Bible Commentaries
Genesis 8

Verses 1-29

XV

GOD’S COVENANT WITH NOAH

Genesis 8-9

I want to put a general question: How long was Noah in the ark? In answering that question you may consult Genesis 7:1-11, and Genesis 8:14. I call your attention in the next place to a suggestion in the Speaker’s Commentary on Genesis 8:4, which tells us that the ark rested on Mount Ararat, and gives the date. According to the Jewish year observed in this account, the ark rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. On that very day later, the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, and on that day later Christ rose from the dead. We might investigate any connection between the resting of that ark, the passage of the Red Sea and the resurrection of Christ.

The next thought presented is with reference to the raven. Dr. Fuller of England, in his exposition of Genesis, compares the sending out of the raven to a man’s getting out of the church who was never a Christian. He never wants to go back. He pictures that raven flying around, resting on some dead body floating on the top of the water, and never desiring to return to the ark of the covenant. On account of the naming in this chapter of the raven, the dove, the olive branch, and the rainbow, these four names have gone into all languages and all literature as indicating certain things. The raven is regarded as a croaker and a bird of ill omen; the dove is regarded as the symbol of innocence; the olive branch as the symbol of peace; and the rainbow as the symbol of hope. I was once asked the question where that dove got ’ the olive branch, since the whole earth had been flooded with water. The olive tree lives under water. In the lakes of the Black Forest you can see olive trees growing under the water and never blossoming until in dry weather when the lakes sink down and the tops of the trees come up and immediately the tree blossoms. Pliny in his Natural History said that the olive tree grew under water in the Red Sea; that it grows in salt water. It is a very hardy plant. So it is not a miracle that the dove found an olive branch, but quite in accordance with the nature of this particular plant that it could live and retain its vitality many months under water, and when the waters subsided go to flowering and blooming.

We now come to the most significant thing in this part of Genesis, and that is the covenant between God and the second head of the human race, Noah. I will give this general question: What is the meaning of "covenant" based on the Greek word? In very general terms a covenant is an agreement or compact between two or more parties having its stipulation binding on both parties. There is said here to be a covenant between God upon the first part and Noah on the second part representing himself and the whole animal world. So Noah stands there representing all earth life.

We want to note in the next place what was the basis of the covenant, the meritorious ground of agreement. I will read that to you from the eighth chapter and twentieth verse: "And Noah builded an altar unto Jehovah, and took of every clean beast, and every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And Jehovah smelled the sweet savour; and Jehovah said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake." Now that was the meritorious ground or basis of the covenant. In other words, Noah comes before God as a sinner, making an offering. In the letter to the Hebrews we are told that wherever there is a covenant there is a shedding of blood. There must be a death. The basis of this covenant which God himself appointed is that animal sacrifice typifying a greater sacrifice to come, which shall be sacrificed on an altar. It must be complete.
The next thing is that the word "altar" appears here in the Bible for the first time. I will give a general question: From what language is the word "altar" derived and what is its literal meaning? I am calling your attention to these new names in the Bible. The stipulation that God requires of man is that he shall come before him and be justified through an atonement, and the man’s faith in that atonement constitutes the ground of God’s entering into covenant with him.

Let us notice some of the other stipulations of this covenant: Genesis 9:1, "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." There you see is a renewal of the covenant with Adam when he said, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." You must not only come before God as a sinner, but your obligation is to go out and subdue this earth and fill it up with inhabitants. "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; with all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hands are they delivered." This is a renewal of the dominion of man as given originally in Adam.

We now come to an enlargement of the Adamic covenant, Genesis 1:29: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed; to you it shall be for food; and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so." Now, let us see the enlargement on that, Genesis 9:3: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; and the green herbs have I given you all." God now gives animal food in addition to the vegetable. The animal food embraces any animal creature whatsoever. When we get to the Mosaic covenant we will see that this food will be restricted to clean animals, to those that divide the hoof and chew the cud. I want you to notice that Noah stands as the head of the human race like Adam stood and that he has a larger privilege than Adam had as to animal food added, where before there was only vegetable. When we come to the New Testament we will hear Paul arguing for the broadness of the privilege of the covenant of Noah when he says, "Every creature of God is good and to be received with thanksgiving." The covenantwith Noah is very much broader than the covenant with Moses, because that covenant was with a single nation only, and this was with the whole human race.

We notice now another thing entirely new: "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." You may eat an animal, but you must not eat him with the blood in him. When we come to Exodus, Moses renews that law that a thing that is strangled, merely choked to death, cannot be eaten because the blood is in him, and anything that merely dies cannot be eaten. In Acts 15 you will find that James insists that that restriction be put upon the Gentile Christians. Somehow I have always sympathized with this restriction. I knew a man once, and held him in considerable esteem until one day he told me that his favorite dish was blood pudding. I never did like him as much afterward because that seems to me to be such a horrid dish. People who eat blood are brutal and ferocious. Caesar said that the Belgians, the bravest of men, lived on milk, showing that animal food itself is not necessary. But the English believe that their superiority over all nations in fighting arises from the great quantity of beef that they eat. God gives permission to eat any animal creature, and I have known people who would eat rattlesnakes and polecats and snails, and with some people bird’s nests are regarded as a delicacy. Savage nations show you the highest compliment when they offer you a dish of grub worms. An African woman who wanted to show a kindness to one of our missionaries who had been kind to her went out and got him a dish of grub worms. There is no law against it except taste. I would not prefer, for my part, the grub worms, nor the snails, nor the polecats.

We now come to a new prohibition: "And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddest man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man." Here is something we have not fallen in with before. You remember when Cain killed his brother he was afraid that whoever found him would kill him. God protected him from death by human hands. Now, on this side of the flood God here instituted civil government and makes murder punishable with death and makes it right for man in the capacity of a civil government to take the life of a murderer. This is a very old law. It goes back of the Mosaic law. This is not a Jewish law; it is a race law.

Upon this point I want to call your attention to the teaching of the Jewish synagogues. The Jewish synagogue which was established just after the Babylonian captivity has held that there were seven ordinances of Noah. They call them the primal ordinances. I am going to give you these seven as the synagogue gave them and see how many we can find here:

Abstinence from blood

Prohibition of murder

Recognition of civil authority

Idolatry forbidden

Blasphemy forbidden

Incest forbidden

Theft forbidden

The first three we find in this chapter. Idolatry and blasphemy are implied in the offering. But I do not know where those Jews got the other two, incest and theft.

We were discussing the stipulations that God required upon man’s part. First, he must come as a sinner with a sacrifice. Second, he must eat no blood. Third, he must do no murder. Fourth, civil government should have charge of the murderer and punish him with death. That far it is very clear as to the stipulations that God requires of man. Another was that he was to replenish the earth and exercise dominion over the beasts. Now, let us see what God’s part was. God blessed Noah. That means that he graciously accepts him in that sacrifice that he offers, forgiving his sins if he through faith can see to what that atonement points. The great blessing is the blessing of forgiveness of sins through the atonement offering. Second, God promises that there shall never be another flood of water. Third, that the laws of nature shall be uniform, Genesis 8:22: "While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." How necessary it is that there should be a uniformity of law in nature. Some of you have read the piece in the old third reader about a man living in the world of chance. That man lost his wife and children because they unthoughtedly ate poison and died. There was an inflexible law. In his despair he wished that he lived in a world without law. He fell asleep and dreamed that he was in a world of chance, where there was no uniformity. You could not tell what time of the year winter would come, nor how long it would stay, nor what time of the year summer would come. A man might have Just one eye and that on the top of his head. His hands might be growing out from under his arms. His ox might have wool like a sheep. When he had a toothache he put some coffee on to boil, thinking that would help his tooth, but by chance it turned into ice instead of boiling, and when the ice hit that bounding tooth, how it must have hurt! Are you clear now about the things that God promised? (1) He will graciously accept man through the offering. (2) He promised not to send another flood. (3) He will give regularity of seasons. When a man goes to plant a crop he may know what to expect.

We now look at the extent of this covenant. It is said to be a perpetual covenant. Just as long as this dispensation lasts that will be true, and the last thing is the token of that covenant. What indicates that a covenant has been made between God and man? The rainbow is selected as a token. The people who had passed through the flood, or had recently heard about such a big rain, would be very much frightened every time they saw a cloud coming. Now, when you see a cloud, when you are at a certain angle you will also see a rainbow and that is a sign to you that God will never allow this earth to be destroyed by water, and when God looks on it he will remember what he has promised. I here give a quotation from Murphy on Genesis:

For perpetual ages this stability of sea and land is to last, during the remainder of the human race. What is to happen when the race of man is completed is not the question. At present God’s covenant is the well-known and still-remembered compact formed with man when the command was issued in the garden of Eden. So God’s bow is the primaeval arch, coexistent with the rays of light and the drops of rain. It is caused by the rays of the sun on the falling raindrops at a particular angle. A beautiful arch of reflected and refracted light is in this way formed for every eye. The rainbow is thus an index that the sky is not wholly overcast since the sun is shining through the shower and thereby demonstrating its partial extent. There could not, therefore, be a more beautiful or more fitting token that there shall be no more a flood to sweep away all flesh and destroy the land. It comes through its mild radiance only when the cloud condenses into a shower. It consists of heavenly light variegated in hue, mellowed in lustre, filling the beholder with an involuntary pleasure. It forms a perfect arch. It connects heaven and earth and spans the horizon. In these respects it is a beautiful emblem of mercy rejoicing against judgment, of light from heaven irradiating and beautifying the soul, of grace always sufficient for the needy, of the reunion of earth and heaven, of all the universality of the offer of salvation.

In Revelation 4:3, the rainbow about the throne of mercy, and in Revelation 10:1, the angel with a rainbow about his head, we have again the New Testament symbolism of the rainbow. In Science Made Easy for All are some of the most beautiful illustrations of the rainbow that I have ever seen. Three years ago I was in Comanche, Texas. The sun had gone down, the full moon was shining. We were sitting down at the supper table and somebody called out, "Run out here and look at the moon." And there was a complete rainbow, a perfect circle around the moon, a lunar rainbow, of course, fainter than a solar rainbow, not so Conspicuous, and yet anybody could see it. I have seen two others since.

I have one other observation to give you. I was on the train going from McGregor down the Sante Fe toward Galdwell and talking with a man who saw no evidence of God’s loving care anywhere. "Why," I said, "if you will just look out of the car window you will see one that keeps up with us." And there was a rainbow keeping right up with the train, made from the sun shining on the steam from the engine. It kept along with us about fifty miles. Wherever water falls and the sun shines, and you are at the right angle of vision you can see a token of God’s infinite mercy. I said, "Now if you cannot see any of these things, it is because of your angle of vision." As Paul puts it, "If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them" (2 Corinthians 4:3).

We now take up the prophecy concerning Noah’s sons. Some of it is very difficult, not so much for me to’ tell as for you to remember. The closing paragraph in the ninth chapter is not only the connecting link between what goes before and what comes after, but all the future references throughout the Bible connect with this passage that is inserted here.

I will read and comment. "And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth." I call attention to the relative ages of these sons, and why their names do not appear in relative order. Japheth was the oldest and Ham the youngest. "And Ham is the father of Canaan." That expression is put in out of its proper connection in order to explain something that will appear immediately after. "These three were the sons of Noah: and of these was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman and planted a vineyard and drank of the wine and was drunken." The word here used for wine contains the idea of fermentation. "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. And Shem and Japheth took a garment 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."

We have just commenced the new race probation after the flood. How long it had been after the flood we do not know exactly, but some years, because no children were born to Shem, Ham, and Japheth until after the flood, and at this time Canaan, the son of Ham) is grown. We see the great man that was perfect in his generation, just and walked with God, this new head of the race that had such faith, a preacher of righteousness, as he falls into sin, the sin of drunkenness. This teaches that no man) however exalted in character or position, is absolutely safe from a fall. I don’t mean that a Christian may fall away and be forever lost, but I do say that the most exalted Christian in the world must exercise watchfulness and prudence, or he will bring shame upon the name of religion. We have had some most remarkable cases of this kind besides the case of Noah.

This sin of Noah acted as a revelation, that is, it brought out the character of his three children. When the youngest one looked upon the shame of his father’s drunkenness, he was inspired with no such feelings as those which animated Shem and Japheth. He not only scorned his father, but went and published it to the others. We sometimes find children who have not been well raised, who go around to the neighbors and tell the little troubles that occur in the family. It is always an indication of a bad heart and an untrained character. The world has never had much respect for the taleteller and the gadabout. They may listen to what you say, and may make use of it, but they will not respect you for it. The filial piety and reverence of Shem and Japheth is one of the most impressive lessons in history, and their action, walking backward and holding the mantle on their shoulders so that when they got to their father they could cover him without seeing him, originated the proverb: "Charity covereth a multitude of sins." That means that love is not disposed to point out the sins of others and talk about them. Love is more disposed to cover them up.

"And Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what his youngest son had done unto him." How he found out I don’t know. Perhaps it was told unto him. Now we come to the first recorded prophecy, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, that was ever spoken by man, though the New Testament tells us of a prophecy that preceded this, the Lord himself having given a prophecy in the third chapter of Genesis that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head." That was God’s prophecy, and Enoch, the seventh from Adam, made a prophecy, but it was not given in the Old Testament. This remarkable prophecy of Noah consists of two divisions. First, the curse, and then the blessing. "And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren." The question naturally arises whether that curse extends to the other children of Ham, and if so, why Canaan alone is specified. My opinion is that the curse extends to the whole of the descendants of Ham from the fact that there was no blessing pronounced on him or any of his children in the whole prophecy, and I think that Canaan was specified instead of the others because Canaan is the one with which God’s people will have to do when they go to the Promised Land. They will have to rescue it from the Canaanites, the descendants of Ham. That curse can be traced in history. The Canaanites when they were conquered by Joshua and by David and by Solomon were either destroyed or enslaved. They became the servants of their conquerors, and it is certainly true that the other descendants of Ham became largely the slaves of the world.

Let us look at the blessing: "And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant." Or, as Jamieson translates it: "Blessed of Jehovah, my God, be Shem." That seems to make the better reading, that Jehovah shall be the God of Shem, and Shem shall have religious preeminence. In the line of Shem come all the oracles of God during the Old Testament times, and in the New Testament times all of the Bible we have, with the possible exception of one book, comes from the descendants of Shem. The Semitic races seem to have taken the lead in religious matters, whether for good or bad.

Notice the blessing on Japheth: "God enlarge Japheth." That part has been fulfilled to the letter, as we will see later, that the children of Japheth occupy the greater part of the world. Not only have they been enlarged as to the territory that God allotted to them, but as leaders in intellectual development and inventions, and in the government of the world. The second blessing is: "And let him dwell in the tents of Shem." That means that Japheth will get his religion from Shem. We are Gentiles, the children of Japheth. Isaiah 60:9, says, "Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, for the name of Jehovah thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee." That shows the coming of the Gentiles. This prophecy shows that the distinction among men or peoples is not accidental, but that the world was divided among the descendants of three men. It shows how far-reaching on the children is the consequence of a father’s action. It is always best for a man, if he is going to be a bad man, to remain a bachelor and not throw a shadow over his descendants. The iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children as consequences.

Noah lived after the flood 350 years. That would bring him to Abraham’s time, so that Abraham could talk with the man who had witnessed the overthrow of the old world, and who himself had only one man between himself and the first Adam, who was Methuselah. Adam could talk to Methuselah, and Methuselah to Noah, and Noah to Abraham, and so you see how easily tradition could be handed down.

QUESTIONS
1. How long was Noah in the ark?

2. What suggestion from the Speaker’s Commentary, and what connection between the resting of the ark, the passage of the Red Sea and the resurrection of Christ?

3. What do the raven, dove, olive branch, and rainbow symbolize? What their impress on subsequent literature?

4. Was the dove’s finding an olive branch a miracle? Explain.

5. What is the most significant thing in this part of Genesis?

6. What is the meaning of "covenant," and what does Noah represent in this covenant?

7. What was the meritorious ground of this covenant and New Testament testimony on this point?

8. What is the first Bible use of the word "altar" and the etymology of the word?

9. What covenant renewal do we find here?

10. What enlargement of the Adamic covenant?

11. How does this covenant with Noah compare with the one later with Moses and why?

12. What one food restriction?

13. Cite the first establishment of civil government and criminal law.

14. What seven ordinances does the synagogue derive from the Noachic legislation and how many of these do you find in the text?

15. What were the terms of the covenant with Noah on man’s part?

16. On God’s part?

17. What was the extent of this covenant?

18. What the token of the covenant?

19. What New Testament references to the rainbow and what its symbolism?

20. What the importance of the closing paragraph of the ninth chapter of Genesis?

21. What the relative ages of the sons of Noah, and why the expression, "And Ham is the father of Canaan," out of its proper connection?

22. What is the first case of vine culture and drunkenness?

23. What the lesson, of Noah’s drunkenness?

23. What the lesson of Noah’s drunkenness?

24. What the distinction of filial piety and reverence in the sona of Noah?

25. What proverb seems to be based on Shem’s and Japheth’s covering the nakedness of their father?

26. Was Ham’s sin the cause or the occasion of Noah’s curse? Ana.: The occasion.

27. Was the curse from God or Noah?

28. Was it punitive on the person or consequential on his descendants?

29. Show historic fulfillment of the curse.

30. What was the meaning and historic fulfillment of the blessing on Shem?

31. What was the meaning and historic fulfillment of "God enlarge Japheth"?

32. What was the meaning and historic fulfillment of Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem? 33. What was the significance of Noah’s long life after the flood?