Genesis 9:1-10:32

Reading for Friday, Week 1

Genesis 9:1-10:32 (English Standard Version)

Genesis 9

¹And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ² The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. ³Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. ⁴But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. ⁵And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
⁶ "Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.

⁷And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it."

⁸Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ⁹"Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, ¹⁰and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. ¹¹ I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." ¹²And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: ¹³I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. ¹⁶When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." ¹⁷God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

Noah’s Descendants

¹⁸The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.

²⁰Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. ²¹He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. ²²And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. ²³Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. ²⁴When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵he said,

"Cursed be Canaan;
a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers."

²⁶He also said,

"Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem;
and let Canaan be his servant.
²⁷May God enlarge Japheth,
and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
and let Canaan be his servant."

²⁸After the flood Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

Genesis 10

Nations Descended from Noah

¹These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

² The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. ³The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. ⁴The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. ⁵From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

⁶ The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. ⁷The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. ⁸Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. ⁹He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD." ¹⁰The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. ¹¹From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and ¹²Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. ¹³ Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, ¹⁴Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorim.

¹⁵ Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, ¹⁶and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, ¹⁷the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, ¹⁸the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed.¹⁹And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. ²⁰These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

²¹To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. ²²The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. ²³The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. ²⁴Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. ²⁵ To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan. ²⁶Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹ Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. ³⁰The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. ³¹These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

³²These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

Pastor's Commentary:

God repeats the blessings spoken to Adam and Eve in paradise, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth." God gives Noah and his family food in the form of every living creature. Then God makes a promise to Noah and his offspring, even to the entire earth. He will not wipe out the entire earth like He did before in the flood. As a sign of this promise, God sets His rainbow in the sky. It's like God is setting down the weapon He used to flood the earth. His bow is placed in the sky, so that we know that God will not utterly destroy the earth with water again.

This is good news for us. For God has promised to preserve this earth until that day when Jesus returns and the New Heaven and the New Earth are created. This is our home, and although there are disasters that come upon the earth at various places and times, God has promised to preserve the earth until the end. St. Peter says that the earth is reserved for fire at the end. But there will be a New Heaven and a New Earth where righteousness dwells.

There were other problems right away. Noah does wrong by getting drunk off of his wine and collapsing naked. Ham saw his father's nakedness. It is implied that Ham mocked his father by telling his two brothers about it. Noah pronounces a curse on Canaan, Ham's son, and blesses Shem and Japheth, his other two sons. This sets up the fact that one of Shem's descendants, Abraham, will live as a stranger in the land of Canaan. God promises that at just the right time, Abraham's descendants will possess the land of Canaan. But that is getting ahead of ourselves!

God tells Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply. Much of chapter ten is evidence that they did. Many children were born to Noah's descendants, and many great nations had their beginning after the tower of Babel happened. That comes next.

But most importantly in all of this we see God's loving kindness in choosing Noah and his family. They were not perfect, far from it. But one of Noah's descendants would one day come and set things right in this broken world, promising a world to come through His crucifixion, death, and resurrection.