Genesis 9

8. AND God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my 9 covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is 10 with you, the fowl, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that go out of 11 the ark, even 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 the flood; neither shall there 12 any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 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 13 generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant 14 between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, 15 that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, 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 16 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 17 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. 18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: 19 and Ham is the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah: and of these was the whole earth overspread. 20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, 21 and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, 22 saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth 23 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 24 nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto 25 him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. 27 God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. 28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah 29 were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.

8-17. In addition to these promises and precepts, God made with Noah a COVENANT—that is, one of these agreements by which he condescended again and again to bind himself toward man; not more sacred with him than a simple promise, but more satisfying to the weakness of our faith. Of these covenants, that made with Noah on behalf of his descendants may be called the Covenant of God’s forbearance, under which man lives to the end of time. It repeated the promise that the world should not be again destroyed by a flood; and it was ratified by the beautiful sign of the rainbow in the cloud, a natural phenomenon suited to the natural laws of whose permanence it was the token. It is important for us not to suffer our relations to Adam as our first father, or to Abraham as the father of the faithful, to overshadow our part in God’s covenant with Noah as the ancestor of the existing human race. P. S.

Already we have studied two of these Seven Testaments or covenants. First, the Eden covenant with sinless man, guaranteeing the establishment in immortal bliss on condition of perfect obedience, which covenant failed at the fall. Second, the covenant of grace with the guarantee of redemption, by the seed of the woman, of all who believe on the offered Redeemer, which again utterly failed, except in the case of a single family, and was prevented from becoming an utter and final failure only by the destruction of the whole corrupted race for the sake of saving the eight persons of the family. Having considered in previous chapters the elucidation and history of the outworking of these covenants, we come now to the third great covenant, which, after a like elucidation in a few chapters, is followed by the fourth great covenant, with Abraham as the representative man, organizing the church as a visible government separate from the world at large. Then, after a brief history of the outworking of that covenant in the patriarchy, comes the covenant mediated by Moses, which is the fifth great covenant, organizing a nation as a temporary shell to protect the church, with a special location assigned to it, along the highway of nations, where all the world must see and know it as a peculiar nation. Then, when at last the promise of that territory is completely fulfilled, and the nation sealed in it, comes the sixth great covenant with David organizing it as a typical kingdom. Then when the fulness of time is come and Messiah’s work is finished, comes the seventh and last—the “New Testament”—in the blood of Christ actually shed, and the gospel of the one nation made the gospel of all nations. The Old Testament is thus actually the history and illustration of six Testaments (or covenants); this transaction with Noah being the third of the sixth in the history of redemption. S. R.

8. God spake.** Let us not fail to notice those wonderful and beautiful ways of God with his children, coming down in such condescending and most familiar communion, talking with them apparently almost as man talks with his dearest friend; and this not in Paradise only before the fall, but after the fall scarcely less; and onward as the narrative indicates in the case of Enoch and of Noah. What more could he have done to reveal a personal God to mortals? H. C.

13. I do set my bow in the cloud.** It was now that the rainbow was appointed by God to be a memorial both of his justice upon the old world, and of his mercy to the new. Bp. Wilson.—“Behold I have set my bow in the cloud”—my bow that I created when I gave both origin and law to nature. It was the very symbol of constancy, coming forth so beautifully, as it does, and so regularly after the storm. They wanted nothing startling. They had had evidence enough of the great power of God, whether regarded as miraculous, extraordinary, some awful change in nature, or directly supernatural; and now they needed the other assurance that the helm of nature had not been lost, but was still held by the same firm, constant hand that had ordained it in the beginning. The design now was to allay fear; the peace-speaking rainbow was to be an attestation of unfailing goodness—not of power or retribution. T. L.—How appropriate an emblem of the action of Divine grace always returning after wrath! Grace still sparing and preserving even when clouds of judgment have been threatening to desolate and destroy! And as the rainbow throws its radiant arch over the expanse between heaven and earth, and as with a wreath of beauty unites the two together again, after they have been engaged in an elemental war, it strikingly images to the thoughtful eye the essential harmony that is still to subsist between the higher and the lower spheres. Such undoubtedly is its symbolic import, as the sign peculiarly connected with the Noahic covenant; it holds out by means of its very form and nature an assurance of God’s mercy, as engaged to keep perpetually in check the floods of deserved wrath, and continue to the world the manifestation of his grace and goodness. P. F.

16. I will look upon it, that I may remember.** God did not “set this bow in the clouds” for His own sake, to engage His attention, and revive His memory whenever “He looked on it;” though that be the expression which the Holy Spirit, speaking after the manner of men, has thought fit to make use of: but for our sakes was it placed there, as an illustrious symbol of the Divine mercy and goodness, and to confirm our belief and confidence in God. And therefore, whenever we look upon the rainbow, we do well to “praise him that made it; very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended it” (Ecclus. 43: 11, 12). Stackhouse.

We know that this covenant is in the nature of an oath, for in Isaiah he tells us, “I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth.” There stands the rainbow preaching the fact that for the sake of redemption the world is spared. Hence it is that we find the seal of the covenant, as part of the symbols of redemption, figuring in the prophetic views of the glory of the incarnate God. When Ezekiel had his vision among the captives of the Chebar—that vision of the real worship of the

Universe, though the temple had been destroyed—he saw among the living creatures, and above the firmament over their heads, and there was a throne, and the appearance of a man upon it; and around about the throne “as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the brightness round about.” So when John in apocalyptic vision saw the door opened in heaven, beheld a “throne set in heaven and One sat on the throne; and there was a rainbow round about the throne.” S. R.

Cultivate the spirit of moral interpretation if you would be wise and restful: then the rainbow will keep away the flood; the fowls of the air will save you from anxiety; and the lilies of the field will give you an assurance of tender care. And so with all things God has given us as signs and tokens: the sacred Book, the water of baptism, the bread and wine, the quiet Sabbath, the house of prayer;—all these have deeper meanings than are written in their names; search for those meanings, keep them, and you will be rich. J. P.

18,19. The two verses form a connecting link between the preceding and the following passage. After the recital of the covenant, comes naturally the statement that by the three sons of Noah was the whole land overspread. This forms a fit conclusion to the previous paragraph. But the penman of these sentences had evidently the following paragraph in view. For he mentions that Ham was the father of Canaan; which is plainly the preface to the following narrative. M.

The world began anew, in the person and family of the selected patriarch, whom alone “the Lord had seen righteous in that generation.” Now then for a better race,—if the human nature were intrinsically good, or corrigible by the most awful dispensations. But, all in vain! The Flood could not cleanse the nature of man; nor the awful memory and memorials of it repress the coming forth of selfishness, pride, ambition, anger, and revenge. J. F.

20. The manufacture of wine is the next recorded fact of progress. This again is far the oldest mention of a process, that of making and using fermented drinks, which is nearly if not absolutely universal. And inasmuch as Noah the husband man “planted a vineyard,” the extent and plan of the planting would render it probable that the practice was older than Noah. It is, however, not every region of the earth that offers the vine for that purpose. A great variety of fermented drinks have existed, such as at least seven kinds of beer, made from malt, maize, millet, milk, cava, rice, rye, and several kinds of wine, as they are called, made from the apple, pear, sugar-cane, from the agave in a large part of Asia, and from the palm far more extensively than from the vine, as in Chili, India, the Pacific Isles and all of Africa. But in Armenia none of these resorts were called for. Its fertile soil, abounding in other fruits, yields an abundant supply of grapes. S. C. B.

As far as we know, the old world was free from the curse of drunkenness. Noah’s discovery (if it was such) was a dark harbinger of woe to the new world, of which he was to be the father. The consequences to which it led in his own case were but a type of the mischief which it was to work in the world at large. It was the lot of the successive fathers of mankind to bequeath to their children an element of misery. Between Adam’s apple and Noah’s vine, lamentation, and mourning, and woe have overspread the globe. W. G. B.

21. Noah drank of the wine and was drunken. The Holy Ghost, when he hath to do with sin, gives it its own name; drunkenness must be drunkenness, murder must be murder. It is neither the goodness of the man, nor his being in favor with God, that will cause Him to lessen or mince his sin. Noah was drunken; David killed Uriah; Peter cursed and swore in the garden, and also dissembled at Antioch. This is not recorded to the intent that the name of these godly should rot, but to show that the best men are nothing without grace, and that “he that standeth should not be high-minded, but fear.” They are also recorded for the support of the tempted, who, when they are fallen, are oft raised up by considering the infirmities of others. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Bunyan.

One hour’s drunkenness bewrays that which more than six hundred years’ sobriety had modestly concealed; he that gives himself to wine is not his own: what shall we think of this vice, which robs a man of himself, and lays a beast in his room? Drunkenness doth both make imperfections, and show those we have to others’ eyes; so would God have it that we might be doubly ashamed, both of those weaknesses which we discover and of that weakness which moved us to discover. Bp. H.

21. It is a strong argument of the veracity of Moses, that throughout his history he has drawn no character so fair, as not to leave some blemishes still abiding on it. And it is an act of singular kindness and benefit to us that God has ordered the faults and miscarriages of His saints so constantly to be recorded in Scripture; since “they are written for our admonition,” to remind us of our frailty and to alarm our caution and fear. The example of Noah, who had escaped the pollutions of the old world, and was now overcome in a time of security and peace, calls perpetually upon “him that thinketh he standeth, to take heed lest he fall.” Blackhouse.—God has left this miscarriage upon record to teach us, 1. That the fairest copy that ever mere man wrote since the fall had its blots and false strokes. It was said of Noah that he was perfect in his generations, but this shows that it is meant of sincerity, not a sinless perfection. 2. That sometimes those who, with watchfulness and resolution, have by the grace of God kept their integrity in the midst of temptation, have, through security and carelessness and neglect of the grace of God, been surprised into sin, when the hour of temptation has been over. Noah, who had kept sober in drunken company, is now drunken in sober company. The consequence of Noah’s sin was shame. He was made naked to his shame, as Adam when he had eaten forbidden fruit. Yet Adam sought concealment; Noah is so destitute of thought and reason that he seeks no covering. This was a fruit of the vine that Noah did not think of. Observe here the great evil of the sin of drunkenness. It discovers men; what infirmities they have they betray when they are drunken, and what secrets they are intrusted with are then easily got out of them. Drunken porters keep open gates. It disgraces men, and exposes them to contempt. As it shows them, so it shames them. Men say and do that when drunken, which, when they are sober, they would blush at the thoughts of. H.

Noah may have been but little used to strong drink, and hence may not have known that it would so soon overcome him; yet we may well follow the wisdom of Calvin, and say, “Leaving all this in uncertainty, let us learn from Noah’s intemperance how foul and detestable a vice drunkenness is.” The Holy Scriptures never conceal the sins even of God’s greatest saints, and the sins of saints are sure to meet with chastisement. Noah’s piety is plainly recorded. It is also plainly recorded that he fell into sin, whether partly of ignorance or wholly of infirmity; that sin brought with it shame, and, as is so often found, was the occasion of sin to others, and led on to consequences disastrous to the descendants of all those who in any degree shared in the guilt of it. Noah sinned, Ham sinned, perhaps, too, Canaan sinned. So there was a heritage of sorrow to the descendants of

Noah in the line of Ham, to the descendants of Ham in the line of Canaan. E. H. B.

22. Ham would not have mocked his father, when overcome with wine, if he had not long before cast from his soul that reverence which, according to God’s command, children should cherish toward their parents. Luther.—What he did was only an index to his character; open acts give occasion for punishment, but the punishment is earned by, and is administered for, the depravity out of which open acts spring.

Told his two brethren. Clearly not that they might do what they did, nor in any such spirit; but jestingly and undutifully. Alf.

24. Youngest son. Many writers of great authority, both Jewish and Christian, understand by the term here used, “his younger (little) son,” not his son Ham, but his grandson Canaan. This would correspond with the tradition mentioned by Origen that the sin of Ham was shared by Canaan, or it may have been that the chief sin lay with Canaan, and hence that he especially inherited the curse. Many have adopted this opinion, and it would certainly solve most of the difficulty. E. H. B.

25-27. The manner of Scripture here is worthy of particular remark. First, the prediction takes its rise from a characteristic incident. The conduct of the brothers was of comparatively slight importance in itself, but in the disposition which it betrayed it was highly significant. Secondly, the prediction refers in terms to the near future and to the outward condition of the parties concerned. Thirdly, it foreshadows under these familiar phrases the distant future, and the inward, as well as the outward, state of the family of man. Fourthly, it lays out the destiny of the whole race from its very starting-point. These simple laws will be found to characterize the main body of the predictions of Scripture. Further, Scripture sees the race in the father, traces up its unity to him, discerns in him the leading traits of character that often mark his remotest posterity, and identifies with him in destiny all those of his race who continue to take after him. Thus Adam denotes the whole race, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, its three great branches. Attention to this law of the unity, continuity, and identity of a race, will aid us much in understanding the dealings of Providence with the several branches of the human family. M.

These words of Noah are of the greatest importance for the conception of the general history of mankind given in the Old Testament: “Cursed be Canaan; let him be a servant of servants to his brothers.” “Praised be Jehovah the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant.” “May Elohim give enlargement to Japheth, and let him (Japheth) dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be their servant.” According to our translation, the passage declares that God is to Shem the God of revelation, while he is for Japheth’s descendants only the transcendent Divinity, but at the same time it points to a participation by Japheth in the blessing assigned to Shem: Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem, gaining domestic rights there, which in history has been spiritually fulfilled in the most glorious manner. . . . The race of Shem, to whom Jehovah is God, is chosen as the bearer of divine revelation; on Japheth the blessing is conferred through Shem; on Ham, and mainly on Canaan, the curse of slavery is to press. On the other side, the establishment of that world kingdom which is at enmity with God, proceeds from the Hamites (10 : 8 ff.), whose first seat appears to have been Babel. Here begins the distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world which runs through the whole Bible. The unity of the race of man is broken up into peoples and tongues; but while in the view of the heathen the diversity of peoples and castes is original, and universal brotherhood is to them a chimera and to a degree an abomination, Mosaism, in its list of the nations, preserves the consciousness of the blood-relationship of all nations, which are again to be united in time to come by one blessing of God. O.

A threefold development of humanity is foreseen in this oracle. One portion of it (Shem) will be received into a specially intimate relation to God, who reveals himself to it as Yahveh. It will be the depository of the history of revelation and redemption. Another (Japheth) will extend prosperously in the world and acquire lasting renown, by the favor of the God who makes everything go well with all who fear and honor him by right conduct. It will be the depository of culture, and the heroic race of history. A third for its ungodliness will bear the curse of history, subjected and enslaved by its brethren, laden with the world’s ban. It is not meant that all Shemitic nations will be united with Yahveh and all Hamitic nations laden with the curse, still less that all individuals among these nations will assume their ancestors’ attitude to God. But regarding history as a whole, we see that certain characteristics are hereditary in families of nations. On these leading types, which will be more or less reproduced in their posterity, blessing and curse are here pronounced. Orrilli.

25. Cursed be Canaan.** The ancient prophecies must be understood, not of single persons, but of whole nations. The curse of servitude pronounced upon Canaan, and the promise of blessing and enlargement made to Shem and Japheth, extend to their whole race; as afterward the prophecies concerning Ishmael, and those concerning Esau and Jacob, and those relating to the twelve Patriarchs. The curse, therefore, upon Canaan was properly a curse upon the Canaanites. God, foreseeing the wickedness of this people, which began in their father Ham, and greatly increased in this branch of his family, commissioned Noah to pronounce a curse upon them, and to devote them to the servitude and misery, which their vices and iniquities would deserve. Bp. Newton.—They suffered both for their own sin and that of the founder of their race. The long-suffering of God did not hasten their perdition. He allowed them to grow and prosper during the ten generations from Noah to Abraham, and the five following centuries from Abraham to Joshua; their fields and vineyards yielded abundant harvests, and their land was full of strong and populous cities; but their evil deeds accumulated, and they forfeited the land which their vices had contaminated. Kalisch.

Servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. The word brethren, in Hebrew, comprehends more distant relations. The descendants, therefore, of Canaan were to be subject to the descendants of both Shem and Japheth: and the natural consequence of vice in communities as well as in single persons is slavery. Several centuries, 800 years, after the delivery of this prophecy, the Israelites, who were descendants of Shem, under the command of Joshua, invaded the Canaanites, smote above thirty of their kings, took possession of their land, slew several of the inhabitants, made the Gibeonites and others servants and tributaries; and Solomon afterward subdued the rest. The Greeks and Romans too, who were descendants of Japheth not only subdued Syria and Palestine, but also pursued and conquered such of the Canaanites as were anywhere remaining; as the Tyrians and Carthaginians, the former of whom were ruined by Alexander and the Grecians, and the latter by Scipio and the Romans. And ever since the miserable remainder of this people have been slaves to a foreign yoke; first to the Saracens, who descended from Shem; and afterward to the Turks, who descended from Japheth; and they groan under their dominion at this day. Bp. Newton.

At present, every vestige of the race of Canaan, and even their name, has disappeared from the earth. Generally, however, Ham’s posterity are to this day subjected to political servitude and the bondage of heathenism; and shall so remain until for them also the word shall be fulfilled (Ps. 78:31), “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto God,"—a prophecy for whose accomplishment the way is now being paved. C. G. B.

26. Instead of blessing Shem, the aged father blesses Jehovah, the God of Shem, whom he sees in intimate union with Shem. The oracle of blessing is thus turned into praise of Him who is the source of blessing. Shem’s highest happiness is that he has this God for his God. Here for the first time we find the genitical combination common afterward: God of a man, a nation. When humanity parts into different branches, the universal Deity also is specialized. To one portion of humanity the true living God stands in a relation of mutual possession. Orelli.—Noah could only give utterance to his grateful emotions: Blessed be Jehovah, the God of the covenant with his professed people, the God of all blessings, of everenduring love and faithfulness! What will he not do for his chosen people, brought into relations to himself so near and so dear! In this line the sweep of his prophetic eye took in the Hebrew race—Abraham and the patriarchs; Moses and the piouskings and holy prophets; and above all, the Great Messiah—to be born of David’s line and to be the incarnation of God’s mercy to a lost world. No wonder his soul was moved to devoutest adoration—Blessed be Jehovah who reveals himself as the God of Shem! H. C.—Jehovah was the God of Shem—that in the word of Noah was declared to be his peculiar distinction. In like manner, Jehovah from the first made himself known to Abraham as his God; nay, even took the name of “God of Abraham” as a distinctive epithet, and made the promise, “I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee,” a leading article in the covenant established with him. And as the peculiar blessing of Shem was to be held with no exclusive design, but that the sons of Japheth far and wide might share in it, so Abraham is called not only to be himself blessed, but also that he might be a blessing,—a blessing to such an extent, that those should be blessed who blessed him, and in him all the families of the earth should be blessed. P. F.

27. God shall enlarge Japheth.** In the Hebrew there is a plain allusion to Japheth’s name, which signifies enlargement; as there is to many others in Scripture. Japheth was enlarged both in territory and in children. As to territory, his posterity possessed, besides all Europe, the lesser Asia, Media, part of Armenia, Iberia, Albania, and those vast regions to the north, which anciently the Scythians inhabited, and now the Tartars; and it is not improbable that the new world was peopled by some of his northern descendants going thither by the straits of Anian. As to progeny, from the next chapter it appears that Japheth had seven sons, whereas Ham had only four, and Shem only five: and the northern hive was always remarkable for its fecundity, continually sending out colonies southward both in Europe and in Asia, both in former and in latter times.

He shall dwell in the tents of Shem. By this may be meant either that God or that Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem. In either sense it has been fulfilled. In the former sense literally, when the Shechinah or Divine Presence rested on the ark and dwelt in the tabernacle and temple of the Jews; and when “the Word, who was with God and was God,” pitched his tent and “dwelt among us.” In the latter sense it was fulfilled, first, when the Greeks and Romans, who sprung originally from Japheth, subdued and possessed Judea and other countries of Asia belonging to Shem; and again, spiritually, when they were proselyted to the true religion; and they who were not Israelites by birth became Israelites by faith, and lived, as we and many others of Japheth’s posterity live at this day, within the pale of the Church of Christ. Bp. Newton.

Wide room (an allusion to his name) may God make for Japheth! For wide room is to his race the condition of prosperous development, and also its consequence. As matter of fact, Japheth has spread, not merely over an important part of Asia, but over the distant broad island continent of Europe. And to this geographical extension correspond his conquests in the intellectual field. In all branches of culture he has borne off the palm. Japheth is to have the lion’s share, not only of the possession of the world but of the glory of history. Orelli.—As a German writer expresses it: “What are we all but descendants of Japheth, who dwell in the tents of Shem; and what is the language of the New Testament, but that of Javan spoken in the dwellings of Shem?” A. E.

28,29. Noah lived 950 years; 20 more than Adam, and but 19 less than Methuselah; this long life was a further reward of his signal piety, and a great blessing to the world, to which, no doubt, he continued a preacher of righteousness, with this advantage, that now all

he preached to were his own children. God put a period to his life at last; though he lived long, yet he died, having, probably, first seen many that descended from him, dead before him. Noah lived to see two worlds, but being an heir of the righteousness which is by faith, when he died he went to see a better than either. H.—Noah lived for 350 years after the Flood, and died at the age of 950, just halfway, according to the common chronology, between the Creation and the Christian era. He survived the fifth and eighth of his descendants, Pe’eg and Reu; he was for 128 years contemporary with Torah, the father of Abraham; and died only two years before the birth of Abraham himself. Looking backward, we find that he was born only 126 years after the death of Adam, and fourteen years after that of Seth. He was contemporary with Enos for 84 years, and with the remaining six antediluvian patriarchs (except Enoch) for centuries. These computations show by how few steps, and yet by how many contemporary teachers, the traditions of primeval history may have been handed down—from Adam to Noah, and from Noah to Abraham, and, we might add, from Abraham to Moses. P. S.