Genesis 9

Genesis 9 -- Sunday 03APR11

• 1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

God repeats the blessing that he gave Adam and Eve to fill the Earth with progeny, because Noah's family represents a reboot of humanity.

• 2-3 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

And God for the first time authorizes a meat diet for human beings, and presumably animals too, since he only allowed them to eat vegetables before. God thought a change of diet might mellow out the humans. This was welcomed especially by women, who run with a 15% iron deficit, relative to men, due to menses, nursing, and childbirth. But this meat died had to be phased in gradually, otherwise entire species would be wiped out, since at this point there were only one breeding pair of each one.

• 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

This is the first ceremonial commandment given by God since the Garden of Eden, a prohibition on consuming blood. And since it is given to Noah's family, it is interpreted to be applicable to all humans, unlike the prohibition of pork at Sinai which is only given to the Israelites.

• 5-6 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

This is the first moral commandment ever given by God, a prohibition of murder. And it establishes the penalty of death for murder, which is still in use today, even after Calvary. Men must atone for their sin of murder in their own blood.

Thus the six laws which Jewish rabbis assert were given to Adam and Eve were modified (death penalty for murder) and completed with the seventh law against eating animals with blood (newly applicable under the carnivorous diet) and we received the complete seven Noahide Laws which are binding on every human being.

1. Idolatry is forbidden. Do not entertaining the thought that there exists a deity except the one Creator. Do not make images of these alleged deities.
2. Incestuous and adulterous relations are forbidden. People must not copulate with close kin or with others of the same gender.
3. Murder is forbidden.
4. Cursing the name of God is forbidden. Acknowledge the existence of God and do not blaspheme against him.
5. Theft is forbidden. Do not commit fraud or even covet the possessions of others, which leads to thoughts of stealing.
6. Eating flesh removed from a living animal is forbidden. Eating flesh with the blood still in it, or eating blood itself (the Filipino dish called dinuguan for example) is right out.
7. Mankind is commanded to establish fair laws and just courts, and is forbidden from giving false testimony.

• 7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

God commands Noah's family to be fruitful and multiply one more time. The entire Noah narrative could use some editing to tighten it up.

• 8-11 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

God amends his original promise never to end the world. Now he says he will never end the world by flood again. That leaves him wiggle room to end the world by asteroid or fire. At least the covenent is one way, with God promising something, without requiring quid pro quo on the part of humans or animals to maintain it.

• 12-14 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud

We now understand that rainbows work by the transformation of light in droplets of water, to sort the random photons of white light by color. If the rainbow never appeared until after the flood, as seems clear here, then it must not have ever rained before on Earth.

• 15-17 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

God apparently needs the rainbow to jog his memory. He says the sight of a rainbow will cause him to remember his covenant never to destroy the Earth by water.

• 18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.

This is saying that Noah had no more offspring, and everyone is descended from one of these three sons. Some people think the three so-called "races" of mankind, Caucasian, Negroid, and Mongoloid, started at this time. The Mormons, in fact, call dark skin the "curse of Ham" based on a curious incident that follows:

• 20-22 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

Noah got drunk and passed out without his robe on, and Ham walked into the tent and accidentally, through absolutely no fault of his own, saw his father naked.

• 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

Ham's two brothers, based in the warning given by Ham, then cover their father up without seeing him naked. It could have been any one of them who stumbled into the tent first, it was just the luck of the draw.

• 24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

This is the strange part. Noah woke up, found himself covered with a garment, and remembered that he had passed out naked. He put two-and-two together, realized that Ham must have seen him naked, then told his brothers, then Shem and Japeth covered him up without looking.

• 25-27 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

So what does Noah do? He curses Canaan, the youngest son of Ham and sentences him and all his descendants to a life of slavery to his uncles all because his father accidentally saw him naked.

• 28-29 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.

The flood was in 2507 BC. Noah lived another three hundred fifty years, until 2157 BC.