1 And God blesseth Noah, and his sons, and saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth;
2 and your fear and your dread is on every beast of the earth, and on every fowl of the heavens, on all that creepeth on the ground, and on all fishes of the sea -- into your hand they have been given.
3 Every creeping thing that is alive, to you it is for food; as the green herb I have given to you the whole;
4 only flesh in its life -- its blood -- ye do not eat.
5 `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;
6 whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man is his blood shed: for in the image of God hath He made man.
7 And ye, be fruitful and multiply, teem in the earth, and multiply in it.'
8 And God speaketh unto Noah, and unto his sons with him, saying,
9 `And I, lo, I am establishing My covenant with you, and with your seed after you,
10 and with every living creature which `is' with you, among fowl, among cattle, and among every beast of the earth with you, from all who are going out of the ark -- to every beast of the earth.
11 And I have established My covenant with you, and all flesh is not any more cut off by waters of a deluge, and there is not any more a deluge to destroy the earth.'
12 And God saith, `This is a token of the covenant which I am giving between Me and you, and every living creature that `is' with you, to generations age-during;
13 My bow I have given in the cloud, and it hath been for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth;
14 and it hath come to pass (in My sending a cloud over the earth) that the bow hath been seen in the cloud,
15 and I have remembered My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living creature among all flesh, and the waters become no more a deluge to destroy all flesh;
16 and the bow hath been in the cloud, and I have seen it -- to remember the covenant age-during between God and every living creature among all flesh which `is' on the earth.'
17 And God saith unto Noah, `This `is' a token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that `is' upon the earth.'
18 And the sons of Noah who are going out of the ark are Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is father of Canaan.
19 These three `are' sons of Noah, and from these hath all the earth been overspread.
20 And Noah remaineth a man of the ground, and planteth a vineyard,
21 and drinketh of the wine, and is drunken, and uncovereth himself in the midst of the tent.
22 And Ham, father of Canaan, seeth the nakedness of his father, and declareth to his two brethren without.
23 And Shem taketh -- Japheth also -- the garment, and they place on the shoulder of them both, and go backward, and cover the nakedness of their father; and their faces `are' backward, and their father's nakedness they have not seen.
24 And Noah awaketh from his wine, and knoweth that which his young son hath done to him,
25 and saith: `Cursed `is' Canaan, Servant of servants he is to his brethren.'
26 And he saith: `Blessed of Jehovah my God `is' Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.
27 God doth give beauty to Japheth, And he dwelleth in tents of Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.'
28 And Noah liveth after the deluge three hundred and fifty years;
29 and all the days of Noah are nine hundred and fifty years, and he dieth.
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)!