Genesis 9 - A Sign of an Everlasting Covenant

 

Last time in Genesis 8, we saw Noah and his family along with all the land animals come through the other side of the Flood. After Noah got off the ark, he offered a burnt offering to the Lord as a means of making a fresh commitment or dedication to Him. As a result, the Lord said in His heart that He would never again curse the ground with a flood or destroy everything living. We saw the likely introduction of seasons, and how these would continue as long as the earth remains. In chapter 9, we will take a bit deeper look at the covenant the Lord made with Noah, his family, and every living thing.

Similar to what He did with Adam and Eve, the Lord blessed Noah and his sons, and charged them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. In a recent study, researchers have concluded that the world population needs to be reduced from eight billion to four billion by 2200 in order to reach a more sustainable level; however, this is in direct opposition to what the Lord has commanded. The global fertility rate is 2.2%, so we are barely at sustainable levels as we speak. I don’t know about you, but I’m curious how they plan on getting rid of four billion people in the next 175 years (or maybe I don’t want to know).

God placed a fear and a dread of man upon all the animals, and gave man dominion over them. Even in animals who could easily overpower mankind, He has placed in them a basic fear of him. The Lord did not make man for the environment; He made the environment for man. 

Next, He reiterates man’s diet with some major expansions. He told them that every moving thing that lives shall be meat for them just as the vegetables. Before the Fall and the introduction of sin and death entered into the world, God’s intent was for our food source to be from plants (Genesis 1:29-30). However, after the Flood, God ordained all living things for food. Prior to the Fall, God’s original design was for animals to eat plants as well, so it is possible that it was after the Flood that some animals became carnivores and omnivores.

The reasons for this change I think are quite practical:

First, just as our human bodies deteriorate because of the curse of sin, so too the plant life is also under this same curse. Paul says in Romans 8 that the whole creation is under this curse. Because of this, it would become more difficult to get the nutrients we need from simply eating plants. This was further exaggerated after the Flood in which the aging process sped up significantly due to the environmental changes.

Second, due to the differences in climate that now existed, it would no longer be possible to grow all the different fruits and vegetables in any given climate, and without modern transportation it wouldn’t be possible to ship food from around the world like we can do today. Most agriculture takes place within the latitudes of 30-50 degrees latitude on either hemisphere, meaning if you didn’t live within those latitudes, you would have to have it brought in or find other food sources.

The language the Lord uses here is also interesting: He states that every living thing “Shall be meat for you.” The word “shall” is often used to express a command, expectation, or something mandatory. So, it would appear this is more of a directive to eat meat rather than just a simple giving of permission. For the reasons I just listed, it would make sense why the Lord would give them such a directive. Sorry to all you vegetarians out there, but the Lord intended for post-Flood mankind to eat meat. The Jewish people were forbidden to eat certain types of meat under the Law, but this directive to eat meat of all kinds predates the Law. By the time we get to the New Testament, these dietary restrictions are lifted in the Church age. The Lord tells us in 1 Timothy 4:4-5, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” There are a lot of diets out there, and some of them will tell you that meat is bad for you. However, as we can see in both the Old and New Testaments, it is the Lord’s intention for us to eat meat. There is not any animal that is off limits, for every creature of God is good if received with thanksgiving. It is made clean by the Word of God and prayer. So, let’s bring on the bacon!

They were only told they could not eat the blood of the animal, which is the life of the flesh. So, if you are like me who has been hunting and raised animals for food, draining the carcass of as much blood as possible is a crucial part of the butchering process. Blood is an optimal environment for micro-organisms, and when it is left in muscle tissue, it becomes a breeding ground for spoilage bacteria and foodborne pathogens. It also leads to discoloration and shortened shelf-life. The animal needs to be butchered in such a way that the blood is drained out. Interestingly, when the Church was trying to determine what to do with the Gentile converts, the Gentiles were, among other things, told to abstain from blood and animals that were strangled (Acts 15:22-29). So, you see, this is a principle that is carried throughout the entire Bible, and, again, pre-dates the Law.

Perhaps another and even greater reason for eating meat was to teach mankind they must live by the death of another. The Lord wanted to instill in them a respect for life (in particular human life), and no doubt to value the God man Jesus Christ who would eventually come and shed His blood for all of mankind.

Next, we see the Lord institute human government, and the foundation of this government is the sanctity of human life. Life was protected with the instituting of capital punishment as a deterrent for murder. So important was human life that God declared if an animal killed a man, it was to be put to death, and if a man killed another man he was to be put to death as well. The Lord loves us so much that He created us in His image, and when a person commits murder, they are needlessly killing the Lord’s most prized possession. Really it is an attack of the worst kind on the nature and character of God Himself. Incidentally, abortion and even suicide would also fall into this category. As society has moved away from capital punishment, we can definitely see the results. We no longer value human life, as we have killed over 300 million babies since Roe V Wade (surgical and chemical combined), and as this bar has dropped, we have become much more tolerant of other sins as well. The Old Testament Law would later prescribe capital punishment for murder along with several other sins, but this was long before the Law was introduced. It was given to Noah and his family from whom the rest of the human race would descend, and thus it is the foundation of all human government even to the present. Paul reiterates this in his letter to the Romans: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” (Romans 13:1-4) Then we see the Lord tell them again to be fruitful and multiply, and to bring forth abundantly in the earth. It is another way in which we see that the Lord values life. He wants us to have children. Solomon wrote in Psalms 127:3-5) Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.”

The Lord then established His Covenant with Noah, all his descendants, and all the living creatures and their offspring. He stated He would never again use a flood to destroy the earth and every living thing. As a side-note, if this were just a local flood, then the Lord would have broken his covenant countless times since the days of Noah. The Lord placed a rainbow in the cloud for a sign of this covenant. If there had been rainclouds prior to the Flood, a rainbow would have been nothing new. After the Flood however, if we saw the beginning of the water cycle, it would make sense that a rainbow would be a new thing, and be a sign that the Lord would never again destroy the earth in this manner. The Lord said that when the rainbow is in the cloud, He will remember His covenant with all living flesh, to not destroy it with a flood. As we saw before this does not mean that the Lord forgets His covenant from time to time, but that He acts on our behalf to spare us from this type of wrath again. Man is always deserving of the Lord’s wrath, but it is an act of His mercy that keeps us from it. The only reason we are all alive and given an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ is because of the Lord’s mercy. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m glad we have a merciful God. This covenant the Lord said is an everlasting covenant, meaning it is for as long as the earth remains. From the ground, the horizon obscures the view of the full ark of the rainbow, but if you are in an airplane, it is possible to see the entire thing which forms a complete circle. It is endless or everlasting.

It is too bad the devil has tried to rip this off by having it be a symbol of the homosexual lifestyle, when really it is an amazing testament of the mercy and grace of God. Those individuals, if they do not repent, will one day have to give an account to the Lord for the misuse of this sign and their mockery of the grace of God. So next time you see the rainbow in the clouds, remember it is a sign of the covenant between the Lord and us that He will never again destroy the earth with a flood.

Sometime after this, Noah became a husbandman and drank the wine he had made. As a result, he became drunk and laid naked in his tent. Now it is possible that the fermentation process was more rapid after the Flood and Noah was caught somewhat by surprise, or it could be that Noah knew full well what he was getting into and just blew it. Whatever the case, it’s safe to say this was a substantial moral failure on Noah’s part. Ham, one of his sons, saw this, and went out to tell his two other brothers what had happened. The original language indicates that Ham was gazing on his father’s nakedness, and delighted to see his dad in this state. There are always people who rejoice in the failures of others. He went out to tell his brothers as a means of disrespecting his father. Shem and Japheth, on the other hand, took a garment and walked in backwards to cover their father so they would not see his nakedness. So, Ham wanted to expose his father’s sin, while Shem and Japheth sought to cover it.

After Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what had happened, and cursed Canaan, the youngest son of Ham. This means that it is likely Canaan was somehow involved in this as well. He made him a servant of servants to his brothers.  He said that Canaan would be the servants of Shem.  Canaan’s descendants would go on to inhabit the land of Canaan, and as we know, the children of Israel (the descendants of Shem) would eventually come in and wipe them out. He also blessed Japheth, that he would be enlarged and dwell in the tents of Shem. In following this throughout history, the descendants of Japheth largely settled in Europe and Central Asia. They have been enlarged, and they dwell in the tents of Shem through receiving the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

After the Flood, it states that Noah lived another 350 years, so that he lived an entire 950 years. Noah would be the last man recorded to live this long, and as we will see, the life-span of man would decrease almost exponentially within the first 100 years or so after the Flood. Whatever the cause, it is a fulfillment of the Lord’s words prior to the Flood that man’s years would be 120, and after the Flood we will see man’s life-span gradually drop to this age.

In application, the Lord made an everlasting covenant with Noah that is still in effect today. Each time we see a rainbow in the clouds, we too are reminded of His promise not to destroy the earth again with a flood. Having said this, God has made another covenant with us, a new and better covenant (Hebrews 8:6-7), which is also an everlasting covenant (Hebrews 13:20), sealed with the blood of Jesus. This covenant too, has a sign, and this sign is the communion table. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” (1 Co 11:23-36) When we take Communion, we are reminded of the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection, and that by faith in Him, He will, “Save His people from their sins.”

What do we do with others’ failures? Do we seek to expose and humiliate them as Ham did, or are we like Shem and Japheth who seek to cover and restore them? In Proverbs it states, “He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends.” (Pro 17:9) Paul also wrote to the Galatians, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” (Galatians 6:1) It is our human nature to want to expose others’ faults while trying to hide our own, but the Lord wants us to do the opposite. This does not mean we overlook people’s failures, but our job is to restore them through repentance, remembering where the Lord has brought us from. We have all had moral failures in our lives to one degree or another, so we really cannot look on others’ failures with disdain or self-righteousness. We can only point them back to the Lord who is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

One of the things I like about the Bible is that it does not overlook or attempt to hide the moral failures of godly men. It is actually one of the proofs that the Bible is true. Man-made religions often try to hide the mistakes of its leaders, but the Lord does not. It is through man’s failures that the Lord’s grace and redemption are seen. Interestingly, when we get to the New Testament, Noah’s failures are not mentioned. In Hebrews 11, in the “Hall of Faith” if you will, the godly men and women are remembered for their faith and the good they did for the Lord. This is because Christianity is not what you do, but what you believe. Right believing is everything, and will ultimately determine how you act. You see when we believe on Jesus, He produces the good fruit in our lives, and when we fail, our sin is not counted to us because it is under the blood. Yes, there are consequences, but the Lord does not keep record of them once we have returned to Him through repentance.

In summary, we have seen in chapter 9 how the Lord made an everlasting covenant with Noah and his descendants. We have also seen a failure of Noah, and how ultimately it is not counted to him because he was a man of faith. In the next chapter we will see how the nations were divided in the earth from the sons of Noah.

Genesis 8 - Then God Remembered Noah

In Genesis 7, we saw how the Lord fulfilled His promise in bringing a world-wide flood on the earth as judgment for man’s wickedness. No one believed that judgment would come, but this did not change the truth of what the Lord had said. We see the same thing happening today: men do not like to believe that the Lord will bring a final judgment of fire on the earth, but one day soon it will happen just like He said. However, we See Noah and his family, along with each kind of pair of land animals in whose nostrils was the breath of life, safe aboard the ark. In this we see a picture of Jesus Christ: all who are found within Jesus (the ark of salvation) will be spared from the wrath to come. In chapter 8, we will see how all those aboard the ark will be preserved by God’s mercy.

It states that God remembered Noah and all those aboard the ark with him. Now the Lord had not forgotten about Noah, but in fact, it was quite the opposite. The Lord had Noah and those aboard the ark in His mind the entire time. When this phrase is used in the Bible it usually means that the Lord is getting ready to act on behalf of that person(s), and that is precisely what we see happening here.

The Lord caused a wind to blow across the earth, and the waters receded. Most of us have had our carpets cleaned or had some flooding, and one of the go-tos is to run a fan over it to dry it out. Maybe we have had a garden or done some farming, and you can see how wind dries out the ground as well as the plants. This was one of the methods the Lord was using here.

The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped. There are some who also believe that there was some tectonic shifting that took place to aid in the receding of the waters. In Psalm 104:6-9, it says, “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. They went up over the mountains; they went down into the valleys, to the place which You founded for them. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth.” With the subterranean reservoirs now emptied or drastically reduced of much of its water, earth’s crust would have been in an unstable condition. The earth’s crust would have then collapsed under the weight of the water into these reservoirs, forming our current ocean basins. The sediments in the sea troughs were then pushed up to form mountain ranges and plateaus. One would expect to see volcanic activity associated with this, and that is exactly what we see in many places. There is also evidence of mountain ranges such as the Andes and Himalayas thrusting upward at approximately the same time thousands of years ago. For example, remains of cities have been found high up in the Andes that show they used to grow corn that is now at an elevation too high to do so. So as this upward thrust continued in the years after the Flood, they abandoned the cities for lower ground.

Within 150 days (five months) of the beginning of the flood, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, which is Armenia or modern-day Turkey. It is a mountain range, but the current-day Mt. Ararat is apparently the most logical site. It has an elevation of around 17,000 feet, but evidence shows it was lower in the years immediately after the Flood. Nonetheless, there are marine fossils that have been found on the summit, proving that it once was under water.

The waters continued to recede for another two and a half months or so until the tops of the other mountains could be seen. Noah released a raven and a dove to help him determine when the ground was dry enough to come out of the ark. Ravens are scavengers who would have little trouble finding food, nor would they be picky about where they roost. A dove, on the other hand, would seek for food and roosting on dry land.  It was not until the second time that the dove brought back an olive leaf that Noah knew the waters had receded sufficiently enough for vegetation to grow at lower elevations. He waited one more week to release the dove again, but this time it did not return to him. Almost 11 months into it, he removed the covering of the ark, and the surface of the ground was dry. It was over a year from the beginning of the Flood (370 days) until the waters had dried up enough for them to leave the ark.

It was at this point that the Lord spoke again to Noah. Now if I were Noah, I would have preferred that the Lord speak to me at some point during the Flood to reassure me I was going to make it, but the Lord did not. Noah had to trust the Lord by faith that he, his family, and all the animals would be spared as He had said. The Lord waited until the flood waters had completely receded before He spoke to Noah and told them to leave the ark. Noah took some reasonable steps to determine when they should leave, but ultimately, they did not leave until the Lord told them to. God told them to go in, and He told them to go out. If we believe the Lord has told us to do something specific like this, it might be wise to keep doing that until we hear differently.

After they all had left the ark, Noah built an altar and offered burnt offerings unto the Lord. The burnt offering speaks of dedication and commitment to God. Imagine the relief and gratitude Noah felt when he stepped off the ark for the first time after the Lord had brought them through such a cataclysmic event over a year later. In light of this, Noah was making a fresh commitment to follow and serve the Lord. He took one of every clean animal and one of every clean bird. Remember, there were only seven pairs of clean animals (male and female), so this would have been quite a sacrifice.

The Lord was pleased with the soothing aroma of the offering. There’s just something satisfying about smelling meat roasting on the fire. I’m sure He was more satisfied with Noah’s fresh commitment, but this was maybe the icing on the cake so to speak. It was here that the Lord made a covenant with Noah and the rest of creation. He said in His heart that He would never again curse the ground (destroy it with a flood) for man’s sake, nor destroy every living thing while the earth remains. His reason was that the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth. In other words, he is a sinner by nature, and no matter how many times the Lord destroyed every living thing with a flood, the problem would still remain. The problem is sinful man, and the only cure for him is to be made into a new man through Jesus Christ. This was God’s design from the beginning (Revelation 13:8).

The Lord stated, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” It is thought that there were no seasons prior to the Flood, since there was no clear mention of them specifically in the Genesis account. If the canopy theory is correct, this layer was no longer present protecting earth from the sun’s harmful rays, nor would there be any global green-house effect. This would have created temperature inconsistencies at different latitudes, trade winds, and the weather patterns we see today. Another theory is that Earth had a zero-degree tilt prior to the Flood, and the catastrophic events of the Flood were enough to change it to 23.5 degrees. This too, would have had a similar effect on temperature and weather patterns.

Currently the rotation of the tilted earth has a slight wobble, and interestingly enough, it is partially affected by changes in water levels around the globe. Prior to the creation of the new heavens and new earth, this wobble will become more pronounced and out of control. Isaiah writes, (24:18-20) “And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.” The earth goes through cycles in which its wobble increases to a peak, and then straightens up again. However, this wobble appears to be getting worse over time. NASA likes to attribute it to global warming, but it is simply the earth waxing old like a garment as the author of Hebrews states. It’s like a spinning top that wobbles as it slows down and eventually falls over. According to Isaiah, it will eventually wobble out of control and be moved out of its place. It will be completely destroyed when the Lord creates the new heaven and the new earth.

Believer, God has remembered you and me in the person of Jesus Christ who has “Given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (Eph 5:2) If the Lord did not keep His promises (even just one of them) to you and me, then we would have no grounds to believe He will keep His future promises. However, He has kept them, and He will keep them. He remembered us by “Saving His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), and He will remember us by delivering us from the wrath that is to come. Search the Scriptures: in chapters 4-19 of the book of Revelation, the Church is not mentioned once as being on planet earth. So, let us, out of gratitude, commit ourselves to Him anew as Noah did, presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service.

If you are not a Christian, this same promise of salvation and deliverance is available to you. You only have to receive it by faith. Call on the name of the Lord, “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” (Rom 10:13)

In the next several verses we will take a deeper look at the covenant the Lord made with Noah, and we will see some interesting implications for us today.

 

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New Defender's Study Bible Notes

 

Genesis 8 - Chuck Smith Bible Commentary