Genesis 9

        Verse 1: God reiterates His instruction for mankind: “…be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” As before, the word “replenish” here means “to fill”, same as it did in 1:28. God also blessed Noah and his family. They had been faithful and obedient, and God recognized that.
 
           Verse 2-4: God lays down some new instruction for Noah and his descendants. A new relationship now exists between man and beast. There is fear and dread of mankind by the animals, and man is free to eat of the animal flesh as well as of the herbs and plants of the ground. The only exception is the consumption of blood from the flesh. (Leviticus 7:26, 17:10, 19:26, Deuteronomy 12:16, 23, 15:23, 1 Samuel 14:33-34, Acts 15:20, 29) God would go into greater detail on this when giving the law to the Moses for the Israelites after their exodus from Egypt.
           These verses are a clear argument against the vegetarian and vegan health fads of our modern world. There is nothing wrong with eating meat, and, as with everything in this life, moderation is key. Yes, the Bible warns us in multiple passages to abstain from the sin of gluttony. But neither are we to refrain completely from eating meat just because “the human diet was never meant for meat” or “it’s cruel to animals to slaughter them for food”. Again, this is horsepuckey and hogwash. God made it clear right here, from the beginning, that it’s okay for us to barbecue meat on the grill for Sunday dinner that was cut from slaughtered cows and chickens. As always, we need to be careful about worshiping the created instead of the Creator. What God says takes precedence over man’s foolish “wisdom” any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
         Notice here the emphasis on blood and God’s specific warning against man’s consumption of any blood from the flesh of the animals. (v.4) What God meant by this command was that, after killing an animal, the blood was to be drained from the body before it could be cut up. It’s okay for us to cook a steak to the point of medium rare when there is still some blood that oozes from that flesh along with the other juices from the meat. But to eat or drink of the blood of the animal, either before or after it has been drained from the body, is forbidden. This is in part because the drinking of blood – both animal and human – would become an integral part of the heathen rituals and idolatry of sinful mankind later on. This rule is also a preventive health measure. Consuming raw flesh or drinking blood can cause all sorts of food poisoning and other sicknesses. So, once again, God, in His abundant love and kindness for fallen man, is laying down some new ground rules to help protect his creation from the consequences of sin.
         Not only that, blood carries great significance throughout the Bible, culminating in Christ’s death on the cross as payment for the sins all mankind – past, present and future. Of all the parts and pieces of our wonderfully and marvelously created human bodies, our blood – its makeup, the way it functions, and it’s ultimate purpose – seems to be of special importance to God. (I may expound on this theme at a later point in these notes and commentary.) This is even further emphasized in His next command to Noah.
 
       Verses 5-6: God establishes here the basic law of human government, including capital punishment. The execution of murderers by the state is a God-given right and command. Every single one of us is a unique and beautiful creation by God in His image. (Genesis 1:26-27) Therefore, to willfully, deliberately kill a fellow human being is a crime against God that demands the life of the murderer as punishment and retribution for that transgression. This applies also to the murder of the unborn in the womb. There are countless doctors and mothers who will stand before almighty God one day and answer for the precious, innocent lives they slaughtered in the womb.
 
           Verse 7: The command, once again, to be fruitful and multiply. God repeats this instruction right after informing Noah of the rule for capital punishment. Procreation is a God-given directive and blessing. Not only are we created in His image, but He delights in us fulfilling this command through marriage and bearing children. God’s intention from the very beginning when he first breathed into Adam the breath of life was for Adam and Eve to procreate, to bear offspring that were also created in the image of God. God did not want just Adam and Eve for the rest of eternity. He created the whole earth for the specific purpose of Adam and Eve to fill it with a human race that desired to know and worship God. God created within Adam and Eve the unique ability to combine their respective genetic makeup to create a wholly new and distinct human being – and to do that more than once!
        Think about the significance of this! No matter how many times the same man and woman create a new baby, that child is a completely unique and distinct genetic code that is different from his or her siblings and parents. But, at the same time, that child bears a familial resemblance to his or her parents and siblings! Coded within our DNA is all the God-given programming that kicks in at the moment of conception when a new life is made in the image of God. That life is unique and precious to God, and God desires for us “…to be fruitful and multiply…” and fill this earth. But He also commands us to love one another, to respect and protect human life, and to raise our children to love, honor and obey Him. Only God has the power and authority to end human life, and when we, as His sinful, wicked and fallen creation, usurp that authority –  whether still in the womb or any time after that child is born – we commit a gross and particularly heinous sin against our almighty Creator.
 
         Verse 8-17: God establishes the Noahic covenant. Under this new covenant, “…man’s relationship to the earth and to the order of nature was confirmed (v.2-11), human government was established, and God promised never again to use a universal flood to judge the world (v.11-17). The failure of man under this dispensation culminated in the building of the tower of Babel and resulted in the judgment of the confusion of tongues (Genesis 11:1-3, 7).” (Doctrinal footnote from my study Bible.) The rainbow is God’s sign of this new covenant. (v.16) (Cross reference for "covenant": Genesis 17:13, 19, 2 Samuel 23:5, Isaiah 55:3, Jeremiah 32:40 & Hebrews 13:20.) Our world today, through the manipulation of Satan, the god of this world, has tried to twist and pervert this token of God’s covenant as a symbol of their sinful, wicked, and rebellious  homosexual lifestyle. But for us as believers, we preserve the true meaning of this token, and we rest in the promise that God will never bring upon the earth a universal Flood such as the one in the days of Noah.
         The rainbow is yet another sign of the truth of the Bible. God is true to His word and His promises are everlasting! It has been approximately eight to nine thousand years since that great Flood, and that rainbow has always appeared in the sky, everywhere on this earth, after any rainfall or great storm. The way it is created by the bending and refraction of light, in concert with other atmospheric phenomena immediately following a rainstorm, is yet another wonderful piece of evidence of intelligent design instead of just a random result of natural evolution.
 
         Verses 18-19: Noah and his family left the ark for good. It’s interesting to note here that there is no mention of what God did with the ark itself. Something that large, and specifically designed and constructed to withstand all forms of inclement weather, would have surely remained intact for quite some time, so why wasn’t this preserved for Noah’s descendants as yet one more sign from God of His providence and protection, as well as proof of the global catastrophe of the Flood itself? Why is there no further mention whatsoever in scripture of the fate of the ark?
          The simple answer is that there’s no definitive answer to this question. For reasons unknown to us, God chose to not only completely remove from human history the ark itself, but also to not reveal how He did this. The simplest – and most logical – explanation is that God supernaturally made the ark disappear some time after Noah, his family, and all the animals had completely disembarked. Perhaps God was more concerned that the children of Shem, Ham and Japheth – all the way down to us today – would accept on faith, rather than physical evidence, the historical fact of the great Flood and the ark that preserved eight souls and all the animals of that time. God said in His holy, perfect and preserved word that there was a man named Noah, that he believed in and trusted God, that he built and ark, and that God judged the entire world with a global flood. No other evidence, physical or otherwise, is necessary for our belief. God said it, so there it is so. Period.
         And, also, is the simple and stated fact in these two verses that the entire human race descended from just three men and their wives. (Genesis 10:32, I Chronicles 1:4) As with the story of Adam and Eve after the Fall, we today accept this fact because it was necessary and blessed by God that the immediate children of Shem, Ham and Japheth married each other, and their children did the same, until there was a sufficiently large enough gene pool that God decreed incest to be a forbidden act for His chosen people. It’s as simple as that. Once again, the sheer miracle and divine ingenuity of the human genetic code is a marvelous thing to behold, especially in the time before – and immediately following – the great Flood!
          There is also mention here that Ham is the father of Canaan.
 
       Verses 20-27: Noah took up husbandry after leaving the ark. (Genesis 3:19, 23, 4:2, Proverbs 12:11, Jeremiah 31:24) Husbandry is the work of tilling the land & growing crops. In the incident described in these eight verses, Noah chose to grow grapes which he then turned into wine. He drank the wine and became so intoxicated that he passed out, naked, in his tent. (v.21) (Proverbs 20:1 & Ephesians 5:18) “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.” (v.22) Doctrinal footnote from my study Bible: “While many explanations have been suggested for this phrase, it is best to take it to mean merely what it says. There is no indication of any gross violation. The phrase is not the same as in Leviticus 20:17, where it is parallel to another term used exclusively for sexual violations. The phrase indicates that this violation of privacy was merely the beginning of eventual sexual degradation.” It’s best to read this verse exactly as it is stated: Ham looked into Noah’s tent, saw his father naked, and then told Shem and Japheth. There is no other indication that Ham sexually molested his father while he was passed out.
        However, the fact that this verse once again includes the reminder that Ham was the father of Canaan does suggest that something else may have occurred regarding Canaan and Noah. Verse 24 says that Noah “…knew what his younger son had done unto him.” The term used for “younger son” in the original Hebrew, according to Strong’s concordance, actually means “youngest son”, which Ham was not. Shem was the youngest. Canaan, however, was Noah’s youngest grandson, according to my Moody Institute Bible commentary. The Hebrew word for “son” is often used in the OT for “son” or “grandson”. And the fact that Noah curses the descendants of Canaan clearly indicates that something else occurred here, perhaps between the time Ham left to tell his bothers and when they came to the tent to cover their father’s nakedness. (v.23)
         There seems to be a theory among some Biblical scholars and pastors that the descendants of Ham and Canaan were black; that Noah’s curse was their skin color because of the sin of homosexuality that was committed by Ham in verse 22. However, I can find no credible evidence of this theory in any of the Biblical commentaries that I have read in the last 3 years. Doctrinal footnote from my Thomas Nelson study Bible: “The Canaanites were white. In no way is this to be interpreted as a curse on the black race. The Canaanites inhabited Palestine and were first subjugated by Joshua and later by Solomon. They were partly exterminated by the Israelites, and their western colonies (such as Carthage) were finally conquered by the Japhetic Romans. They practiced ritual prostitution, homosexuality, and various orgiastic rites, and were the center of God’s prophecy of judgment in Genesis 15:16, to be carried out by Israel after their sojourn in Egypt. But the curse did not preclude individual salvation, for Rahab joined Israel, and Hiram, king of Tyre, gave materials for the temple.”
         The main reason that God instructed Moses to make special note here in Genesis 9 that Ham was the father of Canaan was because at the time that the book of Genesis was written and then given to the Israelites, they would fully understand why God had pronounced His righteous judgment against the Canaanites that currently inhabited the promised land. The people, as a whole, were extremely heathen, practicing all forms of sexual immorality and idolatry, including child sacrifice. God wanted His chosen people to remember the origin of the sin and wickedness of the Canaanites, and to use them as an example for the Israelites of what they were to abstain from as His chosen people.
         The other reason for God including this account of Noah and his drunkenness was to show that even the greatest man of God stumbles and falls from time to time. Noah was not perfect. Yes, he served God faithfully, and he taught his children to love and obey God also. But Noah was a sinner, same as you and me. Throughout the Bible, God has always been careful to show both the strengths and the weaknesses of His chosen servants. He makes it clear in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and all the others – including the disciples of Jesus – that even the most godliest man is still a sinner and still makes mistakes by exercising poor judgment or makes wrong choices. In this case, Noah allowed himself to drink too much, which, in turn, lowered his inhibitions and caused him to take off all his clothes. It can be presumed from verses 21-22 that, while Noah was in his tent, the door of the tent was most likely not closed, and therefore Noah was naked for anyone to see who happened to be passing by the tent.
         Noah curses Canaan, declaring that he and his descendants would be slaves to the descendants of Shem and Japheth. (Joshua 9:23, 27) Just because Noah made the mistake of getting drunk, removing his clothes and then passing out does not excuse Canaan’s choice to sin by lusting after his grandfather when he saw Noah’s nakedness. This is the most likely reason for the curse. Each of us is still responsible for our own actions and choices, regardless of the sinful actions and choices of others. Noah then blesses Shem and Japheth. It’s the descendants of Shem that will eventually become the nation of Israel.
        This chapter closes with the death of Noah. He lived 350 years after the Flood, making his total lifespan 950 years. He is the second oldest man recorded in scripture.