3 Every living and moving thing will be food for you; I give them all to you as before I gave you all green things.
I am conscious of this, and am certain in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself; but for the man in whose opinion it is unclean, for him it is unclean.
Only you may put to death animals, such as the gazelle or the roe, for your food in any of your towns, at the desire of your soul, in keeping with the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you: the unclean and the clean may take of it.
Who keep men from being married and from taking food which God made to be taken with praise by those who have faith and true knowledge. Because everything which God has made is good, and nothing is evil, if it is taken with praise: For it is made holy by the word of God and by prayer.
Which say there may be no touching, tasting, or taking in your hands, (Rules which are all to come to an end with their use) after the orders and teaching of men?
So then, if it is a question of food or drink, or any other thing, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Whatever meat may be had at the public market, take as food without question of right or wrong; For the earth is the Lord's and all things in it.
And God said, See, I have given you every plant producing seed, on the face of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit producing seed: they will be for your food: And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and every living thing moving on the face of the earth I have given every green plant for food: and it was so.
For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
In which were all sorts of beasts and birds. And a voice came to him, saying, Come, Peter; take them for food. But Peter said, No, Lord; for I have never taken food which is common or unclean. And the voice came to him a second time, What God has made clean, do not you make common.
He makes the grass come up for the cattle, and plants for the use of man; so that bread may come out of the earth; And wine to make glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face shining, and bread giving strength to his heart.
No disgusting thing may be your food. These are the beasts which you may have for food: the ox, the sheep, and the goat; The hart, the gazelle, and the roe, the mountain goat and the pygarg and the antelope and the mountain sheep. Any beast which has a division in the horn of its foot and whose food comes back into its mouth to be crushed again, may be used for food. But even among these, there are some which may not be used for food: such as the camel, the hare, and the coney, which are unclean to you, because, though their food comes back, the horn of their feet is not parted in two. And the pig is unclean to you, because though it has a division in the horn of its foot, its food does not come back; their flesh may not be used for food or their dead bodies touched by you. And of the things living in the waters, you may take all those who have wings for swimming with and skins formed of thin plates. But any which have no skin-plates or wings for swimming, you may not take; they are unclean for you. All clean birds may be used for food. But these birds you may not take: the eagle and the gier-eagle and the ospray; The falcon and the kite, and birds of that sort; Every raven, and all birds of that sort; And the ostrich and the night-hawk and the sea-hawk and birds of that sort; The little owl and the great owl and the water-hen; And the pelican and the vulture and the cormorant; The stork and the heron and birds of that sort, and the hoopoe and the bat. Every winged thing which goes flat on the earth is unclean to you and may not be used as food. But all clean birds you may take. You may not have as food anything which has come to a natural death; the man from another country who is living with you may take it for food, or you may get a price for it from one of another nation; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The young goat is not to be cooked in its mother's milk.
That which comes to a natural death, or is attacked by beasts, he may not take as food, for it will make him unclean: I am the Lord.
And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Say to the children of Israel: These are the living things which you may have for food among all the beasts on the earth. You may have as food any beast which has a division in the horn of its foot, and whose food comes back into its mouth to be crushed again. But, at the same time, of those beasts, you may not take for food the camel, because its food comes back but the horn of its foot is not parted in two; it is unclean to you. And the rock-badger, for the same reason, is unclean to you. And the hare, because the horn of its foot is not parted in two, is unclean to you. And the pig is unclean to you, because though the horn of its foot is parted, its food does not come back. Their flesh may not be used for food, and their dead bodies may not even be touched; they are unclean to you. These you may have for food of all things living in the water: anything living in the water, in the seas or rivers, which has special parts for swimming and skin formed of thin plates, may be used for food. All other things living and moving in the water, in the sea or in the rivers, are a disgusting thing to you; They may not be used for food, and their dead bodies are disgusting to you. Anything in the water which has no special parts for swimming and no thin plates on its skin is disgusting to you. And among birds these are to be disgusting to you, and not to be used for food: the eagle and the gier-eagle and the ospray; And the kite and the falcon, and birds of that sort; Every raven, and birds of that sort; And the ostrich and the night-hawk and the sea-hawk, and birds of that sort; And the little owl and the cormorant and the great owl; And the water-hen and the pelican and the vulture; The stork and the heron, and birds of that sort, and the hoopoe and the bat. Every winged four-footed thing which goes on the earth is disgusting to you; But of the winged four-footed things, those which have long legs for jumping on the earth you may have for food; Such as all the different sorts of locust. But all other winged four-footed things which go on the earth are disgusting to you. By these you will be made unclean; anyone touching their dead bodies will be unclean till evening: Whoever takes away the dead body of one of them is to have his clothing washed, and will be unclean till evening. Every beast, in the horn of whose foot there is not a complete division, and whose food does not come back, is unclean to you: anyone touching one of these will be unclean. Any four-footed beast which goes on the ball of its foot, is unclean to you: anyone touching the dead body of one of these will be unclean till evening. Anyone who takes away the dead body of one of these is to have his clothing washed and be unclean till evening. And these are unclean to you among things which go low down on the earth; the weasel and the mouse and the great lizard, and animals of that sort; And the ferret and the land crocodile and the lizard and the sand-lizard and the chameleon. All these are unclean to you: anyone touching them when they are dead will be unclean till evening. The dead body of any of these, falling on anything, will make that thing unclean; if it is any vessel of wood, or clothing, or skin, or bag, whatever it is, if it is used for any purpose, it will have to be put into water, and will be unclean till evening; after that it will be clean. And if one of them gets into any vessel of earth, whatever is in the vessel will be unclean and the vessel will have to be broken. Any food in it, and anything on which water from it comes, will be unclean: any drink taken from such a vessel will be unclean. Any part of the dead body of one of these, falling on anything, will make it unclean; if it is an oven or a cooking-pot it will have to be broken: they are unclean and will be unclean to you. But at the same time a fountain or a place where water is stored for use will be clean; but anyone touching their dead bodies will be unclean. If any part of the dead body of one of these gets on to any seed for planting, it is clean; But if water is put on the seed, and any part of the dead body gets on to it, it will be unclean to you. And if any beast which may be used for food comes to a natural death, anyone touching its dead body will be unclean till evening. And he who makes use of any part of its body for food is to have his clothing washed and be unclean till evening; and anyone taking away its body is to have his clothing washed and be unclean till evening. Everything which goes flat on its body on the earth is disgusting, and is not to be used for food. Whatever goes on its stomach or on four feet or has a great number of feet, even all those going flat on the earth, may not be used for food, for they are disgusting. You are not to make yourselves disgusting with anything which goes about flat on the earth; you may not make yourselves unclean with them, in such a way that you are not holy to me. For I am the Lord your God: for this reason, make and keep yourselves holy, for I am holy; you are not to make yourselves unclean with any sort of thing which goes about flat on the earth. For I am the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; so be you holy, for I am holy. This is the law about beasts and birds and every living thing moving in the waters, and every living thing which goes flat on the earth: Marking out the unclean from the clean, and the living thing which may be used for food from that which may not.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Genesis 9
Commentary on Genesis 9 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 9
Ge 9:1-7. Covenant.
1. And God blessed Noah—Here is republished the law of nature that was announced to Adam, consisting as it originally did of several parts.
Be fruitful, &c.—The first part relates to the transmission of life, the original blessing being reannounced in the very same words in which it had been promised at first [Ge 1:28].
2. And the fear of you and the dread of you—The second part re-establishes man's dominion over the inferior animals; it was now founded not as at first in love and kindness, but in terror; this dread of man prevails among all the stronger as well as the weaker members of the animal tribes and keeps away from his haunts all but those employed in his service.
3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you—The third part concerns the means of sustaining life; man was for the first time, it would seem, allowed the use of animal food, but the grant was accompanied with one restriction.
4. But flesh … the blood … shall ye not eat—The sole intention of this prohibition was to prevent these excesses of cannibal ferocity in eating flesh of living animals, to which men in the earlier ages of the world were liable.
5. surely your blood of your lives will I require—The fourth part establishes a new power for protecting life—the institution of the civil magistrate (Ro 13:4), armed with public and official authority to repress the commission of violence and crime. Such a power had not previously existed in patriarchal society.
6. Whoso sheddeth man's blood … for in the image of God made he man—It is true that image has been injured by the fall, but it is not lost. In this view, a high value is attached to the life of every man, even the poorest and humblest, and an awful criminality is involved in the destruction of it.
Ge 9:8-29. Rainbow.
13. I do set my bow in the cloud—set, that is, constitute or appoint. This common and familiar phenomenon being made the pledge of peace, its appearance when showers began to fall would be welcomed with the liveliest feelings of joy.
20. And Noah … planted a vineyard—Noah had been probably bred to the culture of the soil, and resumed that employment on leaving the ark.
21. And he drank of the wine, and was drunken—perhaps at the festivities of the vintage season. This solitary stain on the character of so eminently pious a man must, it is believed, have been the result of age or inadvertency.
24. This incident could scarcely have happened till twenty years after the flood; for Canaan, whose conduct was more offensive than that even of his father, was not born till after that event. It is probable that there is a long interval included between these verses and that this prophecy, like that of Jacob on his sons, was not uttered till near the close of Noah's life when the prophetic spirit came upon him; this presumption is strengthened by the mention of his death immediately after.
25. Cursed be Canaan—This doom has been fulfilled in the destruction of the Canaanites—in the degradation of Egypt and the slavery of the Africans, the descendants of Ham.
26. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem—rather, "Blessed of Jehovah, my God, be Shem,"—an intimation that the descendants of Shem should be peculiarly honored in the service of the true God, His Church being for ages established among them (the Jews), and of them, concerning the flesh, Christ came. They got possession of Canaan, the people of that land being made their "servants" either by conquest, or, like the Gibeonites, by submission [Jos 9:25].
27. God shall enlarge Japheth—pointing to a vast increase in posterity and possessions. Accordingly his descendants have been the most active and enterprising, spread over the best and largest portion of the world, all Europe and a considerable part of Asia.
he shall dwell in the tents of Shem—a prophecy being fulfilled at the present day, as in India British Government is established and the Anglo-Saxons being in the ascendancy from Europe to India, from India over the American continent. What a wonderful prophecy in a few verses (Isa 46:10; 1Pe 1:25)!