whence it has passed into the law language of almost all criminal codes. He is also called the Redeemer or rescuer. In this sense it is transferred to the Great Redeemer, our next of kin, the avenger of the spiritual murder of our race, as against the great demonic homicide who is called a manslayer from the beginning, Joh 8:44; compare also Job 19:25. From the criminal side of justice, we may say, this term, by a very natural transition of ideas, is carried to the civil, and so the Goel, or Redeemer, is also the next of kin who buys back the lost inheritance.
Sometimes the objection to capital punishment assumes a pious tone, and quotes the Scriptural declaration: Vengeance is mine. See, however, the true interpretation of this phrase, as given by the Apostle himself, Rom 12:19, and in what immediately follows in Genesis 13, about the magistracy as ordained of God. It is Gods justice, not merely delegated to, but imposed upon, human society, thus making it the very antithesis of that revenge with which it is so sophistically confounded. The odious term, it may be repeated, is far more applicable to that doctrine of expediency which, in discarding the idea of desert, has nothing deeper or firmer to build upon than the shifting notions of human convenience, and the antagonism of human wills. There is undoubtedly given to men great freedom in determining the details of jurisprudence, and in fixing the gradations of punishment. Here, to a certain extent, expediency may come in as a modifying influence, harmonizing with the higher moral principle which cannot be kept out of law without destroying all its healthy, conserving power. But some things are fundamental; and they cannot be changed without weakening all the sanctions of human government. Among these is the punishment due to the crime of blood-shedding. God has fixed it. The State, indeed, may disobey; it may contemn other social ordinances having a like divine institution; but in so doing it discards its own highest idea, and rejects the only foundation on which it can permanently rest. It builds alone on human wills, and that is building on the sand.
The reason here given: for in the image of God made he man, seems to have an intensity of meaning which forbids its being confined to the spiritual or immaterial. It penetrates even the corporeal or organic nature, as Lange appears to intimate. There is a sense in which it may be said to inhere even in the body, and, through it, to be directly assailable. The human body itself is holy, as the residence of the Spirit, as the temple in which this divine image is enshrined, and through which it is reflected. Compare the , 1Co 3:16. Something like this seems to be implied in the strange expression , as it occurs, Num 31:19, and which is identical with the ancient Arabian phrase , as found in the Koran. See Surat. v. 35, , he who slays a soul except for a soul, that is, unless in retribution for a soul. This is the literal sense, strange as it may sound; but may be taken here in the general sense of person, as is used in several passages of the New Testamentthe soul put for the whole personality. Or there may be the ellipsis of some such word as , the tabernacle of the soul, an assault upon which is an assault upon the soul itself; and this may also be the explanation of the Hebrew phrase , he who smiteth a soul. Compare Gen 37:21, , let us not smite him (Joseph) the soul. But in a still closer sense the body may be called the image of the soul, the reflection of the soul, even as the soul is the image, or in the image of God. And this furnishes good ground for such transfer of the sense, even to that which is most outward in the human constitution. We may trace the shadow of the idea as surviving even in the Greek poetry, where the human body is styled . See Euripides: Suppliants, 616, where it is applied to the decomposed and mouldering remains of the Argive warrior when carried to the funeral-pyre:
.
To the funeral-pyre thine image bear I forth
Marred as it is.
It is spoken of as something sacred to the patron deity of the Argive state, like a statue or a shrine. See also Plato: Phdrus, 251 A. The expression may also have some connection with the old idea of the blood as the seat of the soul, regarded as representing it, and thus indirectly bearing the image of God. In any view, there is implied something holy in humanity, and even in the human bodysomething in it transcending matter or material organization, and which is not thus inherent in any other organic life, or corporeal structure.
But the murderer, too, it may be said, is made in the image of God, and therefore should he be spared. The answer to this is simply the citation of the divine command. His life is expressly demanded. He is , , one devoted. See 1Ki 20:42 : Because thou hast sent away , the man of my doom (or of my dooming), therefore shall thy soul be in place of his soul, . See also , the people of my doom, Isa 34:5. The judicial execution of the murderer is truly a sacrifice, an expiation, whatever may be objected to such an idea by a false humanitarianism which seems to have no thought how it is belittling humanity in its utter ignoring of anything above man, or of any relation between the human and the eternal justice.
Harsh as they may seem, we need these ideas to give the necessary strength to our relaxing judicial morality, and a more healthy tone to the individual and social conscience. The age is fast going into the other extreme, and crime, especially the crime of blood-shedding, is increasing in the ratio of our spurious tenderness. The harshness is now exhibiting its other and more hypocritical phase. Those who speak with contempt of the divine law, are constantly railing at society as itself the criminal in the punishment of crime, and as especially malignant and revengeful in discharging the divinely imposed duty of executing justice upon the murderer.T. L.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See the Doctrinal and Ethical. Gen 8:20 would present a good text for a thanksgiving sermon. In connection with Gen 9:21, it would be suitable for an exposition of thankfulness. Gen 9:21 would be adapted to a sermon on human sinfulness in the light of the divine compassion. How Gods speaking in his heart re-echoes in the innermost heart of the believer. Gen 9:22 would be suitable for a representation of the connection between the kingdom of grace, and the kingdom of nature with its laws. Gen 9:1, A marriage-blessing at the celebration of a wedding. Gen 9:2-3, The worth and sacredness of the creaturely life (sparing of the animal, consecration of all enjoyment). Gen 9:5, The holy estimation of human life. The chief point of view in the whole Section is the covenant of God with Noah as the type of all covenants that follow; since they all rest upon the personal relation of God to man; all are of Gods free institution; all, moreover, as ethically personal alliances (after the manner of a contract), are an interchange of divine promises and human vows, of divine claims and human faith; all are sacramentally sealed. How God binds himself in his sacramental signs, and in them truly remembers the man who remembers him. How the divine eye of grace and the human eye of faith meet each other in the sacrament. The rainbow, the extraordinary phenomenon of heaven, and, on that account, an image of the divine kindness, compassion, and friendship. The light of the heavenly sun in the colors of the earthly rainbow.
Starke: Gen 8:20. The building of the altar; probably upon the mountains of Ararat. Noah valued thankfulness before all earthly business. It is not said through what means God made known to Noah his acceptance of the offering. We may conjecture that the offering was set on fire by fire from heaven (but the expression of satisfaction here follows the burning of the offering).
Gen 8:21, concerning the abuse of these words in the exculpation of sin (in many ways does the element of mildness in them become misapprehended).Gen 9:1, Because before the flood God was provoked at the sin of unchastity, it becomes necessary, in consideration of the fearful display of wrath, to show that he is not hostile to the lawful connection of man and woman, nor does he condemn, but rather designs through it the multiplication of the human race. Therefore, in this text is the marriage-state praised and celebrated, since thereout flows not only the order of the family and the world, but also the existence of the church.
Gen 9:3, Just as every herb does not serve for food, so also is not everything thereto serviceable that, by means of life, moves upon the earth.
Gen 9:4, The aim of the prohibition is mainly that the way of cruelty may be barred to men.
Gen 9:6, The magistracy is Gods ordinance, and derives the sword from no other authority (Rom 13:14). Starke prefers the view that the rainbow had existed before the flood, as in like manner he supposes, that before the flood men might eat of flesh.
Gen 9:15, Luther: When the Scripture says God remembers, it means that we feel and are conscious that he remembers it, namely, when he outwardly presents himself in such a manner, that we, thereby, take notice that he thinks thereon. Therefore it all comes to this: as I present myself to God, so does he present himself to me.
Schrder: After Gods curse on the occasion of the fall, we meet with the offerings of Cain and Abel; again do offering and altar connect themselves with the judicial curse of the flood.The Lord smelled a sweet savor, in the Hebrew, a savor of rest (resting, or satisfaction); (it denotes that God rests from his wrath and has become propitiated. Luther). Therefore is it a savor of satisfactiona chosen expression that becomes fixed in its application to the burnt-offering.Jehovah spake to his heart, that is, he resolved with himself. In the creation of man, Gen 1:26; Gen 2:18, and also in his destruction, there precedes a formal decree of God; and no less does the divine counsel precede the covenant for mans preservation. Prayer was always connected with the sacrifice; in fact, every offering was nothing else than an embodied prayer.While the earth remaineth. There is, therefore, even to the earth in its present state, a limit indicated (2Pe 3:5; 2Pe 3:7; 2Pe 3:10; Isaiah 66.; Rev 20:11; Rev 21:1).Gen 9:1, The Noachian covenant is a covenant of Elohim, a covenant with the universal nature. Luther finds in our Section the inauguration of an order of instruction, of economy, and of defence (Noahs offering, the blessing of the family, inauguration of the magistracy).
Gen 9:7, God does not love death, but life. The covenant is re-established, for as made with Adam it had failed. According to Calvin the rainbow had existed before, but was here again consecrated as a sign and a pledge.
Footnotes:
[20][Gen 8:20.from all the pure of the cattle, and from all the pure fowl. The word denotes selection. It can hardly mean one of every kind deemed pure among the cattle; much less can it have this large meaning in respect to the fowl (or the birds), among whom the pure species far excelled the impure, which are mentioned as exceptions (twenty-four in number), Lev 11:13; Deu 14:12. If Noah had had every earthly species of bird in the ark (seven of all that were regarded as pure), and offered of each in sacrifice, it would have required an immense altar. There was evidently a selection, and such use of the term here may serve as a guide in respect to its antecedent uses, justifying us in limiting it to the more common kinds of all species known to Noah, and inhabiting the portion of the earth visited by the flood.T. L.]
[21][Gen 8:21. A word of a very peculiar form, like , Isa 1:31. Aben Ezra compares it with , Hos 2:4. It denotes rest intensively; the rest, not of mere quietude, or cessation, but of satisfaction, complacency, delight. An odor of restof complete and gratified acceptance. Compare the suggested language, Zep 3:17, expressing Gods great satisfaction in Jerusalem, , He shall rest in his love. The word occurs here for the first time, and is evidently meant to have a connection with the name (Noah), but becomes the common phrase ( ) to denote the pleasant odor of the sacrifice, in Exodus, Leviticus, etc. Hence the New Testament Hebraism as seen in the word , in such passages as 2Co 2:15, a sweet savour of Christ, Eph 5:2, a sweet-smelling savour, Php 4:18, as also the use of , 2Co 2:16, the savour of life unto life. The Jewish interpreters here, as usual, are afraid of the anthropophatism, and so the Targum of Onkelos renders generally, The Lord received the offering graciously. In like manner the Jewish translator Arabs Erpenianus. Aben Ezra affects a horror of the literal sense. , he saysO profane! away with the thought that God should smell or eat. With all their reverence for their old Scriptures, these Jewish interp reters had got a taste of philosophy, and hence their Philonic fastidiousness, as ever manifested in a desire to smooth over all such language.T. L.]
[22][Gen 8:22., rendered wintermore properly autumn, though it may include the winter, as may include the spring.T. L.]
Footnotes:
[1][Ch. 9. Gen 9:5. , your blood of (or for) your souls. Maimonides renders it , your blood which is your souls. LXX., , blood of your souls.T. L.]
[2]Gen 9:6.. E. V. by man. This would seem rather to require the term , by the hand of man, the usual Hebrew phrase to denote instrumentality. That it was to be by human agency is very clear, but the in may be better taken, as it is by Jona ben Gannach (Abul-Walid), in his Hebrew Grammar, p. 33, to denote substitution,for man, in place of manlife for life, or blood for blood, as it is so strongly and frequently expressed in the Greek tragedy. The preposition , in this place, he says, is equivalent to , on account of, and he refers to 2Sa 14:7, Give us the man who smote his brother, and we will put him to death, , for the soul (the life, or in place of) his brother, Exo 20:2, , and he shall be sold for his theft, as also, among many other places, to Gen 44:5. , where, instead of divining by it, as in our English versions and the Vulgate, he gives what seems a more consistent rendering: he will surely divine for it (), that is, find out by divination, who has in his possession the lost cup. Such also seems to have been the idea of the LXX. in Gen 9:6, where they have nothing for but , in return for his blood. Arabs Erpenianus renders it by the word, or command, of man, indicating a judicial sentence. So the Targum of Onkelos, by the witnesses according to the word of judgment, and so also Rushi and Aben Ezra, , by man, that is, by the witnesses.T. L.]
[3][Gen 9:13., my bow, as just before, Gen 9:11, , my covenant. The language seems, on the very face of it, to imply a thing previously existing, called, from its remarkable appearance, the bow of God, and now appointed as a sign of the previously existing covenant. Had it been a new creation, the language would more properly have been: I will make, or set, a bow in the cloud. See remarks (in the Introd. to the I. ch. p. 144) on the rainbow as the symbol of constancy in nature, from its constant and regular appearance whenever the sun shines forth after the rain. For further views on this, and for the opinions of the Jewish commentators, see also note, p. 328.T. L.]
[4][Gen 9:14.This verse should be connected, in translation, with the one following. As it is rendered in E. V., the appearing of the bow is made the subject of the sentence (though apparently the predicate), whereas the sequence of the conjunction , and of the tenses, would give the sense thus: And it shall come to pass, when I bring the cloud, etc., and whenever the bow appears in the cloud, that I will remember my covenant; the conjunction before having an illative force.T. L.]
[5] [The flame mounting heavenward from the great altar of Noah, the vast column of smoke and incense majestically ascending in the calm, clear atmosphere, transcending seemingly the common law of gravity, and thus combining the ideas of tranquillity and power, would of itself present a striking image of the natural sublime. But, beyond this, there is a moral, we may rather say, a spiritual sublimity, to one who regards the scene in those higher relations which the account here indicates, and which other portions of Scripture make so clear. It offers to our contemplation the most vivid of contrasts. There comes to mind, on the one hand, the gross selfishness of the antediluvian world, ever tending downward more and more to earth and a sensual animalityin a word, devoting life to that which is lower than the lowest life itself; whilst now, on the contrary, there rises up in all its rich suggestiveness, the idea of sacrifice, of life devotion to that which is higher than all life, as symbolized in the flame ascending from the offered victim. It is, moreover, the spirit of confession, of penitence, of perfect resignation to the will of God as the rational rule of life,all, too, prefiguring One who made the great sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world, and who, although historically unknown to Noah, was essentially embraced in that recognition of human demerit, and of the divine holiness, which is styled the righteousness of faith. Whilst thus the new spirit of sacrifice ascends from the baptized earth, heaven is represented as bending down to meet the symbol of reconciliation; the infinite descends to the finite, and humanity, in verification of the Scripture paradox, rises through its very act of lowliness and self-abasement. The wrath all gone, infinite compassion takes now its place, and this is expressed in that striking Hebraism, the odor of rest, typifying the (2Co 2:4) the sweet savor of Christ in them who are saved.
The writer of this old account knew as well as Philo, or Strauss, or any modem rationalists, that God did not smell nor eat; but the emotional truthfulness of his inspiration made him adopt the strongest and the most emotional language without fear of inconsistency or anticipated cavil. How gross! says the infidel, this representation of God, snuffing up the odor of burning flesh; but it is he who snuffs at Gods holy altar (Mal 1:13). It is he who is gross in his profane mockery of a spirituality which his carnal earthliness utterly fails to comprehend.T. L.]
[6] [There is no need here of labored attempts to remove apparent inconsistencies. The most simple and direct interpretation of Scripture is generally that which is most conservative of its honor as well as of its truthfulness. The passage seems to assign the same reason for sparing the world that is given Gen 6:5-6, for its destruction; and in both cases there is used the same particle . Some would render it although: I will not again smite, etc., although the imagination of the heart of man is evil. Others, like Jacobus, would connect it with the words for mans sake, intimating that it should never more be done for this reason. But nothing of the kind helps the difficulty, if there be any difficulty. There are but very few places (if any) where can be rendered although. The passages cited by Noldius under this head in almost every case fail to bear him out. It is n particle denoting a reason, and sometimes a motive, like the two senses of the Greek and the Latin quod, or the two English conjunctions because and that. The idea presented by Lange gives the key. Sin is both guilt and disease. Mans depravity, therefore, is the object both of vengeance and compassion, two states of feeling which can exist, at the same time, perfect and unweakened, only in the divine mind, but which are necessarily presented to us in a succession, produced by varying circumstances on the finite or human side. It is in reference to the former that the language is used, Gen 6:5-6, where denotes the reason of the vengeance. Here, in like manner, it expresses the reason of the mercy. Noahs offering had made the difference, not changing God, but placing man in a different relation to him as viewed under a changed aspect. He is the poor creature, as well as the guilty creature. He is depraved from his youth, not meaning, we think, a less severe description of his sinfulness, as Lange seems to intimate, but giving a deeper view of it, as a greater calamity. It is not the mere habit-hardening or world-hardening of manhood and old age, as contrasted with the comparative innocence of childhood; but the seeds of the evil lie deep, away back in his very infancy. It is the hereditary, or disease, aspect that induces the language, which seems like regret on the part of Deity for an act so calamitous, though so just and necessary: neither will I again smite every living thing as I have done. It is as though his heart smote him, to use a transplanted Hebraism elsewhere employed of man, or as it is said of David. 1Sa 24:6. It would not be a stronger expression, or more anthropopathic, than that used Gen 6:6, and he was grieved at his heart. It is not, however, simply the idea of hopelessness in view of mans incorrigibility, but an expression of holy and infinite compassion, such as the closest criticism will more and more discover as abounding in this old book of Genesis, even in the midst of the severest threatening of judgment. The greatness of mans sin reveals the greatness of the divine sorrow on account of it. The sinner, too, is allowed to feel it, and make it a ground of his pleading for forgiveness; as the Psalmist prays, Psa 25:11 pardon mine iniquity, for () it is great. In that passage, too, some would render although, to the great marring of the force and pathos of the supplication. Christ did not die for small sins, as Cranmer has well said.
It is a peculiarity of the Holy Scriptures thus to set forth unshrinkingly the sharp contrasts, as we may reverently call them, in the divine attributes. None but inspired writers could venture to do this; and how boldly do they present them! often, too, in closest connection without betraying any fear of cavil, or charge of inconsistency. The tremendous wrath, and the most melting mercy appear in the same chapters, and sometimes in immediately succeeding verses. Among others, compare Nah 1:1; Nah 1:7. What a burning stream of indignation finds its closing cadence in the words: Jehovah, he is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, he knoweth them that put their trust in him. Such strong contrasts appear especially in portions of Scripture which the careless reader passes over as indelicate, like Ezekiel 16, that awful picture of impurity and utter depravity, as presented in the history of the meretricious and utterly abandoned woman who symbolized the Jewish and Israelitish people. A too fastidious taste would forbid the reading of that chapter, at least in any public religious service, but it is this most revolting representation (as some would style it) which is the very thing that makes the divine forgiveness and compassion at the close so full of a melting tenderness, beyond what any other kind of language could express: Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish with thee a covenant of eternity. Then shalt thou remember thy ways, and be ashamed, and thou shalt know that I am thy Lord, that thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith Adonai Elohim, thy Lord and thy God. The Hebrew is, literally, when I have made an atonement ( ) for thee, or a covering for thee. Eze 16:63. It is in these strong contrasts,in these apparent inconsistencies, as some would call them,that the great power and pathos of the Scripture appear.T. L.]
[7][The opinion of Delitzsch is not so broad as this. He seems, rather, to hold that the rainbow existed in nature before the flood, but had not appeared, on account of the absence of the conditions. See Delitzsch, p. 276.T. L.]
[8][Our word humanity will not do here at all; as it corresponds to the German menschheit; whilst our humanitarianism, on account of its abuse, would be still worse. It is defined by what follows.T. L.]
[9][Plato, in the Cratylus, fancifully connects it with , = , to speak, and gives it the idea of messenger (Hermes], or interpretation.T. L.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This Chapter opens, to us, the beginning of the account of the new world, after the destruction of the old; so that here we commence, again, as it were, the history of mankind, in general, and of the Church of God in particular. In the contents of this chapter, we are highly interested; not only because it relates to us the goodness of God, in a way of providence to the world at large; but because we have in it the outlines of divine mercy, in the way of grace, confirmed afresh by covenant engagements, to Noah and his descendants, unto the latest generations.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Bow in the Cloud
Gen 9:11
In the midst of wrath God remembered mercy. Upon the subsidence of the Flood and the restoration of the family of Noah to their accustomed avocations, the great Ruler and Lord graciously renewed to the human race the expression of His favour.
I. The Covenant was established between, on the one hand, the Lord Himself; on the other hand, the sons of men, represented in the person of Noah.
( a ) Its occasion. It was after the vindication of Divine justice and authority by the deluge of waters; it was upon the restoration of the order of nature as before; it was when the family of Noah commenced anew the offices of human life and toil. A new beginning of human history seemed an appropriate time for the establishment of a new covenant between a reconciled God and the subjects of His kingdom.
( b ) Its purport. It was an undertaking that never again should the waters return in fury so destructive and disastrous.
( c ) Its nature. In an ordinary covenant, the parties mutually agree to a certain course of conduct, and bind themselves thereto. Now, in any agreement between God and man, it must be borne in mind that the promise which God makes is absolutely free; He enters into an engagement of His own accord, and aware that man can offer Him no equivalent for what He engages His honour to do.
( d ) Its sign. The bow in the cloud was probably as old as the Creation, but from this time forth it became a sign of Divine mercy and a pledge of Divine faithfulness. Something frequent, something beautiful, something heavenly how fitted to tell us of the love and fidelity of our Divine Father!
II. God is to all a Covenant God. He has given offers of mercy, assurances of compassion, promise of life to all mankind. His covenant has been ratified with the blood of Christ. To those who enter into its privileges He says, ‘This is as the waters of Noah,’ etc. (Isa 54:9 ).
References. IX. 11. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Lessons, vol. i. p. 198. Bishop Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 163. IX. 12, 13. R. Winterbotham, Sermons, p. 84.
The Rainbow the Type of the Covenant
Gen 9:12-15
God was pleased to impart to Noah the gracious assurance that He would ‘establish His covenant,’ to appoint an outward and visible sign which would serve at once to confirm men in their faith and to dispel their fears.
I. The rainbow is equally dependent for its existence upon storm and upon sunshine. Marvellously adapted, therefore, to serve as a type of mercy following upon judgment as a sign of connexion between man’s sin and God’s free and unmerited grace, connecting gloomy recollections of past with bright expectations of future.
II. It is also a type of that equally distinctive peculiarity of Christ’s Gospel, that sorrow and suffering have their appointed sphere of exercise both generally in the providential administration of the world, and individually in the growth and development of personal holiness. It is the Gospel of Christ Jesus alone which converts sorrow and suffering into instruments for the attainment of higher and more enduring blessings.
III. As the rainbow spans the vault of the sky and becomes a link between earth and heaven, so, in the person and work of Christ, is beheld the unchangeableness and perpetuity of that covenant of grace which like Jacob’s ladder maintains the communication between earth and heaven, and thus by bringing God very near to man, ushers man into the presence-chamber of God.
IV. In nature the continued appearance of rainbow is dependent on the continued existence of cloud. In heaven, the rainbow will ever continue to point backward to man’s fall and onward to the perpetuity of a covenant which is ‘ordered in all things and sure’. But work of judgment will then be accomplished, and therefore the cloud inseparable from the condition of the redeemed in earth will have no more place in heaven
Canon Elliott, The Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v. p. 151.
The Message of the Rainbow
Gen 9:13
When a man has passed through the deep waters as Noah passed, there is a new depth in the familiar Bible, there is a new meaning in the familiar bow.
I. What we most dread God can illuminate. If there was one thing full of terror to Noah, it was the cloud. How Noah with the fearful memories of the Flood, would tremble at the rain-cloud in the sky! yet it was there that the Almighty set his bow. It was that very terror He illuminated. And a kind God is always doing that. What we most dread, He can illuminate. Was there ever anything more dreaded than the Cross, that symbol of disgrace in an old world, that foulest punishment, that last indignity that could be cast on a slave? And Christ has so illuminated that thing of terror, that the one hope today for sinful men, and the one type and model of the holiest life, is nothing else than that.
II. There is unchanging purpose in the most changeful things. In the whole of nature there is scarce anything so changeful as the clouds. But God, living and full of power, would have His name and covenant upon the cloud. And if that means anything surely it is this: that through all change, and movement, and recasting, run the eternal purposes of God.
III. There is meaning in the mystery of life. Clouds are the symbol, clouds are the spring of mystery. And so when God sets His bow upon the cloud, I believe that there is meaning in life’s mystery. I am like a man travelling among the hills and there is a precipice and I know it not, and yonder is a chasm where many a man has perished, and I cannot see it. But on the clouds that hide God lights His rainbow; and the ends of it are here on earth, and the crown of it is lifted up to heaven. And I feel that God is with me in the gloom, and there is meaning in life’s mystery for me.
IV. But there is another message of the bow. It tells me that the background of joy is sorrow. God has painted His rainbow on the cloud, and back of its glories yonder is the mist. And underneath life’s gladness is an unrest, and a pain that we cannot well interpret, and a sorrow that is born we know not how. Will the Cross of Calvary interpret life if the deepest secret of life is merriment? Impossible! I cannot look at the rainbow on the cloud, I cannot see the Saviour on the Cross, but I feel that back of gladness there is agony, and that the richest joy is born of sorrow.
G. H. Morrison, Flood Tide, p. 170.
References. IX. 13. J. Parker, Adam, Noah, and Abraham, p. 54. IX. 14. C. Perren, Revival Sermons, p. 292. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii. p. 28. IX. 15. J. Monro Gibson, The Ages before Moses, p. 138. IX. 16. H. N. Powers, American Pulpit of Today, vol. iii. p. 414. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 517. IX. 18-29. R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i. p. 157. X. 1-5. J. Parker, Adam, Noah, and Abraham, p. 64. X. 32. S. Wilberforce, Sermons, p. 64. XI. 1. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (10th Series), p. 103. XI. 4-9. S. Leathes, Studies in Genesis, p. 81. XI. 9. F. E. Paget, Village Sermons, p. 223. XI. 27. R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i. p. 181. J. Monro Gibson, The Ages before Moses, p. 159. XI. 31. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2011.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
The New Beginning
Gen 9:13
This second beginning was in many respects very different from the first: there is nothing here about a garden, or a forbidden tree, or a tempting serpent. So it would appear from the letter of the narrative; yet, lo, as we go along the courses of the history, we find that they are every one here, only under different names, yet ending in precisely identical effects! So much for variety in human history! Believe me, there is no vital variety; it is all superficial and apparent, not profound and real. A beautiful sight was the altar which Noah built upon the reappearing earth. Beautiful to think that there was a Church before there was a house! If you look at that first new building in the new world you will see it expand until it becomes a sanctuary wide as the earth, and all men are gathered in loving piety within its ample wails. Sweet was the savour that rose from earth to heaven! And as the smoke curled upward to the approving sky the primeval blessing was repronounced; the seasons were confirmed in their revolutions; and all things seemed to begin again in unclouded hope. Was there, then, a new human nature, and did God succeed better in his second experiment than in his first? No. The serpent is still here! Listen: “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” The first temptation was from without, the second was from within. This is the verdict of history. In the first account we read that man was made in the image and likeness of God; and in the second we read that the imagination of his heart is evil from his youth. This, then, must be the accepted fact, and all Divine interpositions must be based upon it. The first thing we learn after this solemn declaration is that there is to be no more smiting of every living thing, plainly showing that mere destruction is a failure. I do not say that destruction is undeserved or unrighteous, but that it is, as a reformative arrangement, a failure as regards the salvation of survivors. We can see men slain for doing wrong, and can in a day or two after the event do the very things which cost them their lives! It might be thought that one such flood as this would have kept the world in order for ever, whereas men now doubt whether there ever was such a flood, and repeat all the sins of which the age of Noah was guilty. You would think that to see a man hanged would put an end to ruffianism for ever; whereas, history goes to show that within the very shadow of the gallows men hatch the most detestable and alarming crimes. Set it down as a fact that punishment, though necessary even in its severest forms, can never regenerate the heart of man. From this point, then, we have to deal with a history, the fundamental fact of which is that all the actors are as bad as they can possibly be. “There is none righteous, no not one.” “There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.”
It is remarkable, however, that though God will not any more smite every living thing, he has surrounded human life with the most solemn sanctions: “And surely your blood of your lives [your life-blood] will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.” Under the old dispensation if an ox gored a man it was to be killed. The sovereignty of human life is with God, and secondarily with whomsoever he may appoint. This arrangement follows the account of the flood with remarkable propriety, because when human life has been destroyed on a large scale the value of it might seem to be worthless. Why quibble about the morality of killing one man when ten thousand have been swallowed up in a flood? But God says in effect Every human life is of great value; every man must set great store by his own life; and every man must consider himself in a high degree responsible for the life of his brother, “Of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.” Thus, too, he would seem to correct the notion which the destructiveness of this flood might seem to justify, viz., that he himself is careless as to the value and destiny of human life. His answer to this must be found in his Providence and his Redemption. If any man would know what value is set on man by his Maker let him study the life, the sacrifice, and the intercession of Jesus Christ.
You will probably ask whether capital punishment is not enjoined as the law of States in ver. 6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.” Wherever in civilised countries there is capital crime there must be capital punishment. But capital punishment may mean other and more than the signification usually attached to the expression. To shut a man up in life-long confinement is capital punishment. To imprison him for the whole term of his natural life is in reality to shed his blood. The mere manner of doing it is a trifle; the solemn and tragical fact is that the murderer is seized and held for ever by the strong and righteous arm of the law. That is capital punishment, and conscience and reason conspire to proclaim it just.
These solemn directions having been given about human life, a covenant, remarkable for beauty and tenderness, is established by the Almighty.
“And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
“And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”
In speaking to Noah, God did not then create the bow; he turned it into the sign of a holy bond. The fear is that we may have the bond and not the oath. We may see physical causes producing physical effects, and yet may see no moral significations passing through the common scenery of earth and sky. Cultivate the spirit of moral interpretation if you would be wise and restful: then the rainbow will keep away the flood; the fowls of the air will save you from anxiety; and the lilies of the field will give you an assurance of tender care. Why, everything is yours! The daisy you trod upon just now was telling you that if God so clothe the grass of the field he will much more clothe the child that bears his own image.
Very beautiful is this idea of God giving us something to look at, in order to keep our faith steady. He knows that we need pictures, and rests, and voices, and signs, and these he has well supplied. We might have forgotten the word, but we cannot fail to see the bow ; every child sees it, and exclaims at the sight with glad surprise. If any one would tell the child the sweet meaning of the bow, it might move his soul to a still higher ecstacy! And so with all other things God has given us as signs and tokens: the sacred Book, the water of baptism, the bread and wine, the quiet Sabbath, the house of prayer; all these have deeper meanings than are written in their names; search for those meanings, keep them, and you will be rich.
And now, you say, all will be well. The spared family will be as a Church of God. Noah will walk before the Lord with a reverent heart, and, like his great-grandfather, Enoch, will go up to heaven as the morning dew goes up to the sun. Alas! it is not so. “Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken.” You cry “Shame,” and go out and do exactly the same thing! You said that if you were spared in a certain affliction you would be a good man ever after: you were spared, and there is not a meaner soul on the earth at this moment. You said that if a certain calamity could be averted, you would walk before God with an honest heart it was averted, and you have never prayed since! Then be careful not to blame Noah, for the severity which injures him slays us. Herein is God more merciful than man, for man would have said, “The bond is broken, and the bow is no longer a pledge”; yet God spared the drunkard, and kept the bow as a token in the cloud. Let us say that “his mercy endureth for ever.” Let the house of Aaron say so, and the house that is our own, yea, let everything that hath breath, say, “his mercy endureth for ever.”
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XV
GOD’S COVENANT WITH NOAH
Genesis 8-9
I want to put a general question: How long was Noah in the ark? In answering that question you may consult Gen 7:1-11 , and Gen 8:14 . I call your attention in the next place to a suggestion in the Speaker’s Commentary on Gen 8:4 , which tells us that the ark rested on Mount Ararat, and gives the date. According to the Jewish year observed in this account, the ark rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. On that very day later, the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, and on that day later Christ rose from the dead. We might investigate any connection between the resting of that ark, the passage of the Red Sea and the resurrection of Christ.
The next thought presented is with reference to the raven. Dr. Fuller of England, in his exposition of Genesis, compares the sending out of the raven to a man’s getting out of the church who was never a Christian. He never wants to go back. He pictures that raven flying around, resting on some dead body floating on the top of the water, and never desiring to return to the ark of the covenant. On account of the naming in this chapter of the raven, the dove, the olive branch, and the rainbow, these four names have gone into all languages and all literature as indicating certain things. The raven is regarded as a croaker and a bird of ill omen; the dove is regarded as the symbol of innocence; the olive branch as the symbol of peace; and the rainbow as the symbol of hope. I was once asked the question where that dove got ‘ the olive branch, since the whole earth had been flooded with water. The olive tree lives under water. In the lakes of the Black Forest you can see olive trees growing under the water and never blossoming until in dry weather when the lakes sink down and the tops of the trees come up and immediately the tree blossoms. Pliny in his Natural History said that the olive tree grew under water in the Red Sea; that it grows in salt water. It is a very hardy plant. So it is not a miracle that the dove found an olive branch, but quite in accordance with the nature of this particular plant that it could live and retain its vitality many months under water, and when the waters subsided go to flowering and blooming.
We now come to the most significant thing in this part of Genesis, and that is the covenant between God and the second head of the human race, Noah. I will give this general question: What is the meaning of “covenant” based on the Greek word? In very general terms a covenant is an agreement or compact between two or more parties having its stipulation binding on both parties. There is said here to be a covenant between God upon the first part and Noah on the second part representing himself and the whole animal world. So Noah stands there representing all earth life.
We want to note in the next place what was the basis of the covenant, the meritorious ground of agreement. I will read that to you from the eighth chapter and twentieth verse: “And Noah builded an altar unto Jehovah, and took of every clean beast, and every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And Jehovah smelled the sweet savour; and Jehovah said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake.” Now that was the meritorious ground or basis of the covenant. In other words, Noah comes before God as a sinner, making an offering. In the letter to the Hebrews we are told that wherever there is a covenant there is a shedding of blood. There must be a death. The basis of this covenant which God himself appointed is that animal sacrifice typifying a greater sacrifice to come, which shall be sacrificed on an altar. It must be complete. The next thing is that the word “altar” appears here in the Bible for the first time. I will give a general question: From what language is the word “altar” derived and what is its literal meaning? I am calling your attention to these new names in the Bible. The stipulation that God requires of man is that he shall come before him and be justified through an atonement, and the man’s faith in that atonement constitutes the ground of God’s entering into covenant with him.
Let us notice some of the other stipulations of this covenant: Gen 9:1 , “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” There you see is a renewal of the covenant with Adam when he said, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” You must not only come before God as a sinner, but your obligation is to go out and subdue this earth and fill it up with inhabitants. “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; with all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hands are they delivered.” This is a renewal of the dominion of man as given originally in Adam.
We now come to an enlargement of the Adamic covenant, Gen 1:29 : “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed; to you it shall be for food; and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so.” Now, let us see the enlargement on that, Gen 9:3 : “Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; and the green herbs have I given you all.” God now gives animal food in addition to the vegetable. The animal food embraces any animal creature whatsoever. When we get to the Mosaic covenant we will see that this food will be restricted to clean animals, to those that divide the hoof and chew the cud. I want you to notice that Noah stands as the head of the human race like Adam stood and that he has a larger privilege than Adam had as to animal food added, where before there was only vegetable. When we come to the New Testament we will hear Paul arguing for the broadness of the privilege of the covenant of Noah when he says, “Every creature of God is good and to be received with thanksgiving.” The covenantwith Noah is very much broader than the covenant with Moses, because that covenant was with a single nation only, and this was with the whole human race.
We notice now another thing entirely new: “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” You may eat an animal, but you must not eat him with the blood in him. When we come to Exodus, Moses renews that law that a thing that is strangled, merely choked to death, cannot be eaten because the blood is in him, and anything that merely dies cannot be eaten. In Act 15 you will find that James insists that that restriction be put upon the Gentile Christians. Somehow I have always sympathized with this restriction. I knew a man once, and held him in considerable esteem until one day he told me that his favorite dish was blood pudding. I never did like him as much afterward because that seems to me to be such a horrid dish. People who eat blood are brutal and ferocious. Caesar said that the Belgians, the bravest of men, lived on milk, showing that animal food itself is not necessary. But the English believe that their superiority over all nations in fighting arises from the great quantity of beef that they eat. God gives permission to eat any animal creature, and I have known people who would eat rattlesnakes and polecats and snails, and with some people bird’s nests are regarded as a delicacy. Savage nations show you the highest compliment when they offer you a dish of grub worms. An African woman who wanted to show a kindness to one of our missionaries who had been kind to her went out and got him a dish of grub worms. There is no law against it except taste. I would not prefer, for my part, the grub worms, nor the snails, nor the polecats.
We now come to a new prohibition: “And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddest man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man.” Here is something we have not fallen in with before. You remember when Cain killed his brother he was afraid that whoever found him would kill him. God protected him from death by human hands. Now, on this side of the flood God here instituted civil government and makes murder punishable with death and makes it right for man in the capacity of a civil government to take the life of a murderer. This is a very old law. It goes back of the Mosaic law. This is not a Jewish law; it is a race law.
Upon this point I want to call your attention to the teaching of the Jewish synagogues. The Jewish synagogue which was established just after the Babylonian captivity has held that there were seven ordinances of Noah. They call them the primal ordinances. I am going to give you these seven as the synagogue gave them and see how many we can find here:
Abstinence from blood
Prohibition of murder
Recognition of civil authority
Idolatry forbidden
Blasphemy forbidden
Incest forbidden
Theft forbidden
The first three we find in this chapter. Idolatry and blasphemy are implied in the offering. But I do not know where those Jews got the other two, incest and theft.
We were discussing the stipulations that God required upon man’s part. First, he must come as a sinner with a sacrifice. Second, he must eat no blood. Third, he must do no murder. Fourth, civil government should have charge of the murderer and punish him with death. That far it is very clear as to the stipulations that God requires of man. Another was that he was to replenish the earth and exercise dominion over the beasts. Now, let us see what God’s part was. God blessed Noah. That means that he graciously accepts him in that sacrifice that he offers, forgiving his sins if he through faith can see to what that atonement points. The great blessing is the blessing of forgiveness of sins through the atonement offering. Second, God promises that there shall never be another flood of water. Third, that the laws of nature shall be uniform, Gen 8:22 : “While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” How necessary it is that there should be a uniformity of law in nature. Some of you have read the piece in the old third reader about a man living in the world of chance. That man lost his wife and children because they unthoughtedly ate poison and died. There was an inflexible law. In his despair he wished that he lived in a world without law. He fell asleep and dreamed that he was in a world of chance, where there was no uniformity. You could not tell what time of the year winter would come, nor how long it would stay, nor what time of the year summer would come. A man might have Just one eye and that on the top of his head. His hands might be growing out from under his arms. His ox might have wool like a sheep. When he had a toothache he put some coffee on to boil, thinking that would help his tooth, but by chance it turned into ice instead of boiling, and when the ice hit that bounding tooth, how it must have hurt! Are you clear now about the things that God promised? (1) He will graciously accept man through the offering. (2) He promised not to send another flood. (3) He will give regularity of seasons. When a man goes to plant a crop he may know what to expect.
We now look at the extent of this covenant. It is said to be a perpetual covenant. Just as long as this dispensation lasts that will be true, and the last thing is the token of that covenant. What indicates that a covenant has been made between God and man? The rainbow is selected as a token. The people who had passed through the flood, or had recently heard about such a big rain, would be very much frightened every time they saw a cloud coming. Now, when you see a cloud, when you are at a certain angle you will also see a rainbow and that is a sign to you that God will never allow this earth to be destroyed by water, and when God looks on it he will remember what he has promised. I here give a quotation from Murphy on Genesis:
For perpetual ages this stability of sea and land is to last, during the remainder of the human race. What is to happen when the race of man is completed is not the question. At present God’s covenant is the well-known and still-remembered compact formed with man when the command was issued in the garden of Eden. So God’s bow is the primaeval arch, coexistent with the rays of light and the drops of rain. It is caused by the rays of the sun on the falling raindrops at a particular angle. A beautiful arch of reflected and refracted light is in this way formed for every eye. The rainbow is thus an index that the sky is not wholly overcast since the sun is shining through the shower and thereby demonstrating its partial extent. There could not, therefore, be a more beautiful or more fitting token that there shall be no more a flood to sweep away all flesh and destroy the land. It comes through its mild radiance only when the cloud condenses into a shower. It consists of heavenly light variegated in hue, mellowed in lustre, filling the beholder with an involuntary pleasure. It forms a perfect arch. It connects heaven and earth and spans the horizon. In these respects it is a beautiful emblem of mercy rejoicing against judgment, of light from heaven irradiating and beautifying the soul, of grace always sufficient for the needy, of the reunion of earth and heaven, of all the universality of the offer of salvation.
In Rev 4:3 , the rainbow about the throne of mercy, and in Rev 10:1 , the angel with a rainbow about his head, we have again the New Testament symbolism of the rainbow. In Science Made Easy for All are some of the most beautiful illustrations of the rainbow that I have ever seen. Three years ago I was in Comanche, Texas. The sun had gone down, the full moon was shining. We were sitting down at the supper table and somebody called out, “Run out here and look at the moon.” And there was a complete rainbow, a perfect circle around the moon, a lunar rainbow, of course, fainter than a solar rainbow, not so Conspicuous, and yet anybody could see it. I have seen two others since.
I have one other observation to give you. I was on the train going from McGregor down the Sante Fe toward Galdwell and talking with a man who saw no evidence of God’s loving care anywhere. “Why,” I said, “if you will just look out of the car window you will see one that keeps up with us.” And there was a rainbow keeping right up with the train, made from the sun shining on the steam from the engine. It kept along with us about fifty miles. Wherever water falls and the sun shines, and you are at the right angle of vision you can see a token of God’s infinite mercy. I said, “Now if you cannot see any of these things, it is because of your angle of vision.” As Paul puts it, “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them” (2Co 4:3 ).
We now take up the prophecy concerning Noah’s sons. Some of it is very difficult, not so much for me to’ tell as for you to remember. The closing paragraph in the ninth chapter is not only the connecting link between what goes before and what comes after, but all the future references throughout the Bible connect with this passage that is inserted here.
I will read and comment. “And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth.” I call attention to the relative ages of these sons, and why their names do not appear in relative order. Japheth was the oldest and Ham the youngest. “And Ham is the father of Canaan.” That expression is put in out of its proper connection in order to explain something that will appear immediately after. “These three were the sons of Noah: and of these was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman and planted a vineyard and drank of the wine and was drunken.” The word here used for wine contains the idea of fermentation. “And he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment upon both their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.”
We have just commenced the new race probation after the flood. How long it had been after the flood we do not know exactly, but some years, because no children were born to Shem, Ham, and Japheth until after the flood, and at this time Canaan, the son of Ham) is grown. We see the great man that was perfect in his generation, just and walked with God, this new head of the race that had such faith, a preacher of righteousness, as he falls into sin, the sin of drunkenness. This teaches that no man) however exalted in character or position, is absolutely safe from a fall. I don’t mean that a Christian may fall away and be forever lost, but I do say that the most exalted Christian in the world must exercise watchfulness and prudence, or he will bring shame upon the name of religion. We have had some most remarkable cases of this kind besides the case of Noah.
This sin of Noah acted as a revelation, that is, it brought out the character of his three children. When the youngest one looked upon the shame of his father’s drunkenness, he was inspired with no such feelings as those which animated Shem and Japheth. He not only scorned his father, but went and published it to the others. We sometimes find children who have not been well raised, who go around to the neighbors and tell the little troubles that occur in the family. It is always an indication of a bad heart and an untrained character. The world has never had much respect for the taleteller and the gadabout. They may listen to what you say, and may make use of it, but they will not respect you for it. The filial piety and reverence of Shem and Japheth is one of the most impressive lessons in history, and their action, walking backward and holding the mantle on their shoulders so that when they got to their father they could cover him without seeing him, originated the proverb: “Charity covereth a multitude of sins.” That means that love is not disposed to point out the sins of others and talk about them. Love is more disposed to cover them up.
“And Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what his youngest son had done unto him.” How he found out I don’t know. Perhaps it was told unto him. Now we come to the first recorded prophecy, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, that was ever spoken by man, though the New Testament tells us of a prophecy that preceded this, the Lord himself having given a prophecy in the third chapter of Genesis that “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” That was God’s prophecy, and Enoch, the seventh from Adam, made a prophecy, but it was not given in the Old Testament. This remarkable prophecy of Noah consists of two divisions. First, the curse, and then the blessing. “And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.” The question naturally arises whether that curse extends to the other children of Ham, and if so, why Canaan alone is specified. My opinion is that the curse extends to the whole of the descendants of Ham from the fact that there was no blessing pronounced on him or any of his children in the whole prophecy, and I think that Canaan was specified instead of the others because Canaan is the one with which God’s people will have to do when they go to the Promised Land. They will have to rescue it from the Canaanites, the descendants of Ham. That curse can be traced in history. The Canaanites when they were conquered by Joshua and by David and by Solomon were either destroyed or enslaved. They became the servants of their conquerors, and it is certainly true that the other descendants of Ham became largely the slaves of the world.
Let us look at the blessing: “And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.” Or, as Jamieson translates it: “Blessed of Jehovah, my God, be Shem.” That seems to make the better reading, that Jehovah shall be the God of Shem, and Shem shall have religious preeminence. In the line of Shem come all the oracles of God during the Old Testament times, and in the New Testament times all of the Bible we have, with the possible exception of one book, comes from the descendants of Shem. The Semitic races seem to have taken the lead in religious matters, whether for good or bad.
Notice the blessing on Japheth: “God enlarge Japheth.” That part has been fulfilled to the letter, as we will see later, that the children of Japheth occupy the greater part of the world. Not only have they been enlarged as to the territory that God allotted to them, but as leaders in intellectual development and inventions, and in the government of the world. The second blessing is: “And let him dwell in the tents of Shem.” That means that Japheth will get his religion from Shem. We are Gentiles, the children of Japheth. Isa 60:9 , says, “Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, for the name of Jehovah thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.” That shows the coming of the Gentiles. This prophecy shows that the distinction among men or peoples is not accidental, but that the world was divided among the descendants of three men. It shows how far-reaching on the children is the consequence of a father’s action. It is always best for a man, if he is going to be a bad man, to remain a bachelor and not throw a shadow over his descendants. The iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children as consequences.
Noah lived after the flood 350 years. That would bring him to Abraham’s time, so that Abraham could talk with the man who had witnessed the overthrow of the old world, and who himself had only one man between himself and the first Adam, who was Methuselah. Adam could talk to Methuselah, and Methuselah to Noah, and Noah to Abraham, and so you see how easily tradition could be handed down.
QUESTIONS 1. How long was Noah in the ark?
2. What suggestion from the Speaker’s Commentary, and what connection between the resting of the ark, the passage of the Red Sea and the resurrection of Christ?
3. What do the raven, dove, olive branch, and rainbow symbolize? What their impress on subsequent literature?
4. Was the dove’s finding an olive branch a miracle? Explain.
5. What is the most significant thing in this part of Genesis?
6. What is the meaning of “covenant,” and what does Noah represent in this covenant?
7. What was the meritorious ground of this covenant and New Testament testimony on this point?
8. What is the first Bible use of the word “altar” and the etymology of the word?
9. What covenant renewal do we find here?
10. What enlargement of the Adamic covenant?
11. How does this covenant with Noah compare with the one later with Moses and why?
12. What one food restriction?
13. Cite the first establishment of civil government and criminal law.
14. What seven ordinances does the synagogue derive from the Noachic legislation and how many of these do you find in the text?
15. What were the terms of the covenant with Noah on man’s part?
16. On God’s part?
17. What was the extent of this covenant?
18. What the token of the covenant?
19. What New Testament references to the rainbow and what its symbolism?
20. What the importance of the closing paragraph of the ninth chapter of Genesis?
21. What the relative ages of the sons of Noah, and why the expression, “And Ham is the father of Canaan,” out of its proper connection?
22. What is the first case of vine culture and drunkenness?
23. What the lesson, of Noah’s drunkenness?
23. What the lesson of Noah’s drunkenness?
24. What the distinction of filial piety and reverence in the sona of Noah?
25. What proverb seems to be based on Shem’s and Japheth’s covering the nakedness of their father?
26. Was Ham’s sin the cause or the occasion of Noah’s curse? Ana.: The occasion.
27. Was the curse from God or Noah?
28. Was it punitive on the person or consequential on his descendants?
29. Show historic fulfillment of the curse.
30. What was the meaning and historic fulfillment of the blessing on Shem?
31. What was the meaning and historic fulfillment of “God enlarge Japheth”?
32. What was the meaning and historic fulfillment of Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem? 33. What was the significance of Noah’s long life after the flood?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Gen 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Ver. 1. Be fruitful and multiply. ] Here God reneweth the world by the same word wherewith he had created it; and being reconciled to mankind, he blesseth them in like manner as before the fall. Sin once pardoned, is as if it never had been committed. Christ tells his returning Shulamite, that she was as amiable in every point as she had been before her relapse, Son 4:1 her hair, teeth, temples, all as fair and well-featured as ever.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 9:1-7
1And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. 3Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. 4Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
6Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man.
7As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.
Gen 9:1 Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth Notice the three Qal IMPERATIVES: be fruitful (BDB 826, KB 963), multiply (BDB 915, KB 1176), fill the earth (BDB 569, KB 583). This is a second beginning for mankind (cf. Gen 1:28), but notice that sin has caused a change in the command, subdue and have dominion is left out.
Gen 9:2 fear. . .terror Mankind has a new relationship with the animals, not peace and friendship as in Eden and the eschaton (Isaiah 11), but fear (BDB 432) and terror (BDB 369). The Septuagint adds cattle to the verse but domestic animals are not affected.
Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you Mankind was originally a vegetarian (at least in the garden of Eden) but since the fall and since no crops could be produced for a while, meat was made available. Also notice that there was no distinction between clean and unclean animals as far as consumption was concerned (very different from Leviticus 11), but there was a distinction in sacrifice (cf. Gen 7:2 ff).
Gen 9:4 you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood This is the theological foundation for the sacrificial system (cf. Lev 17:10-16; Deu 12:16; Deu 12:23; Act 15:29) and the significance of the death of Christ. Sin costs a life. God mercifully substituted an animal life.
Gen 9:5-6 By man his blood shall be shed This is the first statement of eye for eye justice. It shows God’s ordaining government the right of capital punishment. In the OT, this was accomplished by the go’el (kinsman redeemer). For possible NT references see Act 25:11 and Rom 13:4.
Gen 9:5 is prose while Gen 9:6 is printed in poetic parallel lines.
There is a possible Hebrew word play which may even affect etymology between blood (dam) and man (adam). In Assyrian the term man (adamu) is related to sanctuary (adman). Therefore, there may be a link between blood-worship-mankind (cf. Robert B. Girdlestone, Synonyms of the Old Testament, p. 45).
For in the image of God He made man This shows the priority of humankind (cf. Gen 1:26-27; Gen 5:1; Gen 5:3). What an awesome privilege and responsibility.
Gen 9:7 Populate the earth abundantly This is parallel to Gen 1:22; Gen 1:24; Gen 1:28. Chapters 8-9 form a re-initiation of God’s expressed will and actions in Genesis 1. This verse has four Qal IMPERATIVES, while Gen 9:1 has three. The rabbis say that because of the context of murder (Gen 9:5-6) those who refuse to have children also violate this command.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
God. Hebrew. ‘elohlm, the Creator, because in connection with creation (Gen 9:2) and the earth.
replenish = fill, as in Gen 6:11.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 9
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the eaRuth ( Gen 9:1 ).
And so the commandment that was given to Adam at the beginning is now given to Noah because we’re starting all over again with the race of men. That race that began with Adam was wiped out with the exception of Noah and his three sons with their wives. And so now we’re starting over again to fill the earth, multiple, fill the earth.
Now the commandment is to fill the earth but in a little while, we’re going to find them sort of congregating in one area and the plains of Shinar. So God there brought the change of languages in order to create the division and cause them to go ahead and fill the earth, instead of just trying to populate one area.
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fish of the sea; and into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green vegetables have I given you all things. But the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not eat ( Gen 9:2-4 ).
Now prior to the flood, man was a vegetarian. God said unto Adam, “All of the green herbs are yours. All of the vegetables are yours for food, the grain, the vegetables and the nuts, the fruit, they were comprising the food of man prior to the flood. But now after the flood period God has also given man meat in his diet. And so God declares that man can now eat meat but there is to be a thorough bleeding of the meat. And of course this is something that was codified under the law when God spoke to Moses. And interestingly enough, one of the only parts of the law that was commended to the Gentile church that they keep themselves from things that were strangled. That is, when you strangle an animal the blood remains in the flesh. And so the way of butchering was to cut it so that the animal would then bleed. The blood would bleed out of it and then they were to eat it.
Basically, this is probably for sanitary reasons as well as a spiritual connotation. The life of the flesh being in the blood and that recognition of the importance of blood for life which was all looking forward ultimately to Jesus Christ and His blood that was to be shed, His life that was to be given for our sins. And so the high respect for blood and the equating of blood with life. And so there was to be that thorough bleeding of the animal before it was to be eaten.
Now no way can you interpret this nor later on under the law where God commands them not to drink the blood, no way can you interpret this as to be a prohibition of blood transfusion. That is a, just a complete twisting of scripture. But it is a tragic twisting of scripture because it takes hundreds of lives every year. People last year were shocked because Jimmy Jones took a group of people down to Guyana and at his instigation they committed suicide or were murdered. And the whole world was shocked that people in a religious frenzy and fervor would go to such extremes as to commit mass suicide and murder that way. And yet because the Jehovah Witnesses refuse to have blood transfusions they are dying many of them every year because of a foolish interpretation and unscriptural interpretation of the Scriptures. I do not see much difference between Guyana and what is happening except that one was many people at one time; the other is many people over a period of time. Many more people actually but over a period of time.
I have a letter in my office from a heartbroken mother whose daughter had an operable tumor but because of her religious beliefs would not allow the doctors to operate. And the doctors, that is, she would not allow blood transfusion and the doctors would not because of the operation, the type of the operation they would not operate without having at least the privilege of using the blood and having it as a standby. And so in her refusal to have the blood transfusion, the doctors refused also to operate and she died a couple of months ago. I have the tragic letter from her mother, the heartbreak of the three little children that were left behind because she thought that she was following God’s law, which in fact is just a misinterpreting of God’s law by these people. And thus gave her life for religious reasons which was totally unnecessary.
But here we find God prohibiting the eating of meat with blood, that is, the meat that had been strangled, meat that had not been thoroughly bled and then they say it is one of the things that carried over into the church in the book of Acts when they decided what part of the law. But notice this is before the law was ever given, this antedates the law, and as I say, it’s because God wants to give man the respect for life, and that’s the whole idea, the respect for life.
For as we go on, God said
Surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he him ( Gen 9:5-6 ).
So here at the beginning now of a new civilization, God is establishing capital punishment. If a man sheds another man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. This is the beginning of human government. And it is the basic foundation upon which human government was to be established.
Now we, this past week, have just heard another outcry because a man who had been guilty of shedding another man’s blood. His life was taken by the hand of man, and there was this great outcry again in our country because of this. I do not understand why these same people aren’t crying out against Khomenei or against the horrible things that the Russian government is doing, or the millions of lives that were destroyed by the Khymer Rouge in the Cambodian extermination of population. I cannot be sympathetic with them when they are so inconsistent as they talk about the inconsistencies of our judicial system. If they are going to be truly inconsistent, they should be just as concerned about those that the communists are killing, as they are those that are being put to death because they themselves are guilty of murder.
But like it or not, agree with it or not, capital punishment was instituted by God as the basis of human government. Now the way that man has kept the law certainly is not just. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is the basic foundation and principle of human government.
And you, [the Lord said] be fruitful, and multiply; and bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein ( Gen 9:7 ).
So the commandment to man to bring fruit abundantly, to multiply in the earth. And it is interesting that those who are trying so loud or so loudly against capital punishment are the same ones who endorse so strongly many times abortion. That doesn’t make sense. It’s just the opposite of what God said. God said multiply. God said, “if a man takes another man’s life, or sheds another man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” And so they are just really going against, opposite to what God has said. They’re crying against capital punishment and yet they are crying out for abortion. Really there’s some bad inconsistencies there.
And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I will establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you ( Gen 9:8-9 );
So now God is beginning to establish a covenant with man, and this is the beginning of God’s covenant relationship with man. Now God established a covenant later with Abraham that he would be the one through whom, he would be the father of the nations, through whom the Messiah would come. Later God made a covenant with the nation Israel under the law. The covenant always establishes the basis of man’s relationship with God.
So here is a righteous, holy God, here is a sinful man. Here is an infinite God and a finite man. How can you ever get the two together? How can a finite sinful man become one with an infinite, holy God? There has to be some basis by which man’s sin is put away in order that he might become one with a righteous, holy God.
In the Old Testament as God established the covenant with the nation Israel, there were the provisions that the sin offerings whereby their sins would be covered in order that they might have a fellowship with God. But that covenant failed, not because God wasn’t faithful, but because man wasn’t even faithful to that covenant relationship. And so God said, “A new covenant will I make, not written on the tables of stone, but I’ll write it on the fleshly tablets of their hearts” ( 2Co 3:3 ).
Now if the first covenant was adequate and sufficient, there would have never been need for a new covenant. But even Jeremiah who lived under the old covenant saw that it was not and could not work because of man’s continued disobedience and unfaithfulness. So God established a new covenant, not predicated upon man’s faithfulness but predicated now upon God’s faithfulness. So we have a covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ and it’s based upon the faithfulness of God of putting away my sins if I’ll just simply believe and trust in His Son.
Now the old covenant based upon man’s faithfulness to keep the law failed because man didn’t keep the law. Because it was predicated upon man, man’s faithfulness failed. Thus, the new covenant cannot fail because God cannot fail, and it’s predicated upon God’s faithfulness, Who is faithful and Who will keep His promise and will keep His covenant that He has made with us through Jesus Christ. But this is the beginning; really, of the covenant relationships with God and man and God established this covenant with Noah after he came out from the ark.
And God in this covenant declared that
neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of my covenant [the sign] which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: for I will set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature and of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the eaRuth ( Gen 9:11-17 ).
And so the rainbow. Prior to the flood there had never been a rainbow because there had never been rain. But now God has set a rainbow, that beautiful rainbow in the clouds caused by the prisms, water, raindrops, the sun hitting them. But they are God’s covenant to man that the earth will never again be totally destroyed.
Now it isn’t a promise that there would not be localized flood. For there are localized floods. But the earth itself will never be destroyed by a great deluge, by a great flood the entire earth and all flesh. And that is God’s promise, the rainbow is the sign of God’s promise that the earth will not again be destroyed by a flood. The earth is to be destroyed but not by a flood, by a dissolving of the atoms, actually, described by Peter.
Now it is interesting that when John sees the throne of God, there is a rainbow about the throne of God, or a bow about the throne of God likened to an emerald. So there in heaven about the throne of God is again a bow, which speaks of God’s covenant that He has made with man, a reminder of God’s covenant. Of course, that one in heaven is probably a reminder of that new covenant that is ours through Jesus Christ because we will be standing there with God on the basis of this covenant relation that He’s established through Jesus.
And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, Ham, Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan ( Gen 9:18 ).
Now that’s just thrown in. Canaan wasn’t his first son, he was probably his fourth or fifth son but it’s just thrown in because he was actually Ham’s youngest son. But he is going to, for some reason or other, come under a curse of Noah. And so it is mentioned the relationship here Canaan is brought in as Ham’s son.
Now these are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth populated. And Noah began to be a husbandman, that is, he planted a vineyard: and began to till the soil. And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent ( Gen 9:19-21 ).
Now there are some people who try to excuse Noah and say, “Well, prior to the flood there wasn’t any fermentation and so Noah was sort of taken by surprise”. But there is nothing scientifically at all that would cause us to believe that the conditions were any different prior to the flood as after the flood or that any of the atmospheric conditions after the flood would have caused a fermentation. That’s only speculation, we don’t know for sure. At any rate, Noah got drunk and was lying uncovered in his tent.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and he told his two brothers without ( Gen 9:22 ).
Now the word “saw the nakedness of his father” is a little more intense in the Hebrew. Actually he was gazing upon and the whole undertone of the thing is that he was in rebellion against his father. And he more or less delighted to see his father in this condition and went out and told his two brothers in such a way as to bring a reproach and disrespect upon his father Noah.
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both of their shoulders, and they went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness ( Gen 9:23 ).
The respect for him.
And Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what the younger son had done to him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants ( Gen 9:24-25 )
Now notice he didn’t say cursed be Ham. But he goes down to this youngest son of Ham and said, “Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants”
shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. And God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant ( Gen 9:25-27 ).
Now why would Noah curse Canaan when it was actually Ham who did it? Much of prophecy, which this is a prophecy, is predicated upon observation of human characteristic and just knowing what the ultimate effect of that kind of a characteristic will bring. You can look at people with certain basic human characteristics and you can more or less tell what’s going to happen to their lives.
There are little kids as they’re growing up you say, “Man, he’s you know going to come to no good in his life”. You can tell by their reactions to authority, by their attitudes and all that hey, they’re going to get in trouble. They have a rebellious attitude towards authority. And you can, you can pick out characteristics and by the characteristics that are there, you can more or less make a determination of what their future holds.
And Noah no doubt has observed in Canaan many of the characteristics of his father by which he knew that these characteristics would lead to this kind of a future. Now it is totally unscriptural, totally unfounded that weird interpretation of the scripture that was held by many people for so long that the curse was that Canaan became black, and thus that the black people were a subservient race.
Now this was held by the Mormons until recently. A Mormon could not-a black man could not become a priest in the Mormon Church. And it was a common view, a tragic view, an unscriptural view. It was an unscriptural tragic interpretation. There’s no basis for that at all. God has created all of us equal. And the color of my skin has nothing to do with the character and the condition of my heart. Nor does it make me any closer to God or any farther from God, nor does it categorize me to a certain destiny because my skin is white and I have no hair. That is a tragic interpretation of the Scriptures that caused a great deal of horrible attitudes towards a race of people, treating them as servants, as sub-par.
I am so grateful that that ridiculous interpretation has finally been filed away except in the minds of a few rednecks. And that we’ve come to the beautiful realization that hey, we are all brothers and in Christ Jesus “there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free: but Christ is all, and in all” ( Col 3:11 ).
Now because of this attitude, unfortunately, among many black people there has become an attitude of sort of a backlash against the church, against Jesus Christ and against Christianity because it was sort of held in Christian circles these concepts for a time. And that is tragic indeed because it was holding back then a great number of these people from knowing the love of God and the power of God’s spirit in being able to change their lives and give them love, enjoy the peace that God would have for them.
There are many things in history and many things in the history of the church for which I am greatly ashamed. I do not try to defend church history. I cannot understand why some people seem to love to hold up the historic church as the criteria for doctrinal truth, as though the historic church was so correct. The historic church is an abomination. Their concepts were an abomination to God, their practices, their introduction of pagan idolatry. All of these things are a part and a parcel of the historic church.
That is why I am glad that as for myself, I am not identified with the historic church. We can start all over afresh and just seek for the true scriptural patterns without having to be bound or restricted or identified with the mistakes and the evils of the historic church. It’s neat to have a fresh start. Thus, when I look at the historic church I blush with shame. I don’t try to defend it, it was wrong. It was wrong in its treatment of the Jew. It was wrong in its treatment of those people who had darker colored skin. It was wrong in its introduction of idolatry. It was wrong in its introduction of the Babylonian system of religion. It was wrong in so many areas of the interpretation of the Scriptures.
So why should I reject the glorious blessed hope of the rapture of the church just because it wasn’t a part of the historic church teaching? There is a lot of the historic church teaching that I reject totally as being false and unscriptural. So the fact that the historic church did not teach the rapture doesn’t affect my believing one iota. There’s a lot of things that they didn’t teach or practice that I do believe. And I believe in such as the gift of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believer, which is not a part of the historic church if you want to get technical. So to me, these guys who are arguing all the time against the rapture and using as their chief tenet, well, it isn’t a part of the historic church doctrine. Well, if you want to follow historic church doctrine, that’s your problem.
I’m glad to take a fresh look. I’m glad to come at the Scriptures without presupposition. I’m glad to just let the word of God speak to me and speak to my own heart directly and plainly and openly without coming with a presupposition that would prejudice my interpretation. I’m glad for the chance to start over fresh. I’m glad for the new wineskin to hold the new wine of God’s spirit that He is seeking to pour out in these days. I’m glad that we’re not bound in traditions of the past. God help us to keep from developing our own traditions. God keep us in a free flow. God keep us flexible. God keep us open so that the skins don’t get hard and tight and rigid.
And should the Lord tarry, and I sleep with my father, and the day should come when someone sees a need within the church and they suggest a new way to reach out and touch lives, and if someone says, “Well, Chuck didn’t do it that way”, I’ll tell you, I’m going to be breathing over your shoulder haunting you because we’re not trying to establish ways; we’re only seeking to follow the movement of God’s Spirit in these days. Let’s stay flexible. Let’s stay open. God is working in a beautiful way now and we love it and we rejoice in it.
But it doesn’t mean that we will always be following the same patterns of worship that we are presently. But we just want to be open to however God leads and to remain open.
So the curse was passed upon Canaan and Canaan actually was the father of those nations that established the land of Canaan; the Amorites, the Jebusites and so forth. Those who established in the land that became known as the land of Canaan, which land later Abraham came to and was given as God’s promise to Abraham and to his seed. So Canaan actually was the father of those people and not the black African races though the African continent was populated by the other descendants of Ham.
And so Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years ( Gen 9:28 ).
Which means that he lived almost to the time of Abraham. And his son Seth did live contemporary; in fact, Seth lived for seventy-five years after almost as long as Abraham did really. He lived for seventy-five years after Abraham had left Haran. So it means that he lived just about contemporaneously with Abraham himself. So you see that you’re really not far removed as far as the story goes from Adam.
For Adam lived unto the time of Noah’s father. And so could have passed on the story of creation, the garden and all to Noah’s father. Noah himself passing it on to Shem, his son, who lived to the time of Abraham and related the whole thing to Abraham. So you don’t have the story too far removed from Abraham. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
The new order in human affairs was initiated by the bestowment of a blessing on Noah and his sons. The first note of change is seen in the word which declared man’s relation to the lower orders. In Eden man had governed by love and his own kingliness. With the loss of that kingliness resulting from his disobedience and rebellion, he had lost his true power of dominion, and that must now be exercised by fear and dread directly implanted by God in all the lower orders of life over which man was to rule.
Moreover, an alteration was made in the law of human interrelationship. A sterner rule than family discipline must be set up. Man must now hold the sword of justice, and himself insist on obedience. Another change concerned human sustenance. In addition to the green herb of the past, animal food was permitted under restrictions.
The earth was thus to be repeopled by a race living under new conditions, and at this point a new covenant between God and man came into force. Its terms reminded man that the promises of God are conditional.
A token of the covenant was chosen and established. God appropriated an existing wonder as the sign and seal thereof, the rainbow. The rainbow is born of light falling on raindrops and so is significant of judgment as related to love. Man was to look on this, remembering that God also was looking on it.
The chapter ends with the story of a startlingly sudden plunge into darkness. Noah is seen yielding to fleshly appetite. In the presence of the degradation of their father, the character of the sons was manifest. One, himself degraded, yielded to curiosity. Two, ashamed of the sin of their father, attempted to hide him. The cursing and blessing which fell from the lips of Noah were no capricious passing of sentences. Rather, they formed a clear statement of the tendency of character. The man in the grip of evil moved to slavery, while the man influenced by purity and love proceeded to government and blessing.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Gods Covenant with Noah
Gen 9:1-17
As the human race started afresh on its career, God blessed it, as at the first. God always stands with us in a new start. The prohibition against the use of blood in food is often repeated. See Lev 17:11; Act 15:29. In a very deep sense, the blood is the life. When we speak of being redeemed by the blood of Jesus, we mean that we have been saved by His sacrificed life. The blood maketh atonement for the soul. But while animal life might be used for food or sacrifice, human life was surrounded by the most solemn sanctions. A Covenant is a promise or undertaking resting on certain conditions, with a sign or token attached to it. The bow in the cloud, the Lords Supper, the wedding ring are signs and seals of their respective covenants. Never witness a rainbow without remembering that as God hath sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth, so He will not withdraw His kindness. See Isa 54:9.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Gen 9:3
How are we to use the creation of God so that it may help towards our own supreme object? (1) We can study created things; we can see God Himself through them. (2) We may use God’s creation for our necessity, for our advantage, and for our delight. (3) We are to abstain from it in obedience to temperance and to the rules of discipline. Of these three ways of using the creation, the first is the most noble; the second is the most common; the third is the most necessary. To some the means of serving God have grown so all-important that they have forgotten altogether that it was to serve God that they set out. The source of error lies in placing the means before us, as if they were the end, and leaving out the thought of the end in our lives and conversation. When we go wrong in our work or our leisure, our words or our silence, we do it because we forget the end of everything; because we dethrone from its rightful, its eternal seat, the strong, the bright, the radiant remembrance that we are of God, that we are in God, and that we are on our way to God.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 26.
References: Gen 9:1-20.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 82. Gen 9:5, Gen 9:6.-G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to my Friends, p. 320.
Gen 9:8-9
To understand this covenant, consider what thoughts would have been likely to grow up in the minds of Noah’s children after the flood. Would they not have been something of this kind? “God does not love men. He has drowned all but us, and we are men of like passions with the world that perished; may we not expect the like ruin at any moment? Then what use to plough and sow, and build and plant, and work for those who shall come after us? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”
I. The covenant God made with Noah was intended to remedy every one of the temptations into which Noah’s children’s children would have been certain to fall, and into which so many of them did fall. They might have become reckless from fear of a flood at any moment. God promises them, and confirms it with the sign of the rainbow, never again to destroy the earth by water. They would have been likely to take to praying to the rain and thunder, the sun and the stars. God declares in this covenant that it is He alone who sends the rain and thunder, that He brings the clouds over the earth, that He rules the great awful world; that men are to look up and believe in God as a loving and thinking Person, who has a will of His own, and that a faithful and true and loving and merciful will; that their lives and safety depend not on blind chance or the stern necessity of certain laws of nature, but on the covenant of an almighty and all-loving Person.
II. This covenant tells us that we are made in God’s likeness, and therefore that all sin is unworthy of us and unnatural to us. It tells us that God means us bravely and industriously to subdue the earth and the living things upon it; that we are to be the masters of the pleasant things about us, and not their slaves, as sots and idlers are; that we are stewards or tenants of this world for the great God who made it, to whom we are to look up in confidence for help and protection.
C. Kingsley, Village Sermons, p. 82.
References: Gen 9:8-17.-R. S. Candlish, The Book of Genesis, vol 1., p. 151. Gen 9:11.-Bishop Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 163. Gen 9:11-17.-J. Cumming, Church before the Flood p. 388.
Gen 9:12-15
I. Among the many deep truths which the early chapters of Genesis enforce, there is none which strikes the thoughtful inquirer more forcibly than the connection between the disorder occasioned by man’s sin and the remedy ordained by the wisdom and mercy of God. This connection may be traced in a very remarkable manner in the appointment of the rainbow as a sign and pledge of the covenant.
II. Not only is the rainbow, as an offspring equally of storm and sunshine, a fitting emblem of the covenant of grace; it is also a type of the equally distinctive peculiarity of Christ’s Gospel-that sorrow and suffering have their appointed sphere of exercise, both generally in the providential administration of the world and individually in the growth and development of personal holiness.
III. For the full comprehension of the bow we must turn to the New Testament. In the Person and work of the atoning Mediator we find the only solution of that marvellous combination of judgment and mercy which is the distinctive characteristic of the whole of the Divine economy.
IV. There is a necessary imperfection in all earthly types of heavenly things. In nature the continued appearance of the rainbow is dependent on the continued existence of the cloud. In heaven the rainbow will continue to point backward to man’s fall, onward to the perpetuity of a covenant which is ordered in all things and sure. But the work of judgment will then be accomplished, and therefore the cloud will have no more place in heaven.
E. B. Elliott, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v., p. 151 (also Good Words, 1876, p. 341). Reference: Gen 9:12-16.-S. Leathes, Truth and Life, p. 27.
Gen 9:13
I. God sent a flood on the earth; God set the rainbow in the cloud for a token. The important thing is to know that the flood did not come of itself, that the rainbow did not come of itself, and therefore that no flood comes of itself, no rainbow comes of itself, but all comes straight and immediately from one living Lord God. The flood and the rainbow were sent for a moral purpose: to punish sinners; to preserve the righteous; to teach Noah and his children after him a moral lesson concerning righteousness and sin, concerning the wrath of God against sin,-concerning God, that He governs the world and all in it, and does not leave the world or mankind to go on of themselves and by themselves.
II. The flood and the rainbow tell us that it is God’s will to love, to bless, to make His creatures happy, if they will allow Him. They tell us that His anger is not a capricious, revengeful, proud, selfish anger, such as that of the heathen gods; but that it is an orderly anger, and therefore an anger which in its wrath can remember mercy. Out of God’s wrath shines love, as the rainbow out of the storm. If it repenteth Him that He hath made man, it is only because man is spoiling and ruining himself, and wasting the gifts of the good world by his wickedness. If God sends a flood to destroy all living things, He will show, by putting the rainbow in the cloud, that floods and destruction and anger are not His rule; that His rule is sunshine and peace and order.
III. The Bible account of the flood will teach us how to look at the many accidents which still happen upon the earth. These disasters do not come of themselves, do not come by accident or chance or blind necessity; God sends them, and they fulfil His will and word. He may send them in anger, but in His anger He remembers mercy, and His very wrath to some is part and parcel of His love to the rest. Therefore these disasters must be meant to do good, and will do good, to mankind.
C. Kingsley, The Gospel of the Pentateuch, p. 47.
I. Consider the record of the flood as a history: a history having a twofold aspect-an aspect of judgment, and an aspect of mercy. (1) “God,” St. Peter says, “spared not the old world,” He “brought in a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” He who made can destroy. Long trifled with, God is not mocked; and he who will not have Him for his Father must at last know Him as his Judge. (2) The record of judgment passes on into a record of mercy. Mercy was shown: (a) in preservation; (b) in reconstruction.
II. Consider the flood in its uses: as a type, as a prophecy, and as a warning. (1) The water through which Noah and his family passed into their ark was like the water of holy baptism, through which a Christian, penitent and believing, finds his way into the Church of the living God. (2) St. Peter exhibits the flood to us also as a prophecy. The flood of waters becomes in its turn the prediction of a last flood of fire. He who foretold the one-and notwithstanding long delay the word was fulfilled-may be believed when He threatens the other; and no pause or respite can defeat the certainty of the performance. (3) There is one special warning appended by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to the Scriptural record of the great deluge: “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
C. J. Vaughan, Christ the Light of the World, p. 133 (also Good Words, 1865, p. 520).
References: Gen 9:13.-Parker, vol. i., p. 168; C. Kingsley, National Sermons, p. 423; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 97; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vii., p. 241.
Gen 9:14
How often after that terrible flood must Noah and his sons have felt anxious when a time of heavy rain set in, and the rivers Euphrates and Tigris rose over their banks and submerged the low level land! But if for a while their hearts misgave them, they had a cheering sign to reassure them, for in the heaviest purple storm-cloud stood the rainbow, recalling to their minds the promise of God.
I. If it be true that God’s rainbow stands as a pledge to the earth that it shall never again be overwhelmed, is it not also true that He has set His bow in every cloud that rises and troubles man’s mental sky? Beautiful prismatic colours in the rainbow that shines in every cloud-in the cloud of sorrow, in the cloud of spiritual famine, in the cloud of wrong-doing.
II. We are too apt in troubles to settle down into sullen despair, to look to the worst, instead of waiting for the bow. There are many strange-shaped clouds that rise above man’s horizon and make his heavens black with wind and rain. But each has its bow shining on it. Only wait, endure God’s time, and the sun will look out on the rolling masses of vapour, on the rain, and paint thereon its token of God’s love.
S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., p. 28.
References: Gen 9:14.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 227. Gen 9:15.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 228. 9:15-11:26.-J. Monro Gibson, The Ages before Moses, p. 138. Gen 9:16.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., p. 517; Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 132. Gen 9:17.-J. A. Sellar, Church Doctrine and Practice, p. 297; H. Thompson, Concionalia-Sermons for Parochial Use, vol. i., p. 85. Gen 9:18-29.-R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 157. Gen 9:24-27.-J. Cumming, Church before the Flood, p. 412.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 9
The Earth Replenished
1. The divine commission (Gen 9:1-7)
2. The covenant with Noah (Gen 9:8-11)
3. The token of the covenant (Gen 9:12-17)
4. The family of Noah (Gen 9:18-19)
5. Noahs drunkenness (Gen 9:20-24)
6. Noahs prophecy (Gen 9:25-27)
7. Noahs death (Gen 9:28-29)
A new start is made after the judgment by water and Noah is blessed by God. Like Adam and Eve they are commissioned to fill the earth, but nothing is said of having dominion over the earth.
In Gen 1:29 we read that man was to eat the green herb and the fruit of the trees, but now there is permission given to eat every moving thing that liveth. It seems clear that before the deluge meat was not eaten. There are not a few advocates of total abstinence from meat in our day. The adherents of delusions like theosophy and others tell us that a vegetable diet will ennoble man, deliver him from the lust of the flesh, make him pure and good and fit to approach God. With all the abstinence from meat before the deluge the people were not better, but ended in the flesh and perished in it. In 1 Tim. 4 we read of those who live in the latter times and depart from the faith, and among the characteristics given is the following: Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.
And why is the blood made so prominent? Four times we read the word blood in Gen 9:4-6. The book of Leviticus gives the answer. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul (Lev 17:11). The sanctity of the blood is here shown forth. Even the hunter in Israel had to keep it in view. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you which hunteth, or catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof, therefore I said to the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof, whosoever eateth it shall be cut off (Lev 17:13-14). So the hunter had to stop, and pour out the blood. All points to the blood of the Lamb.
God established His covenant with Noah and his seed and put the token of the covenant in the clouds. The rainbow speaks of a passed judgment of His salvation and remembrance. Another universal judgment by water will never come again (Gen 9:15). Another judgment is in store for this planet. The world that was then, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men (2Pe 3:6-7).
Interesting is Noahs prophecy after his drunkenness.
Ham (black) is not mentioned in the curse, but the son of Ham, Canaan (the merchantman). Hams deed revealed the unbelieving condition of his heart, while Shems and Japheths action manifest divine grace in covering up the nakedness. Gods eye beheld Canaan and his subsequent career in his descendants. He inherits the curse. How literally it was carried out! Shem, meaning name, becomes the family in which Jehovah, the Name, is to be revealed. Jehovah is the God of Shem. Soon we shall see a son of Shem, Abram, and his seed becoming the depository of Jehovahs revelation. Later Jehovah speaks and reveals His name by which He wishes to be known forever to another son of Shem, Moses. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you; this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations (Exo 3:15). He does not call Himself the God of Japheth but the God of Shem. Shems supremacy is here indicated. It is a far-reaching prophecy.
Japheth means expansion. His sons are Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tiras, and the sons of Gomer and Javan are mentioned in the next chapter. They expanded and Japheth dwells in the tents of Shem, partakes of Shems blessing and responsibility. Some take He shall dwell in the tents of Shem, the he as referring to God, but this is incorrect. It means Japheth and reminds us of the parable of the olive tree in Romans 11.
Shems blessing consisted (1) In being the carrier of the Name, Jehovah. (2) In controlling Canaan and being the master over him. (3) The giving shelter to Japheth and let him be sharer of the blessing. It is the germ of all following prophecy and we wait still for its end fulfillment.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
and said unto them
The Noahic Covenant. The elements are:
(1) The relation of man to the earth under the Adamic Covenant is confirmed (See Scofield “Gen 8:21”)
(2) The order of nature is confirmed (Gen 8:22)
(3) Human government is established (Gen 9:1-6)
(4) Earth is secured against another universal judgment by water Gen 8:21; Gen 9:11
(5) A prophetic declaration is made that from Ham will descend an inferior and servile posterity Gen 9:24; Gen 9:25.
(6) A prophetic declaration is made that Shem will have a peculiar relation to Jehovah Gen 9:26; Gen 9:27. All divine revelation is through Semitic men, and Christ, after the flesh, descends from Shem.
(7) A prophetic declaration is made that from Japheth will descend the “enlarged” races Gen 9:27. Government, science, and art, speaking broadly, are and have been Japhetic, so that history is the indisputable record of the exact fulfilment of these declarations. (See Scofield “Gen 8:21”) for the other seven covenants:
EDENIC Gen 1:28 ADAMIC Gen 3:15 ABRAHAMIC Gen 15:18 MOSAIC Exo 19:25 PALESTINIAN Deu 30:3 DAVIDIC 2Sa 7:16 NEW Heb 8:8
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
blessed: Gen 9:7, Gen 1:22, Gen 1:28, Gen 2:3, Gen 8:17, Gen 24:60, Psa 112:1, Psa 128:3, Psa 128:4, Isa 51:2
Be: Gen 9:7, Gen 9:19, Gen 1:28, Gen 8:17, Gen 10:32
Reciprocal: Gen 5:4 – and he Gen 10:1 – and unto Gen 28:3 – and make Exo 1:7 – fruitful Job 20:4 – man Psa 107:38 – He blesseth Psa 115:16 – but the earth Isa 45:18 – he created Luk 3:36 – Noe Heb 1:1 – at
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
The Earth Renewed and Blessed
Gen 9:1-17
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
Let us give you some of the parallelisms which are found between Noachic times and events, and those which will mark the last days. Some of these will be a resume of preceding studies in Genesis.
1. Parallelisms relative to the heavens and the earth. In the first chapter of Genesis we have the earth renewed and blessed. God had created the earth in a wonderful state of perfectness, however, under His curse it had become waste and void. Then, afterward, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light. Thus, six days ended the first renewing of the earth; and Adam was commanded to replenish the earth.
In our studies of the Flood we have learned how the flood came upon the ungodly, and in today’s study we will behold the earth once more renewed and blessed, and we will now hear God telling Noah what he told Adam,-“Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth.”
The earth has become in our day once more ripened in its wickedness, and God will soon send once again devastating judgments, turning the earth, as it were, upside down, and destroying many of its inhabitants. Then will the earth once more be renewed and blessed, and the Millennial Reign of Christ will ensue, while men again multiply, and replenish the earth.
The final great cataclysm which will strike the earth will be after the Millennium, when the earth flees away and there is found no place for it. That will be a judgment of fire. Against the day of that judgment, the earth is now stored with fire. Following that great conflagration, there will be a new heaven and a new earth with the New Jerusalem, God’s golden City, as its chief glory. The nations of the saved, who inhabit the new earth, will walk in the light of that City.
2. Parallelisms relative to Noachic days and times and those of our own day and times. The days of Noah were marked with a marvelous development along scientific and intellectual lines. The Bible says of men,-“The same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” Today unprecedented developments in invention has changed, within the memory of the present generation, the whole complex of our world. Knowledge has increased, and men are running to and fro through the earth.
The days of Noah also were marked with a rapidly increasing and ripening immorality. The thoughts of men’s hearts became only evil continually. The same moral conditions prevail today, as prevailed then. Evil men and seducers have waxed worse and worse; men have fallen to such depths of degradation, that they have to reach up to touch the bottom. There is no sense of shame among men. Impurity and lewdness rule the hour.
3. Parallelisms relative to spirit and angel domination. In the days of Noah there was an evident mixing of demons and fallen angels with men. Of this the Bible definitely speaks when it says: “The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” Again we read of how Christ addressed the spirits in hades, “which sometime were disobedient * * in the days of Noah.”
I. GOD BLESSED NOAH (Gen 9:1, f.c.)
The 8th chapter opens with the words, “And God remembered Noah.” The 9th chapter opens with the words, “And God blessed Noah.” Whom God remembers, He blesses.
How often do we sing, “Count your many blessings!” Noah would have had a hard time counting his. Around him he saw the world shorn of its peoples, while he and his own, alone, were saved. He opened his eyes as he stepped out of the ark upon an earth made ready for re-habilitation. The supremacy of God over His creation was established, and Noah’s inheritance was unchallenged.
Noah looked out on a world, which God lay at his feet. He was its sole possessor. All earthly blessings, however, are as naught compared to spiritual blessing’s. It is in Ephesians we read, “God * * hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Heavenly places.”
When men count their blessings they usually count their temporal blessings-their stocks and bonds, their houses and lands. Such things are but for a night. God’s spiritual blessings are laid up for us in Heaven. They never fade, or pass away. They are our chief assets. Other things are naught compared to them.
The Apostle Paul counted everything else,-honor, position, wealth, religious advancement in the Sanhedrin,-all but dung, that he might win Christ. Let our young people pause a moment and count their blessings.
II. GOD COMMANDED NOAH TO BE A BLESSING (Gen 9:1, l.c.)
To Noah God said, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” God blessed Noah, that he might be a blessing.
No man should allow the spirit of a miser to dominate him. Blessings should always be turned into benefactions. Receipts should always be sent forth as disbursements.
The Dead Sea receives waters from various sources, but gives forth none. The result is known to all. There are no fish in its bosom; there is no vegetation around its banks; there is that which withholdeth, and tendeth to poverty. The papers of late have been filled with the vast wealth of the Dead Sea. This is doubtless true, but it is a wealth which is self-centered, and which has been hoarded during the centuries. If others will enjoy it, they must take it by force. The Dead Sea refuses to give it up. The Christian needs to beware lest he hoard either his spiritual or his temporal blessings.
The sun in the sky is continually burning up, that others may have light and heat. We should live as Christ lived. He lived among men as One who served. He said, “The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them.”
When God called Abraham, He blessed him, and said, “I will bless thee * * and thou shalt be a blessing.” God’s unchanging law is, those who bless shall be blessed; and those who curse, shall be cursed.
III. GOD GAVE NOAH SUPREMACY OVER ALL PHYSICAL CREATION (Gen 9:2-3)
God says, that when He created Adam He made him lord over all the creation.
When the ark rested on Mount Ararat, God passed on to Noah the same supremacy. We realize that the beasts of the field, although afraid of man, have oftentimes lifted themselves up against him. Ferocious beasts delight in human blood, and yet, man’s supremacy must be recognized.
The perfect fulfilment of the Divine law of the subjection of beast and fowl to man, however, awaits the return of the Second Adam. The eighth Psalm declares, “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet: the sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field: the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea.”
In the Book of Hebrews the Holy Spirit quotes from this Psalm, and refers it to the Lord Jesus Christ. He says of Christ; “Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels; Thou crownedst Him with glory and honour, and didst set Him over the works of Thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet.” Then the Spirit adds, “But now we see not yet all things put under Him.”
We do see Jesus crowned with glory and honor, and when He comes again He will deliver unto man perfect authority over all tilings. In that day, the little child will lead the bear, and shall sleep in the woods without fear.
IV. GOD’S IRREVOCABLE LAW (Gen 9:4-5)
1. God asserts that the life is in the blood. This is true both of beast, and of bird, and of the human race. The life of the body is the blood thereof. It is for this cause that we read, that Christ gave His life. He said, “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” We also read that He gave His life as a ransom. He gave His Blood, because He gave His life; for the blood is the life of the body.
When the Lord Jesus came to earth, He took upon Himself our flesh, in order that He might have blood to shed, for, “Without shedding of blood is no remission.”
2. God made an irrevocable law, blood for blood. Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. This is true whether it be of beast, or of man. If a wild beast rises up against a man, and sheds his blood, that beast must be killed. If a man rises up against a man, that man’s blood must be shed.
Thus did God establish the value of human life, and thus did He place His fear upon the man who sheds blood. God hath said again,-“He that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword” (Rev 13:10).
There are some who would do away with capital punishment. This is but another mark of man’s rebellion against his Creator. Capital punishment is ordained of God, and he who does away with it will only cause man to run riot on the earth in his sinning. The murderer will come out of his covert, and he will boldly shed the blood of his fellows. Blood shed, must be answered by blood shed. Let no man, therefore, rise up against his fellow man and shed his blood. If, however, man’s blood is shed, then let the law, which is ordained of God, step in and demand blood for blood.
V. GOD’S ESTABLISHED COVENANT (Gen 9:9-11)
1. A covenant which affected all mankind. God said, “I will establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you.” The result is that man today lives under a definite covenant from God. Unredeemed man does not often, if ever, stop to consider the covenant which God has made and sealed; God’s covenant, however, remains intact, and God has been faithful to His promise.
2. A covenant that is without any human provisions. God will remain true to His covenant, no matter what man may do, or say. Some pledges from Heaven are provisional, this covenant is without provision.
3. A covenant that relates to Divine judgments. The covenant provides that never shall a flood again destroy the earth; and never, so long as the seasons remain, shall all flesh be cut off from the face of the earth. God’s staying of His hand in judgment, may be used as an excuse by man to continue in his sin-yet God will be true to His pledge.
4. A covenant that remains entact as long as men remain and the earth endure. It was a perpetual covenant. It was an everlasting covenant between God and all flesh which is on the earth.
Let us stay a moment to study the purport of God’s covenant. It meant no more would waters prevail over all flesh. It meant that the long-suffering of God would allow men to go their way, until the end has come.
The covenant does not mean that God does not now revenge sin in any sense, for God’s judgments are still in the earth; but God does not move out in a general and universal judgment against the sinner.
The covenant does not mean that God will allow man to go on his evil way unloved and unrestrained, by calls of mercy and grace. Since that day God has sent Christ into the world, the Church has been born, the Spirit has pressed evangelism in every way. In wrath God has remembered mercy.
VI. GOD’S SIGN OF THE RAINBOW (Gen 9:13)
God said unto Noah, “I do set My bow in the cloud.” How many calls there are from God to man! Every time a man enters a door, Christ is saying, “I am the Door.” Every time man partakes of his food, Christ says, “I am the Bread of Life.” Every time a man gathers in his grain, Christ says, “The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.”
1. The rainbow stands for the varied glories of God. Its seven colors seem to say God is the One, perfect in the beauty and glory of His character and countenance.
2. The rainbow reaching from Heaven to the earth, seems to say that God is above, and He reaches unto earth in His benefactions and blessings. It seems also to say, I encompass you in the arms of My love: My mercies reach from the East to the West, and from the North to the South.
3. The rainbow is thrown over against the cloud as much as to say, My grace and glory will be found in the midst of all the sorrows and shades of earth’s life. In the midst of wrath, there is mercy. Your darkness will only be My opportunity to the more “brilliantly” radiate My light.
4. The rainbow is God’s great call to men to repent. God seems to be saying, “Look unto Me and live”; “Come under My sheltering wings.”
VII. ANOTHER RAINBOW (Rev 4:3)
Since the days of Noah God has steadfastly moved on in His march for man’s redemption. While man has steadily gone on in his downward and hellward way, God has pressed on in manifold grace seeking to save all who would believe.
What paeans of praise will resound in Glory when the saved are fully awake to all of God’s mercies, proffered to all men, but accepted only by some! God’s grace magnifies the heinousness of man’s sin; and man’s sin magnifies the glory of God’s saving grace.
The 4th and 5th chapters of Revelation describe God’s throne, once more preparing for judgment. God, Himself, is seated upon the throne. Lightnings, thunders, and voices are proceeding out of the throne. God is about to arise and shake terribly the earth. Jacob’s trouble, the Great Tribulation, the day of God’s Indignation, has come. What do we see in the center of that judgment throne? “And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald,”
1. That rainbow seems to be saying, “I have not forgotten My covenant to Noah, and his seed.” The Noachic rainbow is yet before God-His covenant stands-a flood shall not come, neither shall God utterly destroy man from off the face of the earth.
2. That rainbow seems to say, “I am now sending wrath and judgment, only that mercy and grace may the more abound. The rainbow in Revelation is emerald-green. It speaks of summer, of growth, of verdure, of renewed life, of the passing of winter with its dearth and barrenness.
Noah’s rainbow, the rainbow which has been God’s covenant to Noah’s seed unto this day, will not pass, but will be, the rather, re-enforced by the rainbow that is round about the throne,-a rainbow of greater promise than the rainbow of the clouds.
AN ILLUSTRATION
MENDELSSOHN AT THE ORGAN
When God plays upon the harp-strings joy and peace abound.
“Once Mendelssohn was in the great cathedral in Fribourg, where was the greatest organ on the continent, and he felt a desire to touch the grand instrument. So he went up to the old man in charge of the place, and begged that he might be allowed to play on it ‘No,’ said the old man, ‘this is a valuable instrument, and no stranger is ever allowed to touch it.’ ‘But,’ said Mendelssohn, ‘I will not harm it, and you may stand here and see that I do no damage.’ The old man at last yielded, and Mendelssohn mounted the organ-bench, and began to let his fingers wander at will over the manuals, and his feet over the pedals. The great organ pealed forth such melodies and harmonies that the old man. was entranced, and exclaimed, ‘Well, who are you?’ ‘My name is Mendelssohn,’ was the reply. ‘And yet,’ said the old man, as he burst into tears: ‘I had almost forbidden Mendelssohn, the great master of music, to touch this organ!’ What discords would be hushed; what disharmonies would end; what music would fill our lives, if we only allowed the hands of a greater than Mendelssohn to play evermore upon the notes! No one but the Master can hush the discords, and make our lives one glad, continuous Hallelujah Chorus! Shall we not let Him?”
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Gen 9:1. God blessed Noah and his sons He assured them of his good- will to them, and his gracious intentions concerning them. The first blessing is here renewed, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and repeated, Gen 9:7; for the race of mankind was, as it were, to begin again. By virtue of this blessing mankind were to be both multiplied and perpetuated upon earth; so that in a little time all the habitable parts of the earth should be more or less inhabited; and though one generation should pass away, yet another generation should come, so that the stream of the human race should be supplied with a constant succession, and run parallel with the current of time, till both should be swallowed up in the ocean of eternity.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 9:4. Butthe blood ye shall not eat. This prohibition of blood is repeated. Leviticus 17. Deuteronomy 12. And being connected with murder in the following verse, we are taught to abstain from imitating the ferocity of wild beasts, which lick the blood of their prey. Blood is also the life of the sacrifices offered up for sin; and our having been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, the apostles have forbidden the use of blood to christians. Act 15:29. A third reason assigned by Moses is, that we must not join in the sacrifice of devils. David says of idolaters, Their drink- offerings of blood will I not offer. The huge idol of Juggernaut in India is said to smile when they offer him a libation of human blood. The South-sea islanders drink the blood of enemies slain in battle. These are strong reasons which justify the precept to abstain from blood.
Gen 9:13. My bow, the iris, the rainbow. In Mr. Maurices history of Indostan, we find a quotation from the mythology of the Chinese, in which they make FOHI, their deity, to proceed from a rainbow. Here is a plain reference to the iris; the symbol of the Noahical covenant. By consequence, the boasted antiquity of Chinese and Egyptian chronology above that of Moses could be but years of moons, as Diodorus Siculus has hinted, and as the American Indians still reckon time.
The rainbow is seen in the drops of the falling shower opposite to the sun. Its colours are seven, red, orange, yellow, green, violet, purple, and blue. In the second bow, or water gall, seen when the clouds are large, the colours are reversed: so in the third and fourth bow, which are rarely seen. The rainbow is beautifully seen also in the ascension of vapours from the glacis of Switzerland; in the vapours which ascend from the sea in times of hurricane; and fainter in the lunar rainbows during showers in the night. So the bow must have existed from the creation of the sun, and God here was pleased to take it for a perpetual witness of his covenant: and as the rainbow is full of light, so the covenant is full of grace.
Mons. Cuvier, professor of anatomy in Paris, in one of his early lectures on the natural sciences delivered in 1829, takes particular notice of the coincidence of tradition among all nations respecting the Deluge. The Hebrew text of Genesis fixes it 2349 years before the birth of Christ; and the Chinese place it 2384, leaving but a variation of 35 years. Confucius represents their first king, Yao, employed in carrying off the waters of the ocean, which had reached the summit of the mountains, and in repairing the damages they had sustained. These traditions of the Chinese strongly corroborate the truth of the Mosaic account of the deluge.
Gen 9:25. Cursed be Canaan. The blessings were connected with fidelity to the law and covenant of the Lord; and the curses were consequences of disobedience. The patriarchs were the priests and prophets of the Lord, whose right it was to pronounce the benediction. But they could neither bless nor curse but by the Spirit of God. Hence God said to Abraham, I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and Isaac said to Esau, I have blessed him, (Jacob) yea, and he shall be blessed; for he felt that the Spirit accompanied his benedictions. It is just so with regard to those most base and atrocious crimes which merit the execrations of heaven. No such anathemas can be inflicted but in the Lord, for which reason Balaam could neither curse Jacob, nor defy Israel. He was, on the contrary, constrained to bless them.This curse on Canaan came upon his posterity by the sword of Joshua; and on Hams race it seems to have fallen in the sentence on Egypt, to be the basest of all kingdoms; on the black population of Africa, whose hordes have been oppressed with tyranny, almost destitute of literature and of arts, and very much exposed to the cruelties of slavery. The curse of Joshua on the rebuilder of Jericho, came on the presumptuous Hiel. Jos 6:26. 1Ki 16:34. The curse of Chryses, priest of Apollo, came on the Greeks by a plague in the camp for carrying away his daughter. Iliad 1. Tacitus reports that when the Romans attacked Anglesey, the grand seat of druidism in this country, both the druids and druidesses entered the combat; the latter with dishevelled hair, and torches in their hands, pouring anathemas on the invaders. Rome was indeed cursed on all sides for her cruelties and slaughters, and in the end those curses fell most heavily upon her when her own civil wars preyed on her vitals, and when the christian Goths stormed the imperial city in the year of Christ 435. A good man has nothing to fear from the curses of the wicked. The imprecations of Shimei fell not on David, but on his own head. Hence the superior doctrine of the christian religion: Bless, and curse not.
A servant of servants. The Hebrew idiom differs here from the English, in forming the superlative degree, which requires to be read, The most servile of servants. Slavery in all parts of Africa, and slavery out of Africa seems to attend the race of Ham.Lord shorten those days, and hear the prayers of thy people.
REFLECTIONS.CHAP. 8. AND 9.
When the whole world was corrupted, did God in this extraordinary way preserve the one righteous family? Then the multitude of the wicked shall not contribute to their safety, nor shall the small number of the righteous expose them to the least danger; and if piety is so dear to God, let us value it above every other consideration.
Noah built an altar to the Lord; hence we should, after deliverance from afflictions and troubles, as a first duty, kneel down and give glory to God. Devotion on these occasions is warmed and animated by fresh tokens of providence, and becomes peculiarly acceptable to God.
The Lord renewed his covenant with this patriarch, and modified it according to the existing circumstances. He does not indeed repeat the promise of the Womans Seed to bruise the serpents head; that stood like a rock through all succeeding ages, and was implied in the sacrifices; but he enforced anew the moral precepts, because it was proper to secure his own glory, and to restrain the depravity of man by awarding death to crimes; these precepts, the Jews affirm, were seven in number.
God promised Noah seedtime and harvest to the end of the world; and what is better, these temporal promises were shadows of spiritual and eternal good to those who sincerely embraced the covenant. Hence we see the faithfulness of God. He has not destroyed us by water, nor has the harvest at any time failed, except in cases of temporary famine, which he sends to remind us of our sins: hence also we should look for a double portion, a little of earth and a little of heaven.
But did Noah after all plant a vineyard, and was he once overtaken with intoxication; though from his long life of nine hundred and fifty years, and from the high favours of God towards him, we may infer that he was a patriarch of the strictest temperance; then let aged christians and aged ministers learn to preserve in old age the glory of early piety. This one sin was complicated: it led to Hams sin, and brought the curse of servitude on his posterity. Dr. Jenkins, in his Reasonableness of the Christian religion, has brought sufficient evidence from the scriptures and from pagan authors to prove, that the Africans, whom all nations have afflicted with slavery, are the descendants of Ham, or of Cush, his eldest son. Whenever we have the calamity to hear of a defect in a father, or an elder, let us, animated with the filial piety of Shem and Japhet, take a mantle of love, and cover it for once, that a blessing may come upon us, and that the silent and secret tears of repentance may so far purge it that it shall never be repeated.
Was the bow fixed in the clouds from the beginning, though now adopted as the pledge of the covenant, just as circumcision, and as bread and wine in the Lords supper were afterwards adopted as signs of the same covenant; then objects of sense, when divinely appointed, may aid our faith. Yea all nature should remind us of the fidelity of God, and prompt us to constancy in religion, and unshaken confidence in the dark and cloudy day.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Genesis 9
But I have already extended this section far beyond the limit which I had prescribed for it. I shall, therefore, close it with a hasty glance at the contents of Gen. 9. In it we have the new covenant, under which creation was set, after the deluge, together with the token of that covenant. “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” Observe, God’s command to man, on his entrance into the restored earth, was to refill that earth; not parts of the earth, but the earth. He desired to have men dispersed abroad, over the face of the world, and not relying upon their own concentrated energies. We shall see, in Gen. 11, how man neglected all this.
The fear of man is now lodged in the heart of every other creature. Henceforth the service, rendered by the inferior orders of creation to man, must be the constrained result of “fear and dread.” In life, and in death, the lower animals were to be at the service of man. ALL creation is delivered, by God’s everlasting covenant, from the fear of a second deluge. Judgement is never again to take that shape. “The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men.” The earth was once purged with water; and it will be again purged by fire; and in this second purgation none will escape, save those, who have fled for refuge to Him, who has passed through the deep waters of death, and met the fire of divine judgement.
“And God said, This is the token of the covenant ..I do set my bow in the cloud…..and I will remember my covenant,” The whole creation rests, as to its exemption from a second deluge, on the eternal stability of God’s covenant, of which the bow is the token; and it is happy to bear in mind, that when the bow appears, the eye of God rests upon it; and man is cast not upon his own imperfect and most uncertain memory, but upon God’s. “I” says God, “Will remember.” “How sweet to think of what God will, and what He will not remember! He will remember His own covenant, but He will not remember His people’s sins. The cross, which ratifies the former, puts away the latter. The belief of this gives peace to the troubled and uneasy conscience.
“And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.” Beautiful and most expressive emblem! The beams of the sun, reflected from that which threatens judgement, tranquillise the heart, as telling of God’s covenant, God’s salvation, and God’s remembrance. Precious, most precious sunbeams, deriving additional beauty from the very cloud which reflects them! How forcibly does this bow in the cloud remind us of Calvary. There a cloud indeed – a dark, thick, heavy cloud of judgement discharging itself upon the sacred head of the Lamb of God – a cloud so dark, that even at mid-day “there was darkness over all the earth.” But, blessed be God, faith discerns, in that heaviest cloud that ever gathered, the most brilliant and beauteous bow that ever appeared, for it sees the bright beams of God’s eternal love darting through the awful gloom, and reflected in the cloud. It hears, too, the words, “it is finished,” issuing from amid the darkness, and in those words it recognises the perfect ratification of God’s everlasting counsels, not only as to creation, but the tribes of Israel and the Church of God.
The last paragraph of this chapter presents a humiliating spectacle. The lord of creation fails to govern himself: “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.” What a condition for Noah, the only righteous man, the preacher of righteousness, to be found in. Alas! what is man? Look at him where you will, and you see only failure. In Eden, he fails; in the restored earth, he fails; in Canaan, he fails; in the Church, he fails; in the presence of millennial bliss and glory, he fails. He fails everywhere, and in all things: there is no good thing in him. Let his advantages be ever so great, his privileges ever so vast, his position ever so desirable, he can only exhibit failure and sin.
We must, however, look at Noah in two ways, namely, as a type, and as a man; and while the type is full of beauty and meaning, the man is full of sin and folly; yet the Holy Ghost has written these words, “Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation; and Noah walked with God.” Divine grace had covered all his sins, and clothed his person with a spotless robe of righteousness. Though Noah exposed his nakedness, God did not see it, for He looked not at him, in the weakness of his own condition, but in the full power of divine and everlasting righteousness. Hence we may see how entirely astray – how totally alienated from God and His thoughts, Ham was, in the course he adopted; he evidently knew nothing of the blessedness of the man, whose iniquity is forgiven, and his sin covered; on the contrary, Shem and Jepheth exhibit, in their conduct, a fine specimen of the divine method of dealing with human nakedness; wherefore they inherit a blessing, whereas Ham inherits a curse.
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Gen 6:5 to Gen 9:17. The Flood.This section has been very skilfully composed from both J and P. There are numerous repetitions: Gen 6:5-8 and Gen 6:12 f.; Gen 7:7-9 and Gen 7:13-16; Gen 7:11 and Gen 7:12; Gen 7:17 and Gen 7:18 f.; Gen 7:21 and Gen 7:23; Gen 8:2 a and Gen 8:2 b. There are also differences of representation. According to Gen 6:19 f., Gen 7:15 f., the animals go in by pairs; according to Gen 7:2 f. the clean go in by sevens (or seven pairs), the unclean by pairs. In Gen 7:11 the Flood is caused by the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep and the opening of the windows of heaven, in Gen 7:12 by a long-continued rain. According to Gen 7:12 the rain continued forty days, according to Gen 7:24 the waters prevailed 150 days. There are also phraseological and stylistic differences, those characteristic of P being specially prominent. The analysis into two sources has been effected with almost complete unanimity. To P belong Gen 6:9-22, Gen 7:6; Gen 7:11, Gen 7:13-16 a, Gen 7:17 a (except forty days), Gen 7:18-21, Gen 7:24, Gen 8:1-2 a, Gen 8:3 b Gen 8:5, Gen 8:13 a, Gen 8:14-19, Gen 9:1-17. To J belong Gen 6:5-8, Gen 7:1-5, Gen 7:7-10; Gen 7:12; Gen 7:16 b, Gen 7:22 f., Gen 8:2 b Gen 8:3 a, Gen 8:6-13 b, Gen 8:20-22. In both cases some slight elements are due to the redactor. When the analysis has been effected, two all but complete stories appear, bearing the marks of P and J.
Difficult questions are raised as to the relation in which these stories stand to other Deluge narratives. A very large number exists, and of these many are independent. It is still debated whether the legends go back to the primitive period of history before the dispersion; this is not probable, for the date would be so early that oral tradition would hardly have preserved it. Presumably many were local in their origin, for such catastrophes on a small scale must have been numerous, and some of the stories may have been coloured and enriched by contamination with others. These parallels, however, must be neglected here, except the Babylonian accounts. Two of these are known to us, and fragments of a third have been recently discovered. The two former tell substantially the same story, though with considerable differences in detail. One is preserved in the extracts from Berossus given by Alexander Polyhistor. The other was discovered by George Smith in 1872. It comes in the eleventh canto of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It describes how the god Ea saved Utnapistim by commanding him to build a ship and take into it the seed of life of every kind. He built and stored it, and when the rain began to fall entered the ship and closed the door. A vivid description is given of the storm, and the terror it inspired in the gods. On the seventh day he opened the ship, which settled on Mount Nizir. After seven days he sent out a dove, and then a swallow, both of which returned; then a raven, which did not return. Then the ship was left and he offered sacrifice, to which the gods came hungrily. Bels anger at the escape was appeased by Ea on the ground that the punishment had been indiscriminate, and the hero with his wife was granted immortality. The coincidences with the Biblical account are so close that they can be explained only by dependence of the Biblical on the Babylonian story, though not necessarily on the form known to us. Probably the Hebrews received it through the Canaanites, and it passed through a process of purification, in which the offensive elements were removed. The Hebrew story is immeasurably higher in tone than the Babylonian. In the latter Bel in his anger destroys good and evil alike, and is enraged to discover that any have escaped the Flood. The gods cower under the storm like dogs in a kennel; and when the sacrifice is offered, smell the sweet savour and gather like flies over the sacrificer. In the Biblical story the punishment is represented as strictly deserved by all who perish, and the only righteous man and his family are preserved, not by the friendly help of another deity, but by the direct action of Him who sends the Flood.
The question as to the historical character of the narrative still remains. The terms seem to require a universal deluge, for all flesh on the earth was destroyed (Gen 6:17, Gen 7:4, Gen 7:21-23), and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered (Gen 7:19 f.). But this would involve a depth of water all over the world not far short of 30,000 ft., and that sufficient water was available at the time is most improbable. The ark could not have contained more than a very small proportion of the animal life on the globe, to say nothing of the food needed for them, nor could eight people have attended to their wants, nor apart from a constant miracle could the very different conditions they required in order to live at all have been supplied. Nor without such a miracle, could they have come from lands so remote. Moreover, the present distribution of animals would on this view be unaccountable. If all the species were present at a single centre at a time so comparatively near as less than five thousand years ago, we should have expected far greater uniformity between different parts of the world than now exists. The difficulty of coming applies equally to return. Nor if the human race took a new beginning from three brothers and their three wives (Gen 7:13, Gen 9:19) could we account for the origin, within the very brief period which is all that our knowledge of antiquity permits, of so many different races, for the development of languages with a long history behind them, or for the founding of states and rise of advanced civilisations. And this quite understates the difficulty, for archology shows a continuous development of such civilisations from a time far earlier than the earliest to which the Flood can be assigned. A partial Deluge is not consistent with the Biblical representation (see above). And an inundation which took seventy-three days to sink from the day when the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat till the tops of the mountains became visible (Gen 8:4 f.) implies a depth of water which would involve a universal deluge. The story, therefore, cannot be accepted as historical; but it may and probably does rest on the recollection of an actual deluge, perhaps produced by a combination of the inundation normally caused by the overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates with earthquake and flooding from the Persian Gulf.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
A NEW BEGINNING FOR MAN
The earth itself having been purged by water, furnishing a totally new condition of circumstances for mankind and animals, now God establishes man in a new dispensation of things, blessing Noah and his sons with the promise of fruitfulness and of their multiplying to fill the earth that had been so reduced in the number of its inhabitants. God had told Adam and his wife to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen 1:28). The same cannot be said to Noah because the entrance of sin spoiled this dominion.
Rather, Noah is told (v.2) that the fear and dread of man would be on beasts, birds and fish. It is a great mercy that this is so, for if the beasts, with their superior physical strength, had no fear of man, they could practically destroy all human population. But God has implanted that fear within them, though they no longer have the nature of spontaneous subjection to man as was true in the garden of Eden.
Besides this, mankind was no longer limited to a vegetarian diet (v.2). Animals, birds and fish were allowed him as food, just as fully as herbs and fruits. There were no restrictions such as were later introduced for Israel under law (Lev 11:1-47), and again abrogated after the death of the Lord Jesus (Act 10:11-16; 1Ti 4:4-5). Of course it is evident that if one finds any food causing him physical difficulty, it is only wise to avoid that food, but God does not forbid the use of any.
However, when the meat of animals was eaten, God firmly prohibited the blood being eaten with it (v.4). From this time, the time that the eating of meat was first allowed, blood has been always forbidden. In every dispensation this has been true. The reason is that the blood is said to be “the life” of the creature, and life belongs exclusively to God. In refraining from eating blood then, we recognize the rights of the Creator. On the other hand, the rights of human beings were to be recognized. If a man or a beast shed human blood, then proper government demanded the death of that man or beast (v.6). This also remains true throughout history.
The Lord’s instructions to Noah in verses 3-6 indicate that this is the beginning of human government being established on earth. Man being left to his conscience after Adam had sinned, totally broke down and the flood came. Therefore, something more than conscience must be necessary to meet man’s need, so that at this point the dispensation of human government was introduced. This was necessary in order to restrain evil and to maintain order. God, however, leaves man with a minimum of legislation for government, only the two laws, involving the rights of God and the rights of mankind. Today governments have become extremely top-heavy with legislation. No individual can possibly know all the laws that are on the books in his own state or city. Government has certainly not proven to be the answer to the need of man occasioned by his own sin.
The encouragement of verse 1 to multiply on the earth is repeated in verse 7 with even more emphasis. Though multiplying would bring more sinners into the world, yet God would not be defeated by this: by His own pure grace He is able to save sinners. People today try every method of keeping the population of the world down, but God has not told them to do this. He knows how to take care of this problem and will do so in His own way. The world worries over a “population explosion,” but God will relieve this very soon when the Lord Jesus comes to rapture Home to heaven all who have received Him as Savior. Then the following judgments of the tribulation will further drastically reduce earth’s population!
At this time also God announced a covenant with Noah and his sons, also including all his descendants, as well as birds and animals, all who had been in the ark, therefore not fish. The covenant was to the effect that God would not again send a flood to destroy the earth (vs.10-11). When a flood of this kind had occurred once, then people would be apprehensive of another, but God’s word is absolute in this matter. Sadly, because another has not come, people deny that the first ever happened! Such is the perversity of human sinful nature!
Six verses are then devoted to God’s establishing the sign of the covenant (vs.12-17). The rainbow was this sign, not seen during the flood, but after it was over. God set His bow in the cloud. the scientific explanation of the rainbow is that the raindrops act as the prismatic medium that causes a refraction of the rays of the sun. The pure white light is thus divided into seven distinct visible colors, always seen in the same order, each color of the spectrum having a beauty of its own. This is a lovely picture of God’s glory, for “God is light,” and each color is symbolical of some particular aspect of God’s many attributes, — supremacy, power, authority, grace, righteousness, holiness, love and others that are implied in the various shades of every color also. Therefore all the glory of God is involved in His promise that He will not again judge the world by means of a universal flood. This beautiful display following judgment is also anticipative of the fact that after God judges the world by that Man whom He has ordained (Act 17:31), the glory of His grace will again be displayed in wonderful blessing to mankind. The book of Revelation therefore is not merely a book of judgments, but “the revelation of Jesus Christ,” for all the beauty of the glory of God will be displayed in Him who conquers every enemy and shines forth in His eternal brightness for the purest blessing of mankind.
EARLY FAILURE OF HUMAN GOVERNMENT
The names of Noah’s sons are given us in verse 18, — Shem, Ham and Japheth, — then the positive declaration is made that “from these the whole earth was populated. Shem is the father of the Semitic, swarthy races, Ham of the darker races, and Japheth of the fairer white races. However obscure some races have been, they have become obscure since Noah’s time. How they were scattered through the world, — even into North and South America, — we have no clear knowledge, but all are the descendants of Noah.
Noah’s occupation of farming was of course commendable, but anything may be abused and cause trouble. The man who was given the dignity of authority in government allowed himself an excess of wine and became drunk, and in this state was unclothed in his tent This illustrates the weakness of human government from its very beginning. Why is human government doomed to fail? Because those in authority fail to exercise self-government. If one does not properly rule himself, how can he be trusted to rule others?
This weakness also leads to another evil, as we see in Ham, the son of Noah. He showed serious disrespect for his father. Instead of covering Him when he saw him uncovered, he went and told his two brothers (v.22). This is the evil of despising government, which has become most prevalent in the day in which we live (Jud 1:8). Though governments often fail sadly, this gives us no right to reject or disobey proper authority (Rom 13:1-7).
Ham’s brothers, Shem and Japheth, at least showed the respect that was due to their parent, by going backwards into the tent and covering their father. Whether it is a question of parental authority or of governmental authority, the same principle holds true, proper respect will seek to cover failure rather than to expose it. But it must be emphasized that this is in cases of failure, not in cases of wicked abuse of authority. Even in such cases, however, a believer is not given permission by God to fight against government.
When Noah awoke he knew that Ham had shown this disrespect toward him, though we are not told how he found out (v.24). Then he pronounced a curse, not upon Him, but upon his son Canaan. It may be that this would hurt Ham more than if the curse had been on him. Canaan would be “a servant of servants” to his brethren. How far this curse would extend to Canaan’s children we do not know. But Shem was blessed, or rather, the Lord God of Shem was blessed (v.26). Of course we know that Israel came from Shem. From Shem have come the more introspective, contemplative races which tend toward mysticism, if not kept in check. Japheth is the father of the energetic, practical races whose tendency is materialistic. If both are controlled and kept in proper balance, all would be well, but it has not been so. God would enlarge Japheth, and it is true that the white races have multiplied greatly on earth. Japheth would dwell in the tents of Shem. His practical energy was not enough. He would need a dwelling of contemplative faith too. This may also have reference to the present age of grace, when Israel had rejected their Messiah and the Gentiles are “grafted in” to Israel’s stock, virtually dwelling in Israel’s tents until Israel is restored. In both cases Canaan would be their servant.
Though this is no doubt prophetic, it does not infer that anyone has the right to subjugate others as slaves to themselves. That is, God is not giving authority to anyone to put the descendants of Canaan under servitude to them. But since Ham was not properly subject to government, then his descendants would learn by experience what obedience to authority means. In fact, we may all take a lesson from this, that we should willingly bow to authority that God has allowed to be over us. Not only Canaan’s seed, but all mankind has been put under a curse, that of not continuing in obedience to all that the law commands (Gal 3:10). Therefore, let us not think we are better than Ham.
Noah continued to live 300 years after the flood, attaining an age of 950 years, only 19 short of Methuselah. He lived long enough to see a large population of his own descendants.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
9:1 And God {a} blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
(a) God increased them with fruit, and declared to them his counsel as concerning the replenishing of the earth.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. The Noahic Covenant 9:1-17
Following the Flood, God established human life anew on the earth showing His high regard for it. He promised to bless humanity with faithfulness, and He prohibited murder. He also promised with a sign that He would not destroy His creation again with a flood.
"The Noahic covenant’s common allusions to Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3 show that Noah is the second Adam who heads the new family of humanity, indicating that the blessing continues through the progeny of the Sethite line. Also Gen 8:20 to Gen 9:17 possesses lexical and thematic connections with the ratification of the Sinai covenant by Moses and the elders (Exo 24:4-18)." [Note: Ibid., p. 398. See also Kenneth Mulzac, "Genesis 9:1-7: Its Theological Connections with the Creation Motif," Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 12:1 (Spring 2001):65-77.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
At this new beginning of the human family, God again commanded Noah and his sons to fill the earth with their descendants (Gen 9:1; cf. Gen 1:28; Gen 9:7). [Note: See Bernhard W. Anderson, "Creation and Ecology," American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 4:1 (January 1983):14-30; and Waltke, Genesis, pp. 155-56.] As with Adam, He also gave them dominion over the animals and permission to eat food with only one prohibition (cf. Gen 1:26; Gen 1:28-29; Gen 2:16-17).
God gave Noah permission to eat animals (Gen 9:3). Until now, evidently people had eaten only plants (cf. Gen 1:29). Now humanity received the power of life and death over the animal kingdom.
"God did not expressly prohibit the eating of meat in the initial stipulation at creation, but by inference Gen 9:3’s provision for flesh is used as a dividing mark between the antediluvian and postdiluvian periods. Whether or not early man could eat meat by permission from the beginning, now it is stated formally in the Noahic covenant." [Note: Mathews, p. 401.]
God did, however, prohibit the eating of animal blood to instill respect for the sacredness of life, since blood is a symbol of life (cf. Lev 3:17; Lev 7:2-27; Lev 19:26; Deu 12:1-24; 1Sa 14:32-34).
Until the Mosaic Law, God made no distinction between clean and unclean animals with regard to human consumption. Under the Mosaic Law, the Israelites could not eat certain foods. Under the law of Christ (Gal 6:2), we may again eat any foods (Rom 14:14; 1Ti 4:3). These changes illustrate the fact that God has changed some of the rules for human conduct at various strategic times in history. These changes are significant features that help us identify the various dispensations (economies) by which God has ruled historically. [Note: See Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, pp. 22-64; or idem, Dispensationalism, pp. 23-59.]
God not only reasserted the cultural mandate to reproduce and modified the food law, but He also reasserted the sanctity of human life (cf. ch. 4). The reason for capital punishment (Gen 9:6) is that God made man in His own image. This is one reason, therefore, that murder is so serious. A person extinguishes a revelation of God when he or she murders someone. [Note: See Elmer L. Gray, "Capital Punishment in the Ancient Near East," Biblical Illustrator 13:1 (Fall 1986):65-67; Charles C. Ryrie, "The Doctrine of Capital Punishment," Bibliotheca Sacra 129:515 (July-September 1972):211-17; Marshall Shelley, "The Death Penalty: Two Sides of a Growing Issue," Christianity Today (March 2, 1984), pp. 14-17; James A. Stahr, "The Death Penalty," Interest (March 1984), pp. 2-3; Duane C. Caylor, "Capital Punishment, a different Christian perspective," Reformed Journal 36:7 (July 1986):10-12; Bruce W. Ballard, "The Death Penalty: God’s Timeless Standard for the Nations?" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43:3 (September 2000):471-87; Hamilton, p. 315; and Mathews, pp. 403-6.] Later the writing prophets announced that God would judge certain foreign nations because they shed human blood without divine authorization (e.g., Amo 1:3; Amo 1:11; Amo 1:13; Amo 2:1). God has never countermanded this command, so it is still in force. Before the Flood the lack of capital punishment led to bloody vendettas (cf. ch. 4).
"This command laid the foundation for all civil government." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:153. See Waltke, Genesis, pp. 157-58.]
"The human government and the governors that existed previously-as in the city which Cain established (Gen 4:17), or in the case of the mighty men (Gen 6:4)-existed solely on human authority. Now, however, divine authority was conferred on human government to exercise oversight over those who lived under its jurisdiction." [Note: Pentecost, p. 46.]
"I sometimes feel that often the hue and cry against capital punishment today does not so much rest upon humanitarian interest or even an interest in justice, but rather in a failure to understand that man is unique. The simple fact is that Gen 9:6 is a sociological statement: The reason that the punishment for murder can be so severe is that man, being created in the image of God, has a particular value-not just a theoretical value at some time before the Fall, but such a value yet today." [Note: Schaeffer, pp. 50-51.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE FLOOD
Gen 5:1-32; Gen 6:1-22; Gen 7:1-24; Gen 8:1-22; Gen 9:1-29
THE first great event which indelibly impressed itself on the memory of the primeval world was the Flood. There is every reason to believe that this catastrophe was co-extensive with the human population of the world. In every branch of the human family traditions of the event are found. These traditions need not be recited, though some of them bear a remarkable likeness to the Biblical story, while others are very beautiful in their construction, and significant in individual points. Local floods happening at various times in different countries could not have given birth to the minute coincidences found in these traditions, such as the sending out of the birds, and the number of persons saved. But we have as yet no material for calculating how far human population had spread from the Original centre. It might apparently be argued that it could not have spread to the seacoast, or that at any rate no ships had as yet been built large enough to weather a severe storm; for a thoroughly nautical population could have had little difficulty in surviving such a catastrophe as is here described. But all that can be affirmed is that there is no evidence that the waters extended beyond the inhabited part of the earth; and from certain details of the narrative, this part of the earth may be identified as the great plain of the Euphrates and Tigris.
Some of the expressions used in the narrative might indeed lead us to suppose that the writer understood the catastrophe to have extended over the whole globe; but expressions of similar largeness elsewhere occur in passages where their meaning must be restricted: Probably the most convincing evidence of the limited extent of the Flood is furnished by the animals of Australia. The animals that abound in that island are different from those found in other parts of the world, but are similar to the species which are found fossilised in the island itself, and which therefore must have inhabited these same regions long anterior to the Flood. If then the Flood extended to Australia and destroyed all animal life there, what are we compelled to suppose as the order of events? We must suppose that the creatures, visited by some presentiment of what was to happen many months after, selected specimens of their number, and that these specimens by some unknown and quite inconceivable means crossed thousands of miles of sea, found their way through all kinds of perils from unaccustomed climate, food, and beasts of prey; singled out Noah by some inscrutable instinct, and surrendered themselves to his keeping. And after the year in the ark expired, they turned their faces homewards, leaving behind them no progeny, again preserving themselves intact, and transporting themselves by some unknown means to their island home. This, if the Deluge was universal, must have been going on with thousands of animals from all parts of the globe; and not only were these animals a stupendous miracle in themselves, but wherever they went they were the occasion of miracle in others, all the beasts of prey refraining from their natural food. The fact is, the thing will not bear stating.
But it is not the physical but the moral aspects of the Flood with which we have here to do. And, first, this narrator explains its cause. He ascribes it to the abnormal wickedness of the antediluvians. To describe the demoralised condition of society before the Flood, the strongest language is used. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great,” monstrous in acts of violence, and in habitual courses and established usages. “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,”-there was no mixture of good, no relentings, no repentances, no visitings of compunction, no hesitations and debatings. It was a world of men fierce and energetic, violent and lawless, in perpetual war and turmoil; in which if a man sought to live a righteous life, he had to conceive it of his own mind and to follow it out unaided and without the countenance of any.
This abnormal wickedness again is accounted for by the abnormal marriages from which the leaders of these ages sprang. Everything seemed abnormal, huge, inhuman. As there are laid bare to the eye of the geologist in those archaic times vast forms bearing a likeness to forms we are now familiar with, but of gigantic proportions and wallowing in dim, mist-covered regions; so to the eye of the historian there loom through the obscurity colossal forms perpetrating deeds of more than human savagery, and strength, and daring; heroes that seem formed in a different mould from common men.
However we interpret the narrative, its significance for us is plain. There is nothing prudish in the Bible. It speaks with a manly frankness of the beauty of women and its ensnaring power. The Mosaic law was stringent against intermarriage with idolatresses, and still in the New Testament something more than an echo of the old denunciation of such marriages is heard. Those who were most concerned about preserving a pure morality and a high tone in society were keenly alive to the dangers that threatened from this quarter. It is a permanent danger to character because it is to a permanent element in human nature that the temptation appeals. To many in every generation, perhaps to the majority, this is the most dangerous form in which worldliness presents itself; and to resist this the most painful test of principle. With natures keenly sensitive to beauty and superficial attractiveness, some are called upon to make their choice between a conscientious cleaving to God and an attachment to that which in the form is perfect but at heart is defective, depraved, godless. Where there is great outward attraction a man fights against the growing sense of inward uncongeniality, and persuades himself he is too scrupulous and uncharitable, or that he is a bad reader of character. There may be an undercurrent of warning; he may be sensible that his whole nature is not satisfied, and it may seem to him ominous that what is best within him does not flourish in his new attachment, but rather what is inferior, if not what is worst. But all such omens and warnings are disregarded and stifled by some such silly thought as that consideration and calculation are out of place in such matters. And what is the result? The result is the same as it ever was. Instead of the ungodly rising to the level of the godly, he sinks to hers. The worldly style, the amusements, the fashions once distasteful to him, but allowed for her sake, become familiar, and at last wholly displace the old and godly ways, the arrangements that left room for acknowledging God in the family; and there is one household less as a point of resistance to the incursion of an ungodly tone in society, one deserter more added to the already too crowded ranks of the ungodly, and the life-time if not the eternity of one soul embittered. Not without a consideration of the temptations that do actually lead men astray did the law enjoin: “Thou shalt not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, nor take of their daughters unto thy sons.”
It seems like a truism to say that a greater amount of unhappiness has been produced by mismanagement, folly, and wickedness in the relation subsisting between men and women than by any other cause. God has given us the capacity of love to regulate this relation and be our safe guide in all matters connected with it. But frequently, from one cause or another, the government and direction of this relation are taken out of the hands of love and put into the thoroughly incompetent hands of convenience, or fancy, or selfish lust. A marriage contracted from any such motive is sure to bring unhappiness of a long-continued, wearing, and often heartbreaking kind. Such a marriage is often the form in which retribution comes for youthful selfishness and youthful licentiousness. You cannot cheat nature. Just in so far as you allow yourself to be ruled in youth by a selfish love of pleasure, in so far do you incapacitate yourself for love. You sacrifice what is genuine and satisfying, because provided by nature, to what is spurious, unsatisfying, and shameful. You cannot afterwards, unless by a long and bitter discipline, restore the capacity of warm and pure love in your heart. Every indulgence in which true love is absent is another blow given to the faculty of love within you-you make yourself in that capacity decrepit, paralyzed, dead. You have lost, you have killed the faculty that should be your guide in all these matters, and so you are at last precipitated without this guidance into a marriage formed from some other motive, formed therefore against nature, and in which you are the everlasting victim of natures relentless justice. Remember that you cannot have both things, a youth of loveless pleasure and a loving marriage-you must make your choice. For as surely as genuine love kills all evil desire; so surely does evil desire kill the very capacity of love, and blind utterly its wretched victim to the qualities that ought to excite love.
The language used of God in relation to this universal corruption strikes every one as remarkable. “It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.” This is what is usually termed anthropomorphism, i.e., the presenting of God in terms applicable only to man; it is an instance of the same mode of speaking as is used when we speak of Gods hand or eye or heart. These expressions are not absolutely true, but they are useful and convey to us a meaning which could scarcely otherwise be expressed. Some persons think that the use of these expressions proves that in early times God was thought of as wearing a body and as being very like ourselves in His inward nature. And even in our day we have been ridiculed for speaking of God as a magnified man. Now in the first place the use of such expressions does not prove that even the earliest worshippers of God believed Him to have eyes and hands and a body. We freely use the same expressions though we have no such belief. We use them because our language is formed for human uses and on a human level, and we have no capacity to frame a better. And in the second place, though not absolutely true they do help us towards the truth. We are told that it degrades God to think of Him as hearing prayer and accepting praise; nay, that to think Of Him as a Person at all, is to degrade Him. We ought to think of Him as the Absolutely Unknowable. But which degrades God most, and which exalts Him most? If we find that it is impossible to worship an absolutely unknowable, if we find that practically such an idea is a mere nonentity to us, and that we cannot in point of fact pay any homage or show any consideration to such an empty abstraction, is not this really to lower God? And if we find that when we think of Him as a Person, and ascribe to Him all human virtue in an infinite degree, we can rejoice in Him and worship Him with true adoration, is not this to exalt Him? While we call Him our Father we know that this title is inadequate; while we speak of God as planning and decreeing we know that we are merely making shift to express what is inexpressible by us-we know that our thoughts of Him are never adequate and that to think of Him at all is to lower Him, is to think of Him inadequately; but when the practical alternative is such as it is, we find we do well to think of Him with the highest personal attributes we can conceive. For to refuse to ascribe such attributes to Him because this is degrading Him, is to empty our minds of any idea of Him which can stimulate either to worship or to duty. If by ridding our minds of all anthropomorphic ideas and refusing to think of God as feeling, thinking, acting as men do, we could thereby get to a really higher conception of Him, a conception which would practically make us worship Him more devotedly and serve Him more faithfully, then by all means let us do so. But if the result of refusing to think of Him as in many ways like ourselves, is that we cease to think of Him at all or only as a dead impersonal force, then this certainly is not to reach a higher but a lower conception of Him. And until we see our way to some truly higher conception than that which we have of a Personal God, we had better be content with it.
In short, we do well to be humble, and considering that we know very little about existence of any kind, and least of all about Gods, and that our God has been presented to us in human form, we do well to accept Christ as our God, to worship, love, and serve Him, finding Him sufficient for all our wants of this life, and leaving it to other times to get the solution of anything that is not made plain to us in Him. This is one boon that the science and philosophy of our day have unintentionally conferred upon us. They have laboured to make us feel how remote and inaccessible God is, how little we can know Him, how truly He is past finding out; they have laboured to make us feel how intangible and invisible and incomprehensible God is, but the result of this is that we turn with all the stronger longing to Him who is the Image of the Invisible God, and on whom a voice has fallen from the excellent glory, “This is My beloved Son, hear Him.”
The Flood itself we need not attempt to describe. It has been remarked that though the narrative is vivid and forcible, it is entirely wanting in that sort of description which in a modern historian or poet would have occupied the largest space. “We see nothing of the death-struggle; we hear not the cry of despair; we are not called upon to witness the frantic agony of husband and wife, and parent and child, as they fled in terror before the rising waters. Nor is a word said of the sadness of the one righteous man, who, safe himself, looked upon the destruction which he could not avert.” The Chaldean tradition which is the most closely allied to the Biblical account is not so reticent. Tears are shed in heaven over the catastrophe, and even consternation affected its inhabitants, while within the ark itself the Chaldean Noah says, “When the storm came to an end and the terrible water-spout ceased, I opened the window and the light smote upon my face. I looked at the sea attentively observing, and the whole of humanity had returned to mud, like seaweed the corpses floated. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and wept and my tears fell upon my face.”
There can be little question that this is a true description of Noahs feeling. And the sense of desolation and constraint would rather increase in Noahs mind than diminish. Month after month elapsed; he was coming daily nearer the end of his food, and yet the waters were unabated. He did not know how long he was to be kept in this dark, disagreeable place. He was left to do his daily work without any supernatural signs to help him against his natural anxieties. The floating of the ark and all that went on in it had no mark of Gods hand upon it. He was indeed safe while others had been destroyed. But of what good was this safety to be? Was he ever to get out of this prison house? To what straits was he to be first reduced? So it is often with ourselves. We are left to fulfil Gods will without any sensible tokens to set over against natural difficulties, painful and pinching circumstances, ill health, low spirits, failure of favourite projects and old hopes-so that at last we come to think that perhaps safety is all we are to have in Christ, a mere exemption from suffering of one kind purchased by the endurance of much suffering of another kind: that we are to be thankful for pardon on any terms; and escaping with our life, must be content though it be bare. Why, how often does a Christian wonder whether, after all, he has chosen a life that he can endure, whether the monotony and the restraints of the Christian life are not inconsistent with true enjoyment?
This strife between the felt restriction of the Christian life and the natural craving for abundant life, for entrance into all that the world can show us, and experience of all forms of enjoyment-this strife goes on unceasingly in the heart of many of us as it goes on from age to age in the world. Which is the true view of life, which is the view to guide us in choosing and refusing the enjoyments and pursuits that are presented to us? Are we to believe that the ideal man for this life is he who has tasted all culture and delight, who believes in nature, recognising no fall and seeking for no redemption, and makes enjoyment his end; or he who sees that all enjoyment is deceptive till man is set right morally, and who spends himself on this, knowing that blood and misery must come before peace and rest, and crowned as our King and Leader, not with a garland of roses, but with the crown of Him Who is greatest of all, because servant of all-to Whom the most sunken is not repulsive, and Who will not abandon the most hopeless? This comes to be very much the question, whether this life is final or preparatory?-whether, therefore, our work in it should be to check lower propensities and develop and train all that is best in character, so as to be fit for highest life and enjoyment in a world to come-or should take ourselves as we find ourselves, and delight in this present world? whether this is a placid eternal state, in which things are very much as they should be, and in which therefore we can live freely and enjoy freely; or whether it is a disordered, initial condition in which our main task should be to do a little towards putting things on a better rail and getting at least the germ and small beginnings of future good planted in one another? So that in the midst of all felt restriction, there is the highest hope, that one day we shall go forth from the narrow precincts of our ark, and step out into the free bright sunshine, in a world where there is nothing to offend, and that the time of our deprivation will seem to have been well spent indeed, if it has left within us a capacity permanently to enjoy love, holiness, justice, and all that is delighted in by God Himself.
The use made of this event in the New Testament is remarkable. It is compared by Peter to baptism, and both are viewed as illustrations of salvation by destruction. The eight souls, he says, who were in the ark, “were saved by water.” The water which destroyed the rest saved them. When there seemed little hope of the godly line being able to withstand the influence of the ungodly, the Flood came and left Noahs family in a new world, with freedom to order all things according to their own ideas. In this Peter sees some analogy to baptism. In baptism, the penitent who believes in the efficacy of Christs blood to purge away sin, lets his defilement be washed away and rises new and clean to the life Christ gives. In Christ the sinner finds shelter for himself and destruction for his sins. It is Gods wrath against sin that saves us by destroying our sins; just as it was the Flood which devastated the world, that at the same time, and thereby, saved Noah and his family.
In this event, too, we see the completeness of Gods work. Often we feel reluctant to surrender our sinful habits to so final a destruction as is implied in being one with Christ. The expense at which holiness is to be bought seems almost too great. So much that has given us pleasure must be parted with; so many old ties sundered, a condition of holiness presents an aspect of dreariness and hopelessness; like the world after the flood, not a moving thing on the surface of the earth, everything levelled, prostrate, and washed even with the ground; here the corpse of a man, there the carcase of a beast: here mighty forest timber swept prone like the rushes on the banks of a flooded stream, and there a city without inhabitants, everything dank, dismal, and repellent. But this is only one aspect of the work; the beginning, necessary if the work is to be thorough. If any part of the sinful life remain it will spring up to mar what God means to introduce us to. Only that is to be preserved which we can take with us into our ark. Only that is to pass on into our life which we can retain while we are in true connection with Christ, and which we think can help us to live as His friends, and to serve Him zealously.
This event then gives us some measure by which we can know how much God will do to maintain holiness upon earth. In this catastrophe every one who strives after godliness may find encouragement, seeing in it the Divine earnestness of God-for good and against evil. There is only one other event in history that so conspicuously shows that holiness among men is the object for which God will sacrifice everything else. There is no need now of any further demonstration of Gods purpose in this world. and His zeal for carrying it out. And may it not be expected of us His children, that we stand in presence of the cross until our cold and frivolous hearts catch something of the earnestness, the “resisting unto blood striving against sin,” which is exhibited there? The Flood has not been forgotten by almost any people under heaven, but its moral result is nil. But he whose memory is haunted by a dying Redeemer, by the thought of One Whose love found its most appropriate and practical result in dying for him, is prevented from much sin, and finds in that love the spring of eternal hope, that which his soul in the deep privacy of his most sacred thoughts can feed upon with joy, that which he builds himself round and broods over as his inalienable possession.