Genesis 9

In the first part of this chapter, God commands Noah (and the animals, I suppose) to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (v. 1). The Lord then tells Noah that he may eat the meat of any animal, but not its blood; the Law of Moses will limit what the Israelites could eat, but the prohibition against blood was still there, as indeed, it is in the New Testament (Acts 15:29). There are a lot of cultures down through the centuries that have drunk blood, but then there have been a lot of people in history who have done other things the Lord disapproves of as well.

Verse 6 seems to authorize capital punishment: “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.” Life is given by God, and whoever premeditatively takes another human life forfeits the right to his own.

As I mentioned in chapter 8, God put a rainbow in the sky (9:13) as a “covenant” between Him and man: “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh” (v. 15). He didn’t say anything here about fire, though, but in II Peter 3:10, He did. This earth will be destroyed completely when the Lord Jesus returns.

Then Noah went to work. He became a farmer, and planted a vineyard (v. 20). Either through weakness or ignorance (probably the former), he had a little too much fermented “fruit of the vine,” and fell into a naked drunken sleep. One of his sons, Ham, came into the tent where his father lay, saw his insufficiently clothed parent, and went out and told his brothers, apparently having a good laugh about it. Shem and Japheth went in—backwards so that they wouldn’t see Noah’s nakedness—and covered their father’s body. When Noah discovered what had happened, he placed a curse on Ham’s son, Canaan, not on Ham (v. 25). This is significant, because it has been widely taught and believed that the curse was on Ham, who apparently became the father of the Negroid race of humanity (more on that in chapter 10). Thus, the curse on Ham was (supposedly) the black skin of his descendents, thus Negroes are inferior. That’s not what happened. The curse was on Canaan (why, I don’t know). But Noah said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren” (v. 25), which is exactly what would happen when the Israelites—the offspring of Shem—came into the Promised Land and forced the Canaanites—the descendents of Canaan—into slavery and servitude. As we shall also see later in Genesis, the “blessings” and “cursings” of the patriarchs had prophetic meaning. Verse 26 is Messianic: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem.” Abraham--and Christ--will descend through Shem’s line. We must always keep in mind the object of Genesis and the whole Old Testament: a Savior is coming, and He will come as a human. Look for him from these people—Adam, Seth (not Cain), Noah, Shem (not Japheth or Ham). And that will be narrowed further as we go. God is helping us to “focus in” on where to find the Redeemer. This will continue to be the case all through the Old Testament. If we miss Him, it won’t be God’s fault because in the Old Testament, He gives plenty of testimony about where and how to find Him. If we spend our eternity in hell, it will be in spite of everything God has done for us.