Genesis 9

Ge 9:1-7.

COVENANT.

1. And God blessed Noah--Here is republished the law of nature

that was announced to Adam, consisting as it originally did of several

parts.

Be fruitful, &c.--The first part relates to the transmission of

life, the original blessing being reannounced in the very same words in

which it had been promised at first

[Ge 1:28].

2. And the fear of you and the dread of you--The second part

re-establishes man's dominion over the inferior animals; it was now

founded not as at first in love and kindness, but in terror; this dread

of man prevails among all the stronger as well as the weaker members of

the animal tribes and keeps away from his haunts all but those employed

in his service.

3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you--The

third part concerns the means of sustaining life; man was for the first

time, it would seem, allowed the use of animal food, but the grant was

accompanied with one restriction.

4. But flesh . . . the blood . . . shall ye not

eat--The sole intention of this prohibition was to prevent these

excesses of cannibal ferocity in eating flesh of living animals, to

which men in the earlier ages of the world were liable.

5. surely your blood of your lives will I require--The fourth

part establishes a new power for protecting life--the

institution of the civil magistrate

(Ro 13:4),

armed with public and official authority to repress the commission of

violence and crime. Such a power had not previously existed in

patriarchal society.

6. Whoso sheddeth man's blood . . . for in the image of

God made he man--It is true that image has been injured by the

fall, but it is not lost. In this view, a high value is attached to the

life of every man, even the poorest and humblest, and an awful

criminality is involved in the destruction of it.

Ge 9:8-29.

RAINBOW.

13. I do set my bow in the cloud--set, that is, constitute or

appoint. This common and familiar phenomenon being made the pledge of

peace, its appearance when showers began to fall would be welcomed with

the liveliest feelings of joy.

20. And Noah . . . planted a vineyard--Noah had been

probably bred to the culture of the soil, and resumed that employment

on leaving the ark.

21. And he drank of the wine, and was drunken--perhaps at the

festivities of the vintage season. This solitary stain on the character

of so eminently pious a man must, it is believed, have been the result

of age or inadvertency.

24. This incident could scarcely have happened till twenty years

after the flood; for Canaan, whose conduct was more offensive than that

even of his father, was not born till after that event. It is probable

that there is a long interval included between these verses and that

this prophecy, like that of Jacob on his sons, was not uttered till

near the close of Noah's life when the prophetic spirit came upon him;

this presumption is strengthened by the mention of his death

immediately after.

25. Cursed be Canaan--This doom has been fulfilled in the

destruction of the Canaanites--in the degradation of Egypt and the

slavery of the Africans, the descendants of Ham.

26. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem--rather, "Blessed of

Jehovah, my God, be Shem,"--an intimation that the descendants of Shem

should be peculiarly honored in the service of the true God, His Church

being for ages established among them (the Jews), and of them,

concerning the flesh, Christ came. They got possession of Canaan, the

people of that land being made their "servants" either by conquest, or,

like the Gibeonites, by submission

[Jos 9:25].

27. God shall enlarge Japheth--pointing to a vast increase in

posterity and possessions. Accordingly his descendants have been the

most active and enterprising, spread over the best and largest portion

of the world, all Europe and a considerable part of Asia.

he shall dwell in the tents of Shem--a prophecy being fulfilled

at the present day, as in India British Government is established and

the Anglo-Saxons being in the ascendancy from Europe to India, from

India over the American continent. What a wonderful prophecy in a few

verses

(Isa 46:10;

1Pe 1:25)!