Genesis 9

We begin reading from Genesis 9 verse 1, “So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” This is exactly the same command that God gave Adam, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning again here, as we did when we were in Genesis chapter 1, that the King James version, along with several other versions, uses the word “replenish” in both these verses instead of the word “fill”.

The use of the word “replenish” gives weight to the popularly held belief that the earth was inhabited after the creation in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 but before the earth was formless and void in verse 2. Many great bible teachers run with this view but many others don’t.

Speaking as a layman, just like most of you, I don’t know for sure because God simply hasn’t revealed the detail to us.

It does explain a lot about this universe that’s obviously suffered some sort of catastrophe in time past. It also explains a lot about Satan’s fall.

It’s a fascinating subject but like many other events of the bible that God hasn’t given us the fine detail of, it’s speculation and it’s not good to get dogmatic about it to the point where it consumes us and prevents our knowledge of what God does give us the details of.

There is one thing I’m sure of, If we needed to know this for our salvation and if it was a pivotal part of the story of redemption, God would’ve made it clear.

Notice that the first thing God tells Noah to do is to “be fruitful, and multiply, and fill or replenish the earth.”

There’s to be the reproduction of the race. Today we’re in a time of population explosion, however, Noah’s situation was unique. He and his family were the only folks around.

Can you imagine going into the ark and leaving a whole civilisation of people and then a year later coming out to nobody at all?

On now to Genesis 9:2, “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.”

Man is to protect and rule over the animal world.

It appears that before  the flood the relationship between man and beast was different. Apparently, man hadn’t been a meat eater.

All the animals were tame, and there was no fear of man. Man, who was himself a vegetarian, wasn’t hunting and eating them. There was a peaceful co-existence between man and beast.

Now though, the animals will fear and dread man.

This is certainly the way it is today.

Although it is possible to tame an animal with long and patient work, generally animals, birds and fish fear man. To try and get close to a wild animal, bird or fish is to see it turn and run in most cases.

Despite this, man is responsible for the animal world.

Man’s treatment of the animal world has been a brutal story. We’ve attempted to exterminate many of the animals.

We would have slaughtered all the whales, seals, elephants, rhinos, buffalos, in fact, every animal that we could turn into a profit if governments hadn’t intervened.

Today we need places where animals, birds and even fish are protected and it’s just as well that we do in light of Man’s brutality to animals.

Genesis 9:3 now, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.”

Before the Flood God gave man the green earth, the plant life, to eat.

There may have been fruits and natural foods that we know little of today.

Now He tells Noah that he’s able to eat animal life. Man becomes a meat eater.

It’s strange how so many religions incorporate diet fads like vegetarianism, but they ignore this verse.

Many of these folk use a vegetarian lifestyle to portray some sort of virtuous living as if they’re somehow better than us old meat eaters but they forget that it was a bunch of vegetarians who were destroyed in the Flood.

If diet had in any way improved them, they wouldn’t have been destroyed.”

So, we see here that God now permits man to eat flesh. Adam wasn’t given this permission as far as we know.

However, God prohibits the eating of blood.

Genesis 9:4, “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

The blood should be drained out. The blood speaks of life and draining it indicates that the animal was killed in a merciful way rather than prolonging its suffering. It also shows that the amimal is really dead.

God says that when we’re going to eat animals, we’re to make sure that we don’t eat them with their blood.

The respect for blood isn’t based on mysticism or superstition, but simply because blood represents the life of the being, whether animal or human. When blood is poured out, life is poured out.

As a sidenote here, there’s no way can you interpret this to be God prohibiting blood transfusion. That’s just a complete twisting of scripture. But it’s a tragic twisting of scripture because it costs many lives.

On to chapter 9 verses 5 and 6, “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. Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man. ”

Here’s a verse that I think is more understandable to us in today’s world if we read it in the New Living Translation. And I read, “And I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person’s life. If a wild animal kills a person, it must die. And anyone who murders a fellow human must die. If anyone takes a human life, that person’s life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image.”

Certain animals pose a real danger to man and God commands that an animal that kills a man must die.

Included in this verse is a commands that’s completely at odds with the thinking of modern-day man.

Now please remember I didn’t say this, God did. If any of you disagree, take it up with God because I’m only reporting what He said.

Here God lays down the basic principle for government and protection of man. He gives the government the right to capital punishment.

We’ve seen that in this new covenant that God’s given, man is to propagate the race, he’s to protect and rule over animals, and he’s given a new provision for food but prohibited from eating blood.

Now we see that he’s given capital punishment the first principle of government.

We must remember that our generation and pretty much every government on earth has zero understanding of the bible and most openly deny that God even exists.

We don’t have a Bible–believing population anymore and that certainly is true of governments.

This world’s almost totally ignorant of the Word of God. As a result, we find the abolishion of capital punishment.

At the same time we have an increase in violent crime, yet we see here that capital punishment is scriptural and that it’s the basis of government.

God has decreed that government has the right to take a life when that individual has taken someone else’s life. Why? Obviously, God’s ruled it in order to protect human life.

All mankind has moved to Human government and the basis of that human government is capital punishment. God hasn’t changed it because it may go against our feelings.

Of course, capital punishment as given by God here is the punishment for pre-meditated murder, not manslaughter as we know it, or unintentionally causing someone’s death.

Part of the resistance to capital punishment is the mistrust most people place in the justice system today. We simply can’t trust the human justice system to get it right any more.

Now to Genesis 9 verse 7, “And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”  This is a repetition of God’s instructions in verse Genesis 9:1.

Verses 8 and 9, “Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you.”  When God says here, “with your descendants (or your seed) after you,” he means all the human race.

Verse 10, “and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.”

All God’s creatures are included in this covenant.

Isaiah predicts that someday the lion and the lamb will lie down together and that they’ll not hurt or destroy each other. In Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, he mentions that the whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain in this present age.

Friends, God’s made this covenant with Noah and with all of His creatures until the time His Kingdom comes on earth.

It’s for all of Noah’s descendants and “every living creature” that’s with you and me.

Genesis 9:11, “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

This is God’s promise. He will never again destroy the earth with a flood.

Notice He doesn’t promise not to destroy the earth again, only that He won’t destroy it with flood waters.

The next time His judgment of the earth’ll be by fire.

We find that stated in 2 Peter 3, particularly verse 7.

Now in Genesis 9 verses 12 to 16, “ And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow 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; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

Notice that God says, “I will look on it” and “I will remember.” God didn’t say that we’d see it; He said that He’d see it.

He said He’d look upon it and it would be an “everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”

We should be encouraged whenever we look at a rainbow.

There’s something else very important here as well.

Many people including many Bible teachers believe that the flood was something local, that it wasn’t worldwide.

That’s quite surprising because holding that view could be seen as believing that God lied. Let me explain.

If the rainbow is a token of His covenant where He’s promising never to do this thing again, which it clearly is, well there’s been lots of very substantial floods on the planet Earth over the centuries. If Noah’s flood was a local flood God didn’t keep his promises.

Do you follow me? If we hold the view that it was a local flood we’re attacking the character of God because He’s clearly promising that whatever that was that happened He’s never going to do again yet we’ve had numerous local floods. So God’s promise wasn’t kept.

If we can’t trust the Word of God in this major promise how can we stand on any of His promises? We simply couldn’t trust Him.

No friends, God means what He says and says and does what He means.

By the way, the bow is a token of a covenant elsewhere in the Bible and we’ll see that as we get there.

Genesis 9:17 now, “And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

God seems to be emphasising quite hard that his is His covenant, not merely with Noah but with all flesh that’s upon the earth.

The rainbow could be called a sort of sacrament or a visible token or sign of promises made.

The Passover feast, the brazen serpent, Gideon’s fleece, and in our day, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are similar sacraments or signs. In today’s world, the token of a covenant or promise between two humans may be a written contract or a deed.

In these sacraments or signs, we see God’s grace through the eye of faith.

That’s what happens when man looks at the rainbow. Faith lays hold of the promise attached to the sign. You see, the merit is in what the sign speaks of. There’s no power in the sign. In fact there’s no power in the promise either. It’s faith in the promise that enables us to act according to the promise. It’s the Word of God and the sign together. God makes a promise and attaches a sign to it’s our faith that what is promised is absolutely sure and certain that gives us strength.

The rainbow is God’s answer to Noah’s altar. It’s as if God says, “I’ll remember, and I’ll look upon it.”

Now to Genesis chapter 9 verses 18 and 19, where we read, “Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.”

From these three sons of Noah came the nations, as we know them. The descendants of these three sons, from who every nation of the world comes, are listed in the table of nations provided in Genesis 10 which we’ll come to soon.

Now, why is Ham’s son Canaan mentioned here?

For two reasons. One reason we’ll see in a moment. Another reason is that when Moses wrote this record, the people of Israel were travelling to the land of Canaan. It was encouraging for them to know about God’s judgment upon the people of Canaan, who would one day become the enemy of Israel.

Now in verses 20 to 23, we have a strange incident involving Noah and we read, “And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.”

What do these verses mean and why are they included in the Bible when other seemingly more important details aren’t?

Well, first let’s look at the reality of what those survivors of the flood were like.

We need to remember that in the flood, sinful man’s been wiped out but not sin itself.

When the survivors came out of the ark were all the sinners on earth dead? Were those survivors without sin?

No, they weren’t.

Man still had the same sinful nature as those that perished in the flood. It was only their faith that saved them, not their goodness.

So, let’s see what happens.

Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent.

Now firstly, there are some quite strange excuses around where people try and excuse Noah.

One excuse is that he was ignorant of the effect of wine since no one had been drunk before. You’ll notice that before the Flood, drunkenness is not mentioned as one of the sins. Then there’s those who say that grapes didn‘t ferment before the Flood and that this was something new to Noah.

Well, it’s a new world, but it’s old sin. Noah succumbed to drunkenness.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with wine.

Fermentation is a natural process for preservation given by God, and several scriptures indicate there’s nothing wrong with wine and it’s even beneficial.

However, although there’s nothing wrong with wine in and of itself there’s plenty wrong with drunkenness.

Drunkenness seems to be a hallmark of today’s world. Many people in Australia believe drunkenness to a proud part of our culture.

We have some neighbours in their 30s who have 4 children. Every afternoon mum and dad start opening cans. They even attend to their chores with a can in hand. They never seem to be “can free” either husband or wife.

As the afternoon and evening draw near they become louder and their language becomes increasingly foul and all the time the 4 little children are playing around them.

Foul speech coupled with nothing of value to say seems to be the results of the drunkenness that’s common today. It’s treated as some sort of badge of honour.

Drunkenness is condemned in many scriptures and it’s so obvious it doesn’t need further discussion.

The next part of these verses reads, “Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent.”

What does “became uncovered in his tent” mean?

Well, let’s see verses 22 to 24, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.

But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.

So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. ”

These verses represent a situation that we’ve pointed out before.

God has not provided us with any further detail.

Where this happens there’s always speculation and boy, there’s plenty of speculation around these verses.

What we do know for sure is that this event wasn’t just about Noah getting drunk. Something much bigger happened.

Through the ages just about every possible scenario has been put up as the situation behind this event.

We have everything from incest to homosexual relationships and from castration to a conspiracy to overthrow Noah’s position as a possible back story to this event.

I believe that if the Lord had gone any further the impotance we humans would have placed on this event would have distracted us from the real message. Noah got drunk and it was that drunkenness that enabled whatever happened to happen.

Now notice what God says, through Noah, in verse 25, “Then he said: “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren.” .”

Notice that God said, “Cursed be Canaan.” He doesn’t put a curse on Ham who seemed like the one who was at least the one who ran to tell his brothers.

There’s no curse placed upon Ham; the curse was upon Canaan, Ham’s son. Again, we don’t know in what way Canaan was involved in this incident. We’re given only the bare record here, but we do recognise that Canaan is mentioned for a very definite purpose.

First of all, as we’ve already said, it was to encourage the children of Israel in entering the land of Canaan during the time of Moses. It let them know that God had pronounced a curse upon Canaanand the race that descended from him.

We see the the fulfillment of this judgment throughout the whole old testament and also in secular history. The Canaanites have all but disappeared.

God had a further reason for recording the incident of Noah’s sin. In Romans 15:4 we read these words: “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

It was recorded to let you and me know something of the weakness of the flesh.

The Lord Jesus said that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. And in Galatians 2:16 it’s made very clear that no flesh would be justified by keeping the law: “… for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” So God has given us here the story of a man who fell, a great man and yet one who still lived with the weakness of the flesh.

Now to Genesis 9:26-27, “And he said: “Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth, And may he dwell in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant.”

As I have mentioned before, when Moses was given this revelation from God, he was leading the people of Israel to the land of Canaan.

The Israelites were descendants of Shem.

There is an old belief that since the black African nations descended from Canaan this verse somehow explains slavery. This is absolutely not so and we’ll not go into the subject here as it’s very complex and requires a study of the descedants of all 3 sons of Noah. However there’s a huge amount of material available on the internet where this can be studied by those who wish to.

Genesis 9:28-29 reads, “And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.”

Noah was a remarkable man who served God in his own generation. Yet his last years don’t seem to match the glory of his first years.

He was man of great triumph but also weakness. His godliness is remembered in the New Testament, marking him as a man of faith in Hebrews 11:7 and a preacher of righteousness in 2 Peter 2:5.

On our journey we’ll meet many other remarkable characters many of whom were key people in God’s eternal plan, but despite their greatness thay all had weakness, some vastly more than others. One thing all these people had in common was faith. They believed God and in what He said.

In the next episode we’ll move to Genesis chapter 10 and see the sons of Japheth, Ham and Shem.

It’s a chapter of genealogies, of families, which are the origin of all the nations of the world.